2009-10-28 - 2:35 p.m.

I was grading essays late last night when my girlfriend opened the front door, hung up her jacket, said "Hi," and right away I could tell she'd been crying, her voice soft and deep. She gave the dog a rub, said hi to him, too, and then came upstairs, where I lay.

"I got sad," she said.

"Why, buddy?" I asked.

"Because I miss my friends."

And she told me about dinner and about the bar where they drank beer and about how she misses her brother even though he lives just fifteen minutes away. Another friend from college had met them there. He's moved away. People move away.

"I just might move away one day," she said, sliding out of her rain boots. "Far away, where there's no one else. And then they'll all miss me. Why does everyone leave home? Why do I have to be the one who's always home?"

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