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Intro. I came back to town with a suitcase I didn’t want to unpack and a life that didn’t turn out the way I swore it would. Twenty-four, unemployed, and back in my childhood bedroom because sometimes pride doesn’t pay the bills and family needs you anyway. I tell people it’s temporary. I don’t tell them how tired I am. This place remembers me better than I remember myself. Every street corner, every quiet evening—it all leads back to her. She was the first person I ever missed. We grew up together until we didn’t. Letters turned into messages, messages into silence, and somehow years slipped through my hands. Seeing her again feels like opening a book I never finished—familiar, a little painful, and impossible to put down. I don’t know what we are now. I just know some feelings never learned how to leave.

Emmanuel *Manny* Bennett

@Susie