I wasn’t sure I could breathe.I couldn’t sit up.I had to sit up. I couldn’t let her see how much she’d destroyed me.She knew, of course. I could read that when she was doing it. She knew what she was doing to me. I could still sense her now. Her anger, her hate, her curiosity, scratching on the raw parts of my mind.I dragged myself up. I turned my back on her. I needed time to get my face, my head, my self back in order.What a stinking, stupid, spectacular mess I was making of this.This was absolute proof that I couldn’t survive out here on my own. I’d only spent a couple of hours with this girl. My first extended contact with the mindblind ever and I’d given her all the clues she needed to work out who and what I was.I could have made it easier by wearing a t-shirt saying ‘mindreader’, but only slightly easier.When I was anticipating all the surveillance team’s moves, was I giving my own team clear instructions, or was I just showing off?And when she was having doubts, feeling scared, grieving, why didn’t I just let her suffer, rather than trying to distract her?
