September arrived not as a relief but as an admission. The nights cooled. The goldenrod bloomed along the fence line. I packed your books into cardboard boxes, not because I wanted to erase you, but because the shelf was sagging. I kept your copy of The Wind in the Willows —the one with the cracked spine and your margin note on page 47: “This is the part about friendship.”
That, I think, was the lesson the summer was trying to teach me: the universe is not cruel. It is simply busy. It has no time for our individual apocalypses. the summer without you
English 101: Creative Nonfiction Date: April 14, 2026 September arrived not as a relief but as an admission
The Geography of Absence: A Summer Without You the summer without you