The next day, I woke up to the sounds of birds and cars. The birds were a lot closer of course. In fact, they were right outside my window on the sill cheeping their heads off. The cars made the usual long droning sounds of taking off and then tapering off into the silence. It was like the soundtrack to a movie. I just laid there, and eventually reached around to the pictures I took recently.

As I flipped through them, I realized that there weren’t any people in them. Lots of strange angles, some cool devices from where Uncle Kevin worked, and the sunset on my first day here. It felt empty, like I had just captured the outside of things but I was missing the inside. Before I left, I was going to take pictures of — people. Friends wasn’t exactly right, but I wanted to remember them: Kirandra, J, Uncle Kevin — everyone. It would be a lot better than forgetting, like I had never been here at all.

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