The strangest thing of all was that I did believe. I believed that everything was suddenly going to start getting better and that I would really forget about Collin. I was going to change. Starting with random writing.

Since it was summertime, I spent most of my time at the park now. I decided to go there everyday and write about something different. I was supposed to be journaling for my psychiatrist anyway. So everyday for two weeks, I sat on the same always empty bench and wrote. Week three was a different story.

On Monday, I was heading for my bench but I saw someone seated there, reading. There weren’t any other benches so it was this or nothing. I sat next to the stranger and immediately started writing to tune him out.

As if my “don’t want to talkâ€? attitude wasn’t obvious, he turned toward me. “Hey.â€? he said.

I smiled back politely and then launched back into writing.

“This is really good.â€? He held up a sheet of torn notebook paper, my torn notebook paper.

“Hey! Where did you get that?!â€?