It was something closer to vertigo, watching a man promise a room full of witnesses to be truthful and faithful with the exact warm sincerity he had once promised me, and watching the room believe him the way I once had.

He was so good at it.

That was the thing that turned my stomach.

The sincerity was flawless.

If I had not lived on the other side of it, I would have believed him too.

I sat there and understood that everyone in that beautiful room was watching a performance I had already seen, and that they had no way of knowing it was a performance, because the whole genius of Kingston was that the performance was seamless.