You don’t know what you’re going to miss until you’re missing it.

I’ve cruised on the asphalt’s heat for five hours, and I started missing my air condition three hours ago. The dust is wafting through the open windows on a breeze, and I can barely see through it to the sign that says my hometown is nine miles away.

I squint at it, even though I already know what it says. Clipper…9….For comfort’s sake, I suppose. The seat rattles a little more intensely as I lean forward for a better look. Settling back in the seat, I reach with my left hand to quell the rattling in the door handle. Just like the other billion times I’ve tried, it has no effect.

The only color now is the dust and the moldy brown of the seats, which look like they’ve forsaken trying to keep up appearances. I glance, irritated, at the dash—that’s rattling too.

The sun begins hiding itself behind something thicker than the dust—a look in that direction reveals it’s the tree, my tree, whose silhouette still reminds me of a pair of lungs.

Next, out of the dust come the buildings. They’re grey like the tree, but not as dark. And along with them comes the blinking red light of the sole traffic signal in Clipper. Warehouses, bigger, greyer versions of the buildings around them, stand out on the edge of town.

Everything swells—slowly but surely, like a growing limb—until I’m in it and I can see the rusting fire escapes and gloomy alleys between buildings. At the intersection with the lonely stoplight, I could tap the accelerator softly and coast past the edge of town. But instead, I reach the blinking red light suspended over the pavement and turn right. There’s no one to yield to yet; you only have to look before turning during rush hour. With this traffic, you’d be safe enjoying a picnic in the middle of the street.

I’m not here for a picnic, just here on a whim—an excited little part of my brain gave me goosebumps one day and thrilled me into coming here. And as beads of sweat lick my face and soak my shirt, and as I see the driveway to my old house looming flat and unimpressive up ahead, I’m wondering what happened to the last idiot who listened to that part of his brain.

There’s no car in the driveway as I pull up, that’s the first thing I notice. Next I see the FOR SALE sign kicked over onto its side, the glossy plastic cracked in a few places. The house isn’t in total disrepair, but I can see that no one’s cared much about it for at least six months. I walk up to the front door, jiggle the knob. It’s unlocked, which makes me wonder how all the glass from the window next to it found its way to the ground. The sill is covered in bird crap, and it occurs to me that that twittering is coming from inside.

I step into the living room and for some reason I’m surprised when I see no furniture or anything that made me call this home. No TV in the den, no carpet on the stairs (not much paint either—the last owner must have stripped it), no table in the dining room. So full of life and clutter years ago, this place now makes me feel empty. Like there’s nothing left of what I—what it, sorry—used to be. The feeling creeps me out a little.

I didn’t come here to gawk at the barren living room. I crunch over some shards of glass and make my way toward the back door, wondering why I didn’t detour around the house. Some pieces of glass are big enough that I can see the sky through the window reflected in them, bright and welcoming from end to end, like a blue grin.

My trip through the back door is uneventful, as is my adventure out toward the field behind my house. The tree is still there; I approach cautiously, the way you come up to an old friend you think might have changed since you saw them last.

It hasn’t changed—not much. The bark, though it has probably morphed like an altered fingerprint, is still the same texture. Whatever the fingerprint says, it’s still attached to the same identity.

I put my hand on its trunk: good to see you, friend. It sighs a little in the wind.

Don’t suppose you’ve got any magic left for me? I ask it. It sighs inconclusively, reminding me of the Ents. Don’t be hasty.

The corner of my mouth twitches its way toward a smile, but never quite makes it. My eyes run up and down the great trunk, and I think of how easy it still would be for me to climb it. Now I think of my favorite routes up and into the branches. I glance up at the best bough. Now I’m thinking of a vanished summer, and the person I spent it with—a girl named Candace Maynard.

We got an early start on our summer that year. While vacation actually began in the middle of June, we bumped ours down to the latter part of May and decided to have fun.

When I worked up the guts to ask out Candace, she obliged, and suddenly was in a better mood than she seemed to have been all term. My pride dominated, of course, but parts of my mind scolded me for thinking I could have possibly caused her merriment. Her classes didn’t challenge her, and even if she bombed her few last assignments she could scrape the bottom of the A range. I was in a similar situation; nothing had ever forced me to work very hard at all.

So our spirits got the best of us, and after that day we didn’t study for one minute. Our spare time was spent outside my house in a field to which no one had ever actually claimed ownership. I think the original settlers in this county had deemed it a sort of no man’s land or something. A tree prospered in the middle of the field, a majestic oak that you wanted to celebrate or worship for its sheer size. It was the largest thing around for miles, and no one knew it but the workers in the surrounding country who could see it. None of them had any time for frequenting an old oak tree in an unkempt field, so we had every one its branches pretty much to ourselves.

Today was no exception.

“Next year’s going to be different, you know.” I was leading the way up to our favorite bow, a big fat one that stuck out like an odd thumb on a skinny hand. It was Wednesday. The bark tore my skin a little as I worked the wonderfully convenient knobs and crevices in the trunk. “I hear junior year is the hardest.”

“Yeah,” Candace heaved from a couple yards below me, shifting her weight onto her arms as she started her climb. “We might actually have to do something next year…as far as studying goes.”

“Good point.” I reached the bow and swung a leg over it, then nudged along as if mounting a very long saddle. Candace maneuvered her long body onto it like a grasshopper and scooted over next to me. There was enough room on the giant branch for someone to lay down for a nap, provided they didn’t roll around too much in their sleep. Most of the time, we chose to sit up and stare off toward the farmland.

We kept a blanket up there, which we used for cushioning and warmth. I fished it from the plastic bag we kept it in to keep the bed bugs out and together we draped it over our part of the branch. It was big enough to wrap around us, so we could sit on and under it at the same time. Once we were all nice and tucked in, Candace gave a big sigh and laid her head on my shoulder.

She’s been giving a lot of those sighs lately, I noted. Must be a girl thing.

“School should be over,” she breathed.

“Yeah.”

“I like being here.”

“Why?” I asked automatically.

“I don’t know why. Why do we like anything?”

“Well, I like…I don’t know.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

We were silent for a second, thinking. At least, I was thinking. About summer, and about all the afternoons we’d be able to spend up here, thinking.

“What are you thinking about?”

Another girl thing. “Summer.”

“What about it?”

“Just…thinking.”

“But about what, though?” Candace insisted.

“Summer…with you.”

“Aww,” she cooed, half sarcastic and half serious. She liked the idea as much as I did.

I thought back to my initial answer to her initial question. Why do we like anything? I’d been about to tell her that I liked her because she was pretty and intelligent and fun. Those were good reasons. I asked myself what was really behind her question. My automatic why? had been a pop quiz on our week-old relationship, which she had promptly defended. Then I had gotten the chance to say something cheesy, something I could have just blurted out like an instinctual cry. I was a bit thankful I hadn’t, or Candace might have gagged. Then I wondered if I was reading too far into this.

“Terry…” Candace interrupted.

I swung my head toward her, and suddenly I found myself nearer to her eyes than I’d ever been.

They were so close I couldn’t focus on them—just a couple hazy, bright green globes. They were on fire for some reason, maybe anticipation. A girl thing? I thought.

And then, just as suddenly, our noses touched. It was only for an instant, but it was long enough for me to realize what was about to happen, the way you know in an instant that you’re off balance.

We’d never kissed before.

I leaned closer—barely half an inch—and our noses came into contact again. My head, somehow instinctively, tilted right. The green globes flickered down momentarily and then flashed out of view. I shut my eyes too. There could only be one step left.

Still, as she craned her neck into the kiss, I hesitated. Still thinking, still questioning. Why?

After that I forgot to ask, and was lost for a while. That afternoon was lazy, spent getting newly acquainted with each other. We talked a lot less than usual.

Later, as I stowed our blanket again and she began climbing down, she smiled at me serenely.

“Good afternoon, sir.”

I looked around, one hand still absentmindedly on a wad of blanket. “Madam.”

We had a laugh pretending we had spent our last few hours doing something classy, like playing croquet.

“I daresay,” aristocrat Candace informed me, “I should hardly have noticed so much time had passed in this positively sultry weather had I not chanced a glance at my watch.”

“I find I must concur, Madam. ‘Tis very sultry indeed. Shall we retire into the living quarters?”

“At least into the drawing room, good sir, if you’d be so kind.”

We came inside laughing, and my mom sent us a knowing smirk from the living room sofa.

“Did you forget something, Terry?” she prompted.

Midway through my turn into the den, I halted. I had done all my chores, I was free to do what I wanted. What was she hinting at?

“No…” my voice cracked with uncertainty. I glanced at Candace, who stopped in the den’s entryway behind me.

“Oh, it’s just you usually don’t come inside this early.”

“This early…?”

It had to be at least six o’clock.

“Yeah, you usually spend a few hours outside.”

“What happened?” Candace joined the conversation.

“Oh, it’s no big deal,” my mother stressed. “Just wondering. What, Terry?”

I frowned at her. “She thinks,” I told Candace, “that we were just out there for a few minutes.”

Candace gave an amused little grimace and half-giggled. My mother stumbled on what to say for a second, and then seemed to understand.

“Oh, I get it. Ha-ha, you guys. Go watch TV or something.”

I raised my eyebrows at Candace, who shrugged and headed into the room.

As we settled on the couch, she flicked the power button on the remote. The television sparkled to life with the theme of some animated kid’s show. We watched it in silence for half a minute, and then Candace picked up the remote again and started flipping channels.

“Huh.”

Now she frowned. She looked at the wall behind me.

“Where’s the clock in here again?”

I pointed to the opposite wall, where the clock said—

“Three-thirty?” I blurted. She and I wore identical frowns.

“How could…?” she started, but we both knew how the question ended.

I looked at my watch. Three-twenty-eight.

“Huh,” she repeated. “I guess…um….”

“I guess time doesn’t fly so well.”

“Must get airsick.”

I snorted, shook my head. “Awful, awful joke.”

She poked me in the ribs with her very pointiest finger.

“Ow! Punk!” I tried poking her back, but she caught my hands and twisted. Eventually our fingers locked together and we ended in a stalemate, holding hands. I kissed her.

“Ooh!” she thrashed her head toward the TV. “This is my favorite show!”

There was no way it was her favorite show, but we let go anyway. The episode, based around some guy time traveling with miserable consequences, lasted half an hour, and so did the show after it, and so did the one after it. My parents, my sister, Candace and I all sat around the dinner table for an hour or so. Walking Candace home in the twilight took thirty-five minutes, even though she lived less than a mile away. I always laughed that it took fifteen to get back.

But none of it, oddly enough, felt as long as our twenty minutes or so in the tree.

“The next few days,” spouted our physics teacher, “are all you have before finals. You need to manage your time wisely.”

I’d been staring at the clock for exactly eight and a half minutes as of…now. How many times had we heard this lecture?

“The kids who go home and study—and study right—are the kids who are gonna succeed. Practice doesn’t make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect.”

The bell spared us all from the rest of the lecture. Students clambered through the door, gasping for the fresh air waiting outside. Candace and I needed nothing to prompt our hands to come together and interlock anymore; by now it was routine.

Down the thoroughfare along which our dinky high school slouched between a gas station and a grocery store, we wandered toward our tree and our field.

“Mr. Durell’s been a little crazier lately,” I observed. “I mean, he repeats himself more and more now. I’d say finals are getting to him more than they are to us.”

Candace gave a non-committal “Mmm.” At length she added, “I guess that’s not saying much, though, since it’s not getting to us at all.”

I snorted. “Yeah, well, us collectively.”

“Oh, I don’t like to talk about that class collectively,” she remarked as one discussing a recent death.

“Why not?”

“Because! I don’t like talking about that class. Period.” She cracked a smile.

I chimed in. “I suppose if we thought of everything collectively we’d start doing things that way. Us all going home together, us all visiting the tree together…”

“Hey, that reminds me,” Candace interrupted. “Did that seem excessively weird to you, yesterday? I got home and I was really tired. As if I’d gotten extra daylight hours.”

Something strange rattled my brain when she said this. I got the sensation of feeling someone right in front of me in the dark. “Yeah, I got the same feeling,” I told her, furrowing my brow.

“Do you…how do I say this? Do you think there could be something…weird…going on?”

I blinked. “What?” I half smiled. “Like a conspiracy?”

Her face turned sourly amused. “No! Not like that. Nothing freaky. Just…weird.”

“Well…” It certainly felt like it, I agreed, but that had to be all it was. Just a feeling. “Well yeah,” I answered. “But people are always convincing themselves of strange things happening…time warps and stuff….It just could be we were both tired. Maybe…”

“What?”

“Nothing.” I’d been about to say that maybe kissing drains something extra out of you, but that didn’t seem quite right. I shook my head.

“I think it’s more than that, though,” Candace pressed on. “I mean, I wasn’t just tired. I thought that a lot more time had passed up in that tree. Not just a few extra minutes, or even an extra half hour…it felt like a good three of four hours up there. I mean at least two. But it was only twenty, thirty minutes at most.”

“Look, I see what you’re saying, but…but isn’t it possible that we’re just popping up with lame ideas? So we goofed off thinking about how long we’d been. People goof off all the time.” It’s the smart ones, I thought, the ones who stop to think, who manage to see that’s what happened.

“Okay, I guess…yeah. You’re right.”

“But yeah. Weird. I’ll grant you that.”

There was a tiny awkward moment in which she peeked at me with a shrunken, mousy air, and I realized she was waiting for me to laugh at her silliness. This alone made me burst into a windy chuckle, and she joined in cautiously. Soon afterward we were both laughing at nothing in particular.

Our branch wasn’t ten feet from the ground, but it felt like a hundred.

“What would you do if you had all the time in the world?” she asked suddenly.

I pondered it for a second, then wondered out loud, “Why?”

“I don’t know. Just answer.” Her left arm was draped over my shoulder, the other tightened around my own right arm.

“Umm…I’d spend a lot of it with you…”

I don’t think she believed me.

“What would you really do?”

“I’d…no, really, I would do that, but…”

“Oh, come on…”

“Really!”

“Fine, if you insist, but what else?”

“I’d…make the world’s biggest sandwich and spend my life eating the whole thing. There.”

She poked me in the ribcage. I wasn’t in the mood to get her back.

“What would you do, anyway?”

She sighed, inclined her head. “I don’t know.”

I got a twinge of annoyance in my head—the feeling you get in your finger when it grazes over a loose plug in an outlet. “Come on, you have to say something.”

“No.”

Another twinge. “Say something, at least.”

“It’s dumb.”

“It can’t possibly be as dumb as what I said.”

She shrugged as if to say, “True, true,” took a deep breath and answered, “I would think. I would just sit down for a whole day, and just think.”

It wasn’t dumb, but I didn’t think it was an awesome idea, either. “You can do that anytime you want.”

“Yeah, but you can’t think about whatever you want to. You’re always having to, you know, think about physics or…math…or whatever homework you’re doing. Or if you’re doing chores, you have to pay a little attention to that. Or if you’re reading a book, you’re thinking about what’s going on. How many people do you suppose have a whole day to themselves, just thinking?”

“But there are such better things you could do with a whole day!”

“Yeah, and I’d think about all of them! I might even plan it out!”

“Why would you want to plan out everything you do with somebody?”

“Well, not everything, you’d leave room for being spontaneous, but—”

“It’s just that you don’t—well, I wouldn’t—plan more than a day ahead. Unless it’s some big trip you’re planning.”

Candace put on a sulky look that barely hid her smile.

“Come on….” I told her. I poked her side.

“No,” she still sulked.

“Don’t be stupid.”

Only half-joking, she retorted, “Don’t call me stupid.”

I softened my tone: “Geeze, I didn’t mean it.”

She bowed her head. “It kinda sounded like you did.”

“Sorry.”

“S’okay.”

Her countenance perked up a little, but a pinch of resentment colored her grin. We sat chewing our tongues for several seconds until she spoke up again.

“Stay here,” she smiled.

I frowned. “I am.”

“No, I mean stay here for a long time with me. Stay overnight.”

“What, sleep in a tree?”

“We’ve got a blanket.”

I blinked, my face cracking into a smile just like hers. “You’re insane.”

“What can I say? I’m crazy in love.”

I chose not to reply directly to this. “Okay, so just put the blanket down and curl up and sleep till morning?”

“Why not?”

“What if we fall off?”

“I don’t move around in my sleep, do you?”

“No guarantees!” I stressed. “I might kick you off or something.”

“Come on…”

“Candace, don’t be stupid.”

“Terry—”

“Right. Sorry. You know I didn’t mean it.”

“Just stay here. You don’t have to go to sleep. Let’s see how long it takes your mom to come out and get us.”

“Come on, Candace…”

“Come onnn, Candaaace!”

I narrowed my eyes and stuck my tongue out at here. I had the sneaking suspicion that this was about her weird time-warp idea, but I didn’t want to ask. I didn’t want to challenge it.

I felt just as curious myself.

Lying wrapped in a blanket on a bough was incredibly comfortable. We didn’t say much; mostly, we just looked at what clouds we could see through the leaves. But I stayed, just like she wanted me too. If nothing else, I would learn how long my mother could tolerate us being out.

The twilight crept up on us, and I hardly realized it was getting dark until I saw the North Star through a gap in the leaves. I looked around, realizing it was colder now. Candace had dozed off. I looked back at the house, where the lights were now off. Had my mom gone to sleep?

I laughed to myself, and shook Candace. She jerked her head up with a little squeak like a startled child. She gazed around at the pending night gleefully.

We exchanged kisses and goofy smiles for a while, and then we realized it had gotten even darker. The night was fully upon us.

“My family’s probably wondering where the hell I am…” she whispered, then giggled, “and I don’t really care.”

We kissed again, and I looked at the house.

“My family obviously isn’t.” My stomach rumbled. “Oh, man, I just realized how hungry I am…” I glanced once more at the night, which now seemed strangely permanent. In contrast, the darkness gave my house an evanescent glow. Suddenly I got goosebumps. I realized I had thrown off nearly the whole blanket. “Come on, I’ll grab a snack and take you home.”

We made our way back to the ground—her first, since she wore a skirt.

“So much for your time-warp idea, huh?” I called down to her.

She didn’t answer.

Once on the ground, she started skipping through the grass. She almost made the field look brighter as she went…or was that a trick of the light? The light was indeed doing something very tricky—and in fact it was somehow getting brighter.

Candace slowed, turned half way around as she fell into a snail-pace walk, and then finally stopped. She was looking back toward me, where the sun had set just a few minutes ago. I looked too.

It was rising.

I checked myself—thought, which way is north again?

I faced my street at an angle, making sure I was as close to north as possible…and yes, the sun was rising in the West. I looked at it for nearly half a minute before I remembered to divert my eyes.

The wind was carrying the sun back into the sky, bringing warmth back into the air, and light to the field. Dusk became a yellow afternoon again.

I stood frozen, rooted to the spot like the grass around me. Candace, resting in the corner of my eye, did the same. I looked at her; her eyes had settled on me a while ago. We both looked at the house and then, carefully, we started walking that way again.

“Hey, you guys,” my mom greeted us. Last night had been less than ten minutes ago.

We both grunted obscurely.

“Mom, could you make me a sandwich or something, please? I’m starving.”

“Okay…Candace, do you want one?”

“Uh…um, no, thanks….”

I kept on Candace’s heels as she drifted into the den. Once inside, we turned to face the clock, and our already slack jaws dropped even further.

Three-twenty-four.

“I can’t explain it either, but I know it’s really, really cool.”

“We shouldn’t mess with it, Candace, it could be dangerous.”

We were kicking rocks down the sidewalk as we drifted home, debating about our tree. We had arrived at the conclusion that its magic—if that’s what we were to call it—had kicked in just a few days ago, and that it was just now in full swing. We had also deduced that neither one of would ever understand it. Therefore, it was too risky, I’d told her.

“Come on, Terry, what could go wrong? It’s a tree.”

“It’s not just a tree, Candace. You know it’s not.”

“Well let’s just go up there for a little bit, then.”

“I don’t want to go back there until we’ve thought this out.”

“What’s there to think out?”

“There’s—a lot, Candace. A lot a lot a lot to think out. We’ll crash in the den until we decide on something.”

“Mmm,” she grumbled. “I wanted to go up there.”

“I did too.”

“No, I wanted to go up there to tell you something.”

“Tell me what?”

“Nothing.”

“Tell me what?”

“I wanted to tell you there. In our tree.”

“You can tell me here.”

“No I can’t,” she murmured.

“Why not? What is it?”

“I won’t say.”

“Come on,” I urged. “You can tell me here.”

She stopped walking and grabbed my hand deliberately. “Promise you won’t laugh?”

“Yes.”

“Promise.”

“I promise.”

“I love you.”

At first I was going to laugh and ask what she really had to say, and then I remembered the night (dammit, the afternoon) before.

What can I say? I’m crazy in love.

I hadn’t said anything then, I didn’t say anything now.

“Well?”

“Well what?” I answered.

“Well, I—I love you. What’s your answer?”

“Um…thank you….”

She bowed her head and muttered something.

“What?”

“I said I hoped you wouldn’t say that. Knew you would, though.”

“I’m…sorry….”

She sniffed. “Well don’t apologize! Just…say what you mean!”

I said nothing.

“You don’t.”

“…No.”

“Oh.”

“Candace, I don’t know anything about you! We don’t know anything about each other!”

“Yes! Yes, we do! Yes! I—I know that…well, I’ve had a crush on you for years now, and I know that you’re too thick about stuff like that to have ever noticed until I started flirting with you like mad and all my friends made fun of me for it….And I always knew you’d be smart and funny if I ever got to know you, and you are! And I know…I know if you had enough time you’d make the hugest sandwich the world’s ever seen, and….” She broke off. Maybe she really couldn’t think of anything more to say. She bowed her head.

“You just…” it was harsh, but I knew I had to say it. “You just sound like a girl with a crush, Candace.”

“I love you.” She sounded hopeful.

I stood still and looked at the sidewalk.

Her head still down, she spoke at length: “Well I’d better go then.”

She raised her head for a few seconds, showing me that same tainted grin, the one spattered with melancholy. The despair was much more evident now. Then bowing her head again, she turned and trotted down the sidewalk. I made to follow her.

“You don’t have to walk me home.”

I kept following anyway. She probably wanted me to.

“I said you don’t have to walk me home.”

I stopped and watch her grow smaller. She never looked back, and she never lifted her head out of its bow.

The following week was limbo, and between periods I would find myself wandering in her direction, only to steer back around. In the halls, we met coincidentally (I think) a few times but we never took the chance to talk. After a while we got used to the cycle and became experts at ignoring each other.

I missed her, and I was sure she missed me.

I spent hours in the tree, against my better judgment, throwing thoughts out at the green crown of leaves and getting ambiguous sighs back. We hardly glanced at one another, but the looks we exchanged every once in a while held volumes of longing. Who knows whether I loved her or not, but I wanted her alright. Just to hold her, one last time.

A part of me gagged whenever I thought that. I sounded like a pathetic, tear-stained diary entry. I consistently wondered if she ever felt that same shame I did.

Meanwhile, the tree’s effect was wearing off once more. I wondered vaguely if it was like a moon cycle or something…if it only worked during certain weeks. I doubted it. Something in my mind weaved it inextricably into Candace and our dead bloom of a relationship. These two things are somehow intertwined. They go together, they rise and fall together. In the same way that Candace must have known she loved me, I knew this was true.

The last time I noticed the time warp was when I spent what must have been a couple hours in it, came back, and saw that forty minutes had passed. That was two Sundays after the breakup.

It’s sort of a bittersweet memory now. It may have been stupid teenage love, but it was love. She loved me, anyway. I can still just hear it in her voice. I couldn’t tell you exactly what the hell I had felt.

We managed to avoid each other pretty thoroughly for the following two years. From time to time, I hear from various people that she’s gone into journalism, but I always change the subject.

The tree’s not going to give off any magic today.

My hand roves up and down the bark, searching for something it’s never going to find. The bark is sort of smooth and rough at the same time—it has plenty of nooks and crannies, but they give a feeling of having been sanded down or something. As if it’s been tamed.

I doubt that. No one could ever tame this tree. The settlers had declared it no-man’s-land for a reason.

I look up and down once again, try to take in all the leaves with my eyes. It’s like trying to drink a gallon of water in a second.

Goodbye, old friend.

I turn away and head back through the house, not bothering to detour. The twittering is back up, and this time I can tell it’s coming from inside the den somewhere. I don’t bother to look too closely.

The glass is still on the floor, and as I look at what’s reflected in it I realize it’s gotten chillier in the few minutes (hours? weeks? years?) I’ve stood by the tree. The sky’s gotten colder too: no longer a blue grin, it’s become a frown, brooding grey and unfriendly.

For no good reason, I shut the front door. Stepping off the porch, I wonder at my taking a ten-hour round trip just to pause at a tree for a while. I’ve known all along that this was exactly how long I’d be here, so why am I so staggered now?

I’ll have to get gas at the old self-serve station, I remind myself, trying to shake those other thoughts. Needless to say, it doesn’t work.

I didn’t bother to lock the car door. I get in, slam the door shut, start the engine. I check the mirrors, look behind, throw it into reverse, look behind, back out. I check the mirrors again, just to stall for time. Some part of me wishes I had more things to check before I drive away. I nod to the house out of respect as I take my foot off the break and inch forward, and I drive slower than I should. But I can’t help it.

I miss this place already.