Then, last summer, I was visiting with my friend Taylor, who had just come back from New England. We spent a long afternoon walking around and amicably bickering about philosophy and talking endlessly about the future, going from the carillon tower all the way down to the river and back up, and then it was evening. When we went up to his screened-in porch, you were sitting there, wearing, like, a kimono, reading an old paperback and smoking. You had stopped dyeing your hair different colors and it was just brown and in a shoulder-length bob, the same as mine.

“Oh my god,” you said, standing up. You wrapped your arms around my shoulders and giggled a little before sitting down and beckoning me to join you on the chair next to you. Taylor sat down with us but went inside after a few minutes and never came back out. You hardly stopped talking or smoking. I could barely follow it. I kept asking you questions and you kept telling stories.

I wondered if you were ever able to connect your rough, complicated childhood to your headstrong ambition now. Listening to you list the names of musicians, talk about cities I had only ever seen on TV, and talk about boyfriends and hookups and flings, I realized that you had no need to get your life in order. What was past was not prologue, it was a springboard, evaluated for its usefulness and then discarded. I was certain, at that point, that you would end up famous, or, barring that, you would make yourself an interesting life.

At one point, I looked over my shoulder through the window at Taylor’s house. The living room had been turned into an impromptu recording studio with a big mixing desk on one side of it and a drum kit on the other. A viney plant grew down from a set of built-in bookshelves.

“Oh, I’m recording some songs, finally,” you said.

“How’s that?” I said.

“I’m getting there,” you said, pursing your lips and flicking your cigarette, looking down at the ground. You were lost in thought again, getting further and further away from me until I couldn’t reach you at all. I could have listened to you talk all night, but by midnight I had to go home so I could wake up early for work.

June 1

I haven’t seen you since then, but for some reason I’m sure I haven’t seen the last of you. You post less and less on the internet, which I always take as a good sign.

For a long time I didn’t think about you very much. I was too busy being in love or worrying about myself or, later, trying to be at peace. I had an unremarkable time in college and you were really the only bright spot.