Not much is different with me these days. I miss you. I’m glad we had the night we did before you went away. I find it so funny you’re in Ottawa. No one goes to Ottawa. I always imagined you in a real city, one with suburbs and revitalized districts and a consistent stream of new restaurants. I imagined you sharing a three-bedroom apartment with rich girls who don’t understand what you’re from, who have old and new meanings for “cheap” and use the new one like no one had ever extracted anything from the world before.

This morning, I was trying to remember some hilarious thing you said to me at the Sherbrook once. I was telling a story at work and your words flipped out of focus and sort of static-buzzed away. My brain is like that lately, these blips of minutes here and there that just, like, go missing—I guess I’m getting older. I wish I could remember what you said! I do remember this other thing, one morning when we were both too hungover to breathe: you said, “Think of walking, as, like, sending weight falling in the right direction.”

One night, we were watching an episode of something—I never told you this—and you had fallen asleep. It was late. I sat up to go to the bathroom and felt a calming rush of power and lucidity surging into me. That kind of feeling, late in the night, when you’re getting less drunk but still definitely not sober. I looked at you breathing; you were asleep. I touched your cheek. Outside your window there were no stars, just a fuzzy glow of random light. I whispered with my fingers on your skin, “Let no one hurt this woman again.” I prayed it to the Lord, too, which I hope you don’t mind. It felt right to do, and it felt right to say. Your breath was even. I’m pretty sure you didn’t wake up. And you were so warm (your body was always so unbelievably warm). There was laughing from the playground behind your building. I stood up and looked past the curtain, and there were two women and a man, fucked up on something. I don’t know if it’s fair to tell you all this. You don’t know any of it happened.

I still live in West Broadway and I got the most gorgeous apartment last summer. You would love my building. My new place is on Good. It’s huge, on the third floor, and it has a sunroom and a bathroom with hexagonal tiles. You would love it so much. My window’s open, and it’s snowing, but it’s actually not cold at all. New flakes are coming down, pretty, American-style ones, fat and soft and quiet. It’s starting to cover up the mulched snow out in the lane. I finally realized the other day what it reminds me of: the chocolate dirt that gummy worms stick out of in candy store displays. City snow. Everyone thinks it’s gross, but I think city snow is beautiful. Like you know you live somewhere. This is an unusual night.