A friend was killed and I’m here, in this large room with no hanging art, no chests where the mattress ends, no bed frame, and no character. A somber vastness, this space, with a small mattress on a shiny concrete floor that’s been chipped and slightly matted in places by those who wear their boots and their heels beyond the shoe cubby I’ve placed at the entrance. The trail from that door to my bedroom is unsympathetic. The monster killed her daughter, too, leaving her 11-year-old body to sour under a super moon, leaving the neighbors with stories they’ll tell for the rest of their lives about a woman and a daughter and a murder and they’ll somehow rationalize not hanging up the phone with the pizza man to call the police with “the police always come late if they come at all” or “it didn’t look like anything out of the ordinary.”

My eyes are strained, my hands keep busy, I’m popping store brand pain medications to cure this headache, and drinking ginger ale because I miss my grandma and because it burns my throat and for a few seconds, steals the attention away from this heartbreak. They won’t ask why I’m crying if I cry or why I’m still in bed in the afternoon if I choose not to move from under this sheet. If they do, I’ll blame it on the murders.

We know it’s because you wrote me, telling me you love someone in my absence.