Just when the days start getting colder, I walk the streets I never knew. Behind the library and across the cemetary, where the leaves are already orange.

I pull my jacket around my shoulders, adjust my scarf. Stuff my hands into my pockets. The air smells like snow, but it’s hardly the end of October.

I’ve come home, but it doesn’t feel like home.

The leaves crunch underfoot as I make my way down the deserted sidewalk. I see his house across the street, but I can’t make my legs walk up to the door, can’t make my hand ring the bell.

I sit on the sidewalk, staring at the front door, recalling all of the times we banged through it – back when we believed we’d have all the time in the word. Back when we believed we were invincible. Back when this small town was the world.

God. I would give anything to go back.

I can see him through the window. He’s laughing at something, eyes sparkling.

And somehow it hurts so badly to suddenly realize that while I’ve been gone, this world has kept on spinning.