CHAPTER 23
Late 1991. Kent, Ohio.

I'm not tired, but I haven't slept for two days. My mind is racing and I keep losing radio contact with it.

Maybe it was all my fault. I jumped in, after all, and I just swam around that relationship until I was too tired even to tread water anymore, and I sank.

I don't know who (or what) saved me. Maybe Mona. More likely, the thought of Mona, the ideal she represented to me, the way I feel when I'm around her. The open door.

Or maybe it was Celia herself who saved me. She did sense there was something bothering me. Not that she sensed it as soon as I did, or that she even swam against the tide for even a moment, just hopped the next passing ship, whatever the hell his name is.

Clearly, we dealt with it differently. But every time I start to give her the benefit of the doubt I'm reminded, metaphorically at least, of one thing.

I swam against that tide for nearly a year without so much as touching a life preserver, though once or twice I may have eyed a few.

Celia didn't even last two weeks.

Maybe infidelity is hereditary.

Maybe it wasn't my fault after all.