He got in close to me, which meant I needed to tilt my neck upwards to look at him. ‘Listen. This might be weird of me, but I …’ He pinched the bridge of his nose. Even now I was worried that this was some sort of confrontation. ‘So, I actually lost my mom too. A few years ago.’

I shuffled my feet, unsure how to react. Unsure how he wanted me to react. Why hadn’t I already known? That seemed like the sort of information that would’ve done the rounds. Why hadn’t June mentioned it? ‘Oh, um, man. Why didn’t you tell me before?’

‘I worry with these things there’s a fine line between sharing and it seeming like you’re trying to one-up the other person, or take away from their experience. We may have gone through a similar thing but nobody’s grief is the same.’

‘Yeah. I mean … yeah. For sure.’

‘Either way, just know I’ve been there, even if I haven’t been exactly there. And maybe that’s marginally better than being surrounded by people who haven’t. Who … can’t even point it out on a map.’ He chuckled at his own metaphor in a way I found endearing.

‘No, yeah. Definitely.’

Ugh. He had just as many pity points as me. I didn’t even have that going for me any more. And a part of me felt like he really had made that information known to make me feel guilty. That was the cynicism, but it couldn’t stay for long; he was too damn nice, and charismatic, and every encounter we’d had – though they were mostly brief – was pleasant.

But my affection for June, left unkindled, wasn’t really hurting anybody. Was it?

Maybe nobody except myself.

One long night, I came up with a special and horrible game. My mind felt like it was balancing on a tightrope and any misstep or slight breeze could send me tumbling into the void. The tightrope was always there; here, there was no ‘Don’t look down’. Every direction was down. But the game was foolproof. Entirely effective. Any time I found myself wavering – thinking about death or dying or ends or Dad or the ToD – I’d force myself to think about June instead.

This was creating troubling links in my head. I knew it was.

But it worked too well to stop. Think about June. Flip my mind overtop of itself, push everything else out until she’s all that’s left. June laughing at a joke I’d made, or June speaking, or June existing. This didn’t serve, exactly, to balance me on the tightrope; it disintegrated the tightrope. It made it so the tightrope had never existed at all. There was no gravity. I could float there, comfortable, and never worry about the fall ever again.

Whatever helps.

What’s the point of living if –

June.