Chapter 1

He left her. I tried to stop him, but it was too late. No, I don’t know where he went. I mean, I guess i could try and find him, he might have just went to one of his usual places, but this is different. I’ve never seen him so upset, what did you say?

Jesus, what?! Why? What did he do to you? Why did he just, god, I don’t know anymore. I don’t even want to be here. Leave me alone. Just leave me alone!!

I’m tired. This has taken so much out of me. God, I can’t even go to sleep and its all I want to do. I just can’t keep going on like this. He left, your angry as hell and I’m caught in the middle with no where to turn, I have no options left. I don’t even know who knows about this. We can’t let it get out. No way. There is no way you can tell her. It will be all over then. Jesus, that would be the end, the complete end of all of this. I’d be forced to leave and I have no idea what he would do or where she would go. No, I don’t want to talk about it anymore, just leave me alone, I just need space. Space. Space to just see what I can come up with. I’m just out of possibilities.

Where are you going? I didn’t mean it like that…stay if you want. I just don’t know what to do or say anymore. I’m sorry I didn’t mean, no, I mean, stop, you can leave me – your all I have right now, your all that is keeping me sane, alive. No, please stop! God, fuck! You can’t! I have…what…no, I didn’t mean to hurt you too. God, its like no matter what I say I hurt someone, I can’t sleep, I haven’t eaten in what seems like days, I’m tired and mad and damn I it I just want things to go back to the way they were.

I don’t want to get anyone in trouble any more. I’m done lying to you and everyone else. I’m done. I can’t do it any more, I just can’t take it. It’s killing me. It is draining me. I have nothing left to offer, I am finished. No, its not that easy. I just cant go back there and tell her…no, I can’t, it’s too soon don’t you think? Its too soon. I just want to sit back and let things mellow out for awhile. I want it to blow over – we need space right not. Time to think. I know it sounds cheap but honestly, what more can I do? What can I say that I already haven’t said? What can I do that I haven’t already done? I think we just have to face that facts man, that this is done, over. Bad things do happen to good people. It’s complete shit, I know, but damn, why does it have to be so hard? Why do I have to be the one that had to say it, why did it have to be so difficult – why did it have to hurt so bad, so completely bad.

I hate this. I hate the situation and I hate her. I can’t stand her and let this go on. It’s so cheap, so degrading. I just want it to end. I just want it to end. Please, don’t leave me.

Hope in the pages.

Perhaps it is the lingering romanticism attached to urban emptiness that invigorates a crowd; the full city and the empty city are ultimately both unnatural states. But it is the empty city that continues to lurk in our culture, a place for the imagination, and more beside, to run wild.