skills and slide back out into the kitchen.

Standing with his back to the door and his eyes closed he lets out all of the air in his lungs allowing the tension to subside. He’d just stay in the kitchen for a while, let them settle in. A stranger in his own house again. He didn’t feel this way when anyone else had dropped around.

They knew they were guests then, and operated as such. They knew they were just passing through too so there was no “from now on’s” or trust building required. Sitting on a barstool at the kitchen island he decides to continue writing in his notebook to take his mind away from the situation. Away from people, where he feels comfortable. Normal.

He begins writing slowly: