Hello, darkness, my old friend.

I shut down the mixtape and slide the tape recorder under my bed. As if hidden, I won’t think of Josh. Who am I fooling? Every remembered note echoes of him.

The problem is: so does the sound of silence.

And the sound of Mom crying over her sister who left her. Josh wasn’t ghosting me like some coward. He was surviving the only way he knew how: alone.

I trash the letter.