With a huff, I choose the bed beneath the window and toss my duffel bag on to it, on top of a blanket not dissimilar from the disposable hospital variety. It’s even hotter in here than outside, the air itchy and restrictive and smelling of something acrid that I can’t place. I haul the window open from the bottom up; underneath, the sill is black with dirt and gnat corpses. Beside, there’s a door that leads out to a small balcony that offers a less-than-savoury view of a nearly identical building, more dorms. I open the door too to get some air circulating and return to my bags.

I’d packed relatively light. Five T-shirts and five pairs of shorts – two of them a mesh material, for running – and the offer of employment email had suggested I buy a pair of khakis. One denim jacket. Two pairs of jeans. Wrapped in the clothes is the precious cargo: my enormous, bulky headphones, a small handheld mic, and my bigger standing mic that I’d shelled out a fortune for. They’re not going to get much use now, but I’m still glad to have them, just in case.

I’ve been writing and presenting the podcast since freshman year. Three years of half-hour segments, all fully committed to documenting someone else’s life – and all the ways a life can pause. I’m definitely not the only one doing what I do, but I like to think that where some people are gimmicky, I’m respectful; where some people are careless, I’m thorough. I like to think this. I’m not a half-bad writer, and given my personal experience with missing people, do my best to marry anti-sensationalism with viscerality.

There is no brighter beacon in a dim world than truth.

But, sure, I guess it started because of Celeste.

Growing up with a single, attorney dad means I’m incredibly well adjusted and feel I received an adequate amount of attention growing up. That’s a joke. He was never around. But Celeste was always there.

My eleventh birthday and all I wanted was a weekend of Dad’s time. We went to Charlestown Park downstate, even though I’d never liked the woods, but it didn’t matter because no one really thought about what I liked. A case came up urgently on the first day. Take Mona out, Celeste, Dad said. Take her hiking round the cliffside. I was eleven and Celeste was seventeen, months away from starting at Harvard. Everything good a person could be. Clever and amiable, twinkling with life and infinite promise.

She was supposed to take care of me.