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[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

It’s been almost two months since I left. [click, static]

Time has sort of lost meaning in a lot of ways these past few years. The seasons always give the year shape, but there’s no other structure to each day or each week or each month. The first few days I was driving, I kept track of how many miles I logged each day. I’m not bothering with that now.

[click, static]

I think it’s really starting to hit me that I’ll never see Harry again. [click, static]

I’m not...I’m not sad about that. Don’t get it twisted, I’m glad to be out of there, glad to be rid of her, even if it means I’m on my own but I’m...

I’m something. [click, static]

Wistful? No, that’s not it. I’m not sad, I’m not happy, I’m not regretful, but there’s a certain...a certain pit in my stomach at the thought.

[click, static]

I’d like to think that it’s just because the idea of never seeing Harry again makes me wonder if I’ll ever see anyone ever again, but there’s no point in lying to myself or to you, whoever might be listening, so I have to admit that it’s not entirely not about her, you know?

[click, static]

It wasn’t all miserable. If I could go back and do things differently, I absolutely one hundred percent would, but it wasn’t all terrible. There’s that symbiotic bond that forms out of what we went through. I don’t think it’s a particularly healthy one, or even an at all nice one, but it’s there. And it’s...specific.

[click, static]

Like the haircuts. Or when I’d paint her nails because she never got the hang of doing her right hand herself. We shared a house, the same two shitty winter coats we had, the one pair of snow boots we found. We shared every meal, always cooking enough for two. Every problem, every little victory...all of them were ours, even in the times when we were barely speaking to each other.

I’ve found myself wondering if she stayed. I have to think she did, that she’s still there, in that house, with all her paintings and her garden and the chickens. Because that was part of the problem, wasn’t it? She never wanted to leave, never wanted to venture outside the boundary we’d drawn for ourselves back when it seemed like our past catching up to us was inevitable.

So of course she stays. She’ll probably die in that house. [click, static]

It doesn’t matter. None of it matters. I said I wasn’t going back and I’m not. I’m not going back.

[click, static]

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