Scribbling with a broken golf pencil, scraping back the wood with my fingernail when the lead gets too low, I write on the back of one of the flyers from the show. I write it all down. Everything. I always do.

At night, when it’s dark, when I’m in a strange motel room or parked at a rest stop, when there’s enough light to see by—a streetlight, the TV flicker—I write. When I have a pen and the back of an envelope, a receipt from the gas station, or a motel postcard, I write lyrics, thoughts, flashes of things I could use in a song.

Mostly I write to Carly. I’ve been doing it for years. Since I left. Vows and proclamations have evolved into confessions. Sometimes you need to feel like you could tell someone everything if you wanted to. That there’s someone to tell.

I, April,

have loneliness so large it’s like a frostbitten explorer

I have to drag down the mountain.

I, April,

ate an entire plate of chili cheese fries at a diner

on Rt. 9 at three in the morning.

It’s the first thing I’ve eaten in days.

This will not end well.

I, April,

think red maple leaves against grey skies are some kind of sweet magic.

You should go to Vermont, Carly.

You’d love it.

I never send my confessions. Almost never. After I write one, I keep it in my pocket, thinking when I round up an envelope and a stamp I’ll tuck it in the mail. But the next time I do laundry I add the note to the mess of napkins and receipts hidden under the lining of my guitar case. As long as I keep writing to Carly, I get to believe that maybe someday I’ll see her again. Maybe I’ll really tell her everything. She was my first true friend, and I haven’t met anyone like her since. You don’t get over someone like that.

This time my confession starts:

I, April,

am so stupid.

Even though it’s safe and bright and shiny at the park, it still takes everything I have to open the car door, to not feel like someone will attack me the moment my feet hit the pavement, to not look at my tires and think about bones cracking.

The pay phone has that same rubbery plastic smell from last night. I worry that maybe it’s stuck in my nose, that it’s the only thing I’ll ever smell now.

I call Cole to tell him I can’t go to Red Bank this time. I don’t tell him why, just that something came up.

“I’ll miss you, sweet stuff,” he says, his voice carrying the weight of too many cigarettes and late nights.