Tonight I found empathy for your depression. I was driving home, home being your house, apartment, referred to here as home because it’s you who’s reading this, only you, and empathy without intimacy is just sympathy. Driving home from the bar, which you know, called you from the bar and invited you to join me, ran into Sam and John there and they mentioned how long it’s been since they saw you and I said, “She’s at home, had a rough day, tired from work,” but really that’s just what you’d told me, because you and I both know what home, rough day, tired, really mean: safety, terror, fear. Ran into Sam and John there at the bar and called you, already knowing what you’d say but called you anyway because Sam and John wanted to see you, because it’d been so long since they saw you and because it’s not just me who wants you to come out and enjoy yourself, have a good time, but also Sam and John, and also others, too, I’m sure.

You said what I said I figured you’d say, which was, “No, sorry, I’m home now, had a rough day, tired, and about to go to bed, but have fun yourself, and say hi to Sam and John for me,” you said, and, “Will you be coming over tonight? I hope so. If you do I’ll probably be asleep but I’ll leave the light on and the door unlocked if you do, which I hope.”

“Sorry,” I said to Sam and John, “but she says to say hi,” to which they expressed their well wishes and condolences for your rough day, after which I tried to do what you said to do, I tried to have a little fun myself, which was hard, even with Sam and John there, and yes, I admit it, I had a little to drink, maybe more than I ought to have had, definitely maybe more than I ought to have had considering the drive home, to your house, apartment, but I’m pleased to report I did have fun, enjoyed myself, laughed and talked and drank the beers that made everything light and not just so goddamn heavy, which I don’t blame you for, I don’t, but goddamn it if it isn’t so goddamn heavy sometimes I don’t know how it is I’m able to breathe.

I said goodbye to Sam and John who said to say hello right back to you, got in my car and was driving home, thinking how nice it’d been to enjoy myself, see Sam and John and have a good time and think the next time I saw them, maybe you’d be there too, maybe you’d be able to enjoy yourself and have a good time along with me and together we’d just feed off each other’s good times until we were so light we’d just float off into the sky if we weren’t tethered down by our shoes, clothes, pockets and roof. Thinking that and also thinking it was about to get goddamn heavy again real soon, so I lit up a cigarette, something I don’t usually do in my car on account of the lingering smell but there’s a time and place for everything, and this time the time to light a cigarette was in the place of my car.

I took a shortcut home through a residential neighborhood between the bar where I’d been to your home, smoking, went to ash out the window and missed, the ash fell inside my car, on my lap, and I brushed it off and then looked up, and I’m not telling you this as any kind of excuse, I’m not, just what happened: how one thing happened and led to another, a chain of events wrapped so tight around my solar plexus I can hardly breathe: looked up and saw a car parked right in front of my car, my car that I was driving, that was moving, moving fast, moving right into the parked car, hitting the parked car, hit the parked car, a terrible smash and sound the sound of two heavy things hitting each other hard at such a fast speed, the smash of one heavy thing hitting another very, very hard, but also light, light because of the beer I’d had to drink to enjoy myself like you’d said, also light because the cars they make these days are pieces of shit, not really cars at all but just thin metal and plastic and rubber in the shape of cars that fold at the slightest touch, which this wasn’t, really a heavy touch so all the more folding, and finally light because there wasn’t any room to think, no decision to make, I just kept on driving, driving in the car I was driving, the one headlight that wasn’t busted now I followed to home, your home, where you’d left the door unlocked, the light on, and where you were sleeping in bed. When I got into bed next to you you roused and asked me if I’d had a nice time, and I said, “Yes, but it’s good to be home, I had a rough day, and I’m very tired.”

Tomorrow I’m going to park my car in a place where no one will find it, so that when the owner of the parked car comes out in the morning and sees the wreckage of one light thing that is heavy hitting another light heavy thing, his rage, subsequent police report, matching of paint swatches and following sweep of the area for another car matching the scrape of paint found on his car and with similar damage will not eventually result in my incarceration. Yes, I think, I will park my car in a place where no one will ever find it.