Chapter 12: Living With The Truth

After the bombshells of the past few weeks, I’d half-expected life to settle down into a serene, untroubled rhythm. A normal rhythm. The kind of rhythm that normal people had. Instead, my existence had become a symphony of suspicion, a constant hum of “what if?” and “is that really what it seems?” It was exhausting, and frankly, annoying.

Michel, bless his perpetually irritating heart, seemed to have taken it all in stride. Or rather, he’d taken it in stride and then decided to weaponize it.

“Seriously, John,” he said one morning, nudging my cereal bowl with his elbow, sending a cascade of milk onto the table. “You’re still looking at every shadow like it’s going to reveal a hidden passage to Narnia.”