Doesn’t make it a thing.
Just hands me a coffee.
I sit down on the floor next to her.
We stay there for a long time.
• • •
I don’t tell her about the pill and how I’m taking more than I’ve ever taken before—even during the grey year.
I don’t tell her how I can’t remember the last time I slept.
I don’t tell her how bad it is.
I just sit with her on the floor and drink the coffee and let her be there.
It’s enough.
Just barely.
But enough.
• • •
April.
He posts something.
I see it the way I always see things.
Middle of the night.
Phone in hand.
Looking for something to confirm what I already know.
He’s out somewhere.
A bar maybe.
Standing with people I don’t recognize.
He looks —
fine.
That word again.
He looks completely fine.
He looks like a person whose life is happening.
Who is out in the world being twenty-one.
Who is not lying in a dorm room watching a door that’s closing with no way to stop it.
Who’s spiraling losing themselves while lost in the ceiling.
