Positioned mattress pad on bed, said ‘here it goes, it goes right on top.’ It smelled like the Philadelphia apartment, Zachary’s and my bed. Thought ‘I didn’t bring sheets or pillows.’ Dad paused and said ‘maybe you should just get a new everything, a new bed, new mattress.’ I said ‘oh, well, this one is fine I think. I don’t know, maybe, I’ll see. Thank you.’ The thing I was feeling in the car of ‘what am I doing’ seemed amplified, thinking about how alone I would be when dad left, that this was my last moment of ‘at least I’m not completely alone.’ Hugged dad hard. His face was wet from sweating or the rain and he was wearing a blue windbreaker with a ‘Holland America Line’ emblem embroidered on it, from one of the cruises we went on when I was little. I hugged him and said ‘thank you for helping me with this, it means a lot’ and my voice broke. I was hugging him tight. He said ‘oh, I’m happy to help’ and it was quiet. He said ‘I think this time it’s really going to work out, it really is, just you wait and see.’

5:53pm: impulsively texted Zachary to see if he knew where to buy cat food, am now picking him up from Adam’s.

6:10pm: need to get electric switched over to my name, change address, feel hollow and scared and alone, driving, picking up Zachary, what will we do, what’re we doing here, what the shit hell…young family song came on shuffle…the fuck am I doing…

6:14pm: mint green nail polish has almost chipped off, I painted nails the morning I had been up all night and went to whole foods and Zachary went to nj before our apartment was all packed up, March

6:17pm: mom called said I’ll talk later parked on Zachary’s street ate 1mg Xanax shit fuck me.

6:18–11:59PM: zachary came out of adam’s apartment wearing nice clothes and with his hair tied back, holding a hand-rolled cigarette.

here is what i remember:

•  drive seemed tense, something felt different, sad, like more time had passed than i had known. asked about the jamie video and about why he seemed upset at the fishkind show. felt like i was talking to someone i had only met a few times. think this made it easier to transition into making jokes/reading signs/pointing out stuff on the street. talked more about the show and felt my stomach pulling, re-enacting the ‘sting of obviousness’ i felt that night watching him interact with jamie in a way that reminded me ‘these people are neither friends nor strangers,’ remembering how when the show was over he passed me and said ‘oh hey’ without looking up, leaving with a man i’d never seen, then not showing up at the bar due to rumored arguing with jamie, all the moments of him ‘not at the bar’ stacking up, helping me form a familiar-feeling epiphany that someone’s life was better without me in it and there was nothing i could do, except try to replace that feeling with excitement about the cocaine that would help me ignore two phone calls from him a few hours later. in the car he said the man i saw him walk away with had confronted him immediately after the show to give him a hard time about how he says ‘faggot,’ and zachary had been crying from other things about the show and talked with the offended man for a long time, explaining how he doesn’t want to hurt anyone. vestigial shame about my reaction to him that night, he was having a shitty time, and what did i want anyway.