1. 9:00 a.m. - 9:30 a.m.

"This won't hurt a bit."

That's the last thing she said before I drifted off. When I woke, she was gone.

When you lose a girl like Laur, things change. Everything changes. Everything changes and you stay the same. Forever--or so it feels. You're stuck in a perpetual pause as everything rotates around you.

It's like when you're in a public washroom and you reach for the paper towel and just before you grab it you see the imprint of the person who was there before you--a round, wet circle--and you don't know whether to reach exactly there or somewhere else or stand around and wait for it to dry and disappear. By the time you snap out of it, you forget where you are and what you were doing.

I vanished for most of one winter. Blended in with the snow and slush and the downward glances. But you knew that.

Physically, we met at a party four years ago, Laur and I. She was wallflowering and I was being my regular goof self. I always feel like I have to entertain. That's why I don't go to these things much--why I'm such a small-timer when it comes to small talk.

F--- was there. He saw me looking and told me to be careful, that C--- would be here soon and would pick up quick. He didn't understand my relationship to C---. No one did. She was like a temporary guestº who never left. We were nothing together. Only physical stimulation. She'd come over, get her fix, and leave. Reliable, yes--like a friend who needs something, or the local druggist [mp3]º--but she meant nothing to me. Less, even, than a daytripperº.

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