"I waited by the phone for a week. Then a month. Then two months. Then a year.
At night, I dreamed he returned and I would ask him "Where did you go?" and "why?"
After a year, the few belongings in his room were packed into boxes and placed in the upstairs hall closet.
At night, I imagined him sneaking around outside the house, coming over to my window and tapping it gently with his finger to wake me. But he wouldn't need to wake me because I would already be awake, waiting.
This didn't happen. He didn't come back.
Leaving the most awful and curious itch inside me that I couldn't scratch."
the brain cells of a complex kidd wonder
