Wait… I'm missing - where's my dog?

Where's Piotyr?

Oh.

She's over by the window.



She looks scared and unhappy.

Maybe she feels how I feel, 'cause I feel like craaaaaap.

I stick my spoon into the static. It's thick and viscous, like oily tar.



And I don't want this…



"Why won't you eat? Don't you trust me? Are you… scared of me?"

No, never. It's not that.

"Do you love me?"

Yes! God.

Not since we met, I didn't really like you at first because you were tall and pretty and serious… but since maybe the first month? Since Alyssa's birthday party, when Sam ditched me to go off and do something and we ended up being the only people at the party who didn't know anyone else.

Since then, always. Always, always, always. Even when I said I didn't.

Especially when I said I didn't.

"Then why is this always so hard? Why can't it be easy? It used to be easy."

When we were sixteen!

Now… I can't - I mean - the best part of my day is talking to you, hearing about your dorm, and your secret cat, and the ridiculous stuff in your classes, and hearing you laugh, oh god I love hearing you laugh, but it's just - you're always so certain about everything and - it's not that I don't want the stuff that you do - because I do but it's just - if I say yes - if I invite you to come here and - if I let all the stuff you want to have happen, happen - it's like - we're only twenty and you've only dated, like, one other person and - what if - I mean - in a few years you're going to wake up and realize that I'm just me - and you're…

"I don't understand."

I… like things the way they are now.

"With you here, and me, five hundred kilometers away."



Are you even you? Is any of this really happening?

I need some air.

Notes