“I try to keep sane, but this goddamn place is a freeway.” 
-Lydia

Fall feels like spring and brings back all kinds of wistful memories.

The last time the air was this temperature, I had friends and went out every single night.  Driving down Capitol with my windows down, freezing out but it was okay because I needed to dry my wet hair after work and it was going to be so warm and smoky at the Ritz anyway.  Empty streets, weeknights past midnight, silently changing traffic lights and the orange glow of streetlights, Motion City on the stereo; I knew all the roads.  The first room had a fan gusting every night; the second one did too, two.  The second room.  I gave up everything for the boy in that room: black walls and stick-on glow in the dark stars.  Constellations above me in the queen-sized bed, plush black blanket and soft dark red sheets and a boy who cried when I left him.

And it meant nothing: the tears meant nothing, the promises meant nothing, the hope was hopeless.  I was hopeless for him but I had no idea to what extent.

Three months since I left everything I had here; the Capitol City has its familiar landmarks but all the familiar faces glower in my direction or pointedly ignore me.  “Didn’t you hear?  She broke his heart.”

Dear J—, I wish my heartbreak had been as easy as yours.  I wish I had a maliciously loyal group of friends to protect me from looks thrown like knives across a crowded room.  The last time I saw you, you were surrounded by a shield of friends who circled.  There were always people between us, a smokescreen of venom and rumors and unfounded distrust.

And I can’t help but remember when the air was the same temperature then as it is now and the leaves were growing when they’re now beginning to change colors and before each of my dresses had a history, before my summer was soaked with loneliness, before I’d made the decision that was inconceivably wrong and before I lost everything because of it.