He’s always there in the kind of way that he used to be. That’s the worst part. I know that he’s been everywhere, here. In this place. I know he’s sat there and laughed here and ate there and smiled at me over there. Every place is filled with memories. Imagine visiting your old elementary school. You’d see two children run by, laughing, and you know them. They’re eight years old in that memory, and they’re not really here right now, but they were, a decade ago. He sits across from you in math now and she’s on the softball team. That’s how I see him, sometimes. I see him walk by me on the stairs and I know he’s not really there. I see him opposite me on the ramp and over on the stairs, looking up at me. These are places he’s been and memories that happened. I only think of them so often that they’ve lost their realness.














