He has two black canvas chairs like movie directors have. The coasters on the footlocker are slices of a skinny birch tree. Behind the futon, the bookshelf built into the wall is filled with books that are actually his, not from the library. I stand on the futon so I can see them. A red cloth-covered dictionary with gold letters on the binding. Matching rust-colored books called Encyclopedia of Architecture. A yellow one about how the pyramids in Egypt were built. A bunch of paperback mysteries. Then there’s all the CDs. Simon & Garfunkel, Eric Clapton, and Jane’s Addiction. Miles Davis and Chet Baker. David Bowie and a bunch of movie soundtracks. He likes U2, but I can’t hold it against him, because he has three Bob Dylans and they’re good ones. Highway 61 Revisited, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, and Blood on the Tracks, which is my favorite. When we lived over the Wash ’n Fold, my dad had that one on 8-track and I listened to it with my cheek pressed against the speaker so I could feel the harmonica in my teeth.

I haven’t heard that album since my dad dropped the 8-track player down the stairs while we were moving out. So many of those songs never get played on the radio and I miss the way they feel in my brain. Adam’s stereo is next to his desk, and I don’t think he’d mind. I don’t think he’d mind at all, so I take the CD from the bookshelf. The disc in the player is a band called Red House Painters. I swap in Dylan, lie on my back on the floor and listen to If You See Her, Say Hello, because that song is the one I missed the most. Adam’s rug is rough and the fibers are scratchy in a way that feels good on my back. Listening to Bob Dylan’s voice swell through the lyrics is like drinking cool water when your mouth feels like it’s stuffed with cotton.

I sing along. Super quiet, in case Adam’s neighbors can hear, but my voice still echoes. I can’t sing it straight. My voice is too low to sing it up high and too high to sing it where Dylan does, so I sing around him, swooping between his notes the way I always used to, my own song for his song. I miss my guitar. I never even learned how to play this one and I wish I could. Tears slide from the sides of my eyes, dripping in my hair. I want to keep listening, all the way through Shelter from the Storm to Buckets of Rain, but the longer I lie here, the harder it will be to move. I put Red House Painters back in the CD player and Bob Dylan back on the shelf.