BURN (Wattys2015?)

just write

I would not look at her.
If I looked at her, if I acknowledged her existence, then I felt that would confirm that I needed to be there. My mind convinced itself that if I didn't look at her, I could wake up from this and find out it was just a dream.
"How are you feeling?" She asks. I can hear the practiced smile creep into her voice, one that you acquire along with a fancy degree. Both are meant to be hung up and displayed, one hung on a wall and one hung on your face.
How are you feeling? It's a simple question, basic in form. It doesn't ask for a complex answer, not if you keep a steady eye trained on the surface. But that depends on the context. In this case, she wasn't looking for a one word facade response, she wanted you to rip yourself open and bathe her in all the bad thoughts.
I did not want to bathe her in my innermost thoughts. I wasn't even going to let her dip a toe in.
So I kept silent, my eyes and determination looking for somewhere to root. I focused on a stuffed moose head, partially because I thought it was cool and partially because I wondered why a lady like her would have one. She didn't seem the type to hunt, or the type to collect taxidermied stuff. I concluded that a decorator put it in, some fluffy type with more coffee and exlax than brains.
"Alright, we can play this game." I heard the creaking of an old chair, and the shuffling of papers. A drawer slide open and the contents were ravaged, until something hard was found and slammed upon the glass top of the desk.
The misfit pile was shoved towards me, but I was a POW, a soldier who wouldn't dare give the location of my comrades. I wouldn't look at her, I wouldn't move.
I wouldn't accept this, I wouldn't accept the reality of the situation.
"Write. Not now. When you get home. I don't care what you do with the writings. You can save them, give them to me, burn them, rip them up...Just promise me you'll write."
And so, I wrote.