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December
20, 2005. My brother looked up at the facade of the apartment building. "All full up, huh?" I squinted in the sunlight at the windows. Through my kitchen window I could see a glimmer of blue - a strip of lights tacked around the framework. "Oh. Yeah, heh. All full up. Yep." This is the part of goodbye that's always hard. He says something about the turnover in my building being pretty low. I agree, blow air out in an expressive puff through my lips, and quip that at this point in time, I've been there for a certain value of "forever." "I sometimes wish," I say, suddenly, without really thinking it, "That maybe one of them would leave, and then hey, a friend could move in." It sounds so dumb out loud. "I'd have a neighbor." Tyler does his typical scowl of "my sister is being ridiculous. again." "Oh, c'mon!" he protests good-naturedly. "You have tons of friends." "I really do," I smile. "Far, far away." I make some sort of sloppy and grandiose gesture, as if these magical friends all live in the desert, a remote mountain retreat, or perhaps Middle Earth. "Yeah, but at least you have them. That's got to count for something." "Not when I need a hug," I say, and then regret it right after, for there is the barest hint of a whine catching in my voice. Not like Tyler would ever be happy in the city, anyhow. It's not like he'd guess that I meant him at all. Or maybe he does. We are saying goodbye, after all. He gives me a group photo from the family gathering on Sunday, printed and framed. "Can you put that by their door?" he says, indicating my cousin and my uncle's apartment, directly across the hall from mine. "Face it in towards the door, so it's a surprise." "Of course, good idea." I think we hugged at this point. I was fixating on the sound of his rental car echoing and bouncing off the side of the building, off of the car in front of it. A smooth sound. Purring. Eventually, the sound receded. go
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