He was leaning on the counter, looking at his phone. He looked up.

“Can you do her shot for her?”

“Oh, sure,” he said.

“Would that be okay?” you said, looking at me with a strained expression.

I was in no place to refuse. We shuffled back to the bathroom together and he knelt in front of me.

“I do this for Genevieve,” he said.

His voice was soft and firm, fatherly. I looked down at his face. It didn’t have a trace of pity on it, but it was kind. I handed him the syringe.

He did it, quickly and painlessly. By the end of it I wasn’t crying anymore. He capped the syringe and patted me on the side of my thigh before going back out into the kitchen.

I dried my face on the towel and walked out past you. You looked at me with an expression of mild concern, but I got to the screen door and quickly left before you could say anything.

I walked to the beach, because there was nowhere else to go. The humiliation was wearing off. I was glad, in the end, that you weren’t the one who did it. Without really thinking what I was doing, I walked into the water, fully clothed. It was freezing cold. I kept walking. When water reached my waist, I stopped.

I had the realization that not even a year ago I would have been tempted to keep going as far as I could, maybe until I froze or drowned, and now, I had no interest in that. I could already feel the power of the waves, could see how easily I could just get ripped away out into it. The lake was beautiful. You could tell that it barely noticed you as you stared out into it, and I liked that.

March 1

Maybe my memories have less to teach me than I originally thought. I’ve decided that when I’m done writing whatever this is, I’m going to burn it, and then I’m going to call you.

May 7

The rest of the semester passed quickly. After graduation, you went with James back to Rochester to see your family immediately, and I stayed where I was. Then you were in Brooklyn, and then Philadelphia. You started another band.

You know this part pretty well, I think, from when we talked on the phone every month or so. I did my last two semesters of school, I fell in love, I moved. I read a lot about religion, which didn’t help, and a little bit about meditation, which sort of did. I finished my senior thesis two months after I realized I never wanted to write anything ever again. Gradually, we talked less and less often until it tapered off entirely.