On our fifteenth birthday, Justin Goldwater disappeared from the face of the Earth. Not completely. Not in the way bubbles or rainwater disappear. He lingered. I caught snatches of him in restaurants when he wasn't there. I saw him when I squinted too hard or thought too much. He was always at the back of my mind, in the bookstore window. An unscratchable itch. A never-healing scab. He was never really gone. Not for me, anyway. On our eighteenth birthday, he returned all ash and eternal flame. For the first time, I let him in.
3 parts