Then knocking, cacophonic and shattering, thumped inside my stomach as the metal slammed against the wood of the door. Anyone at my door creates a sensation of unreasonable nervousness inside of me, and this time it was exponentially worse than normal.

So the past decides that four hundred and fifty miles wasn't so far away that it couldn't wander up to my doorstep. I never expected to see the two of them again.

Fuck.

A day spent together. Like a hundred times a hundred days had been spent since my childhood. And not a thing felt different. Other than knowing it was completely different.

Chit chat and Japanese food and lemurs. I felt more confident in what I said, despite the annoying pronouns.

But I didn't say what I really felt. Why exactly did you come here? Did the distance make you miss us more, since certainly more than ninety days have passed before without you traveling even five miles to see us? Was it for the sake of the old habit of the high school comradery? Did you want to see if we really made it like we said we did? Was it something else?

Of course, I didn't ask because I was fairly certain you didn't know for sure yourself.

Will you come again? Who knows.

Do I even know how I feel about all this? Certainly not.

I don't even know if the days of wondering about my life before here will end. Do I sabotage those memories just to put a distance between a former self and a former life and the current one? I'm not sure. The past, it seems, doesn't want to fade into the dusty monotone that I wish it would in my own mind. I worked too hard for a new and separate existence for it to be so fresh and on my fucking doorstep. I don't want to be like Billy, talking about all of this until one of us bores the other to death when we're ninety.

Well, it's already tomorrow, so pondering on it further isn't going to be productive in the least. All that I can do right now is put on my rotted shoes and wait to begin walking.

Destroy Once Done