how could i leave josh behind?

I think about it a lot, how it all happened, how we came to be here. It’s not like I have anything else to do in the dull ebb of this place. Even the days here feel like a technicality, as if they don’t actually mark time. As if they have no function, except to help keep up the illusion that this is a real town, and that we still count as real people now that we live inside it.

I don’t know why I’m so preoccupied with going over my memories, getting them exactly right. My story won’t save anyone else. No one else will ever know it. Or if they do, that will mean it’s too late for them too.

Because I have to assume that this is it for me, for life. More of the same nowhere, with everything that makes it seem like somewhere just an empty gesture. A fraud. Because even if I could find a way out, how could I leave Josh behind? He’d never agree to escape with me.

After all, he’s the one who chose this world for us.