Nadia called on a Tuesday.
I had not spoken to her in six weeks. Not properly. There had been two short messages early on, the kind you send when you want someone to know you are alive without getting into the details of why your life has suddenly become something you cannot easily explain in a text message.
Nadia was my oldest friend. We had met at nineteen in the kind of accidental way that produces the best friendships, stuck beside each other during a three hour delay at a bus station, nowhere to go, nothing to do, and enough in common to make three hours feel like thirty minutes. We had been close since. The kind of close that does not require constant contact to remain real. We could go three weeks without talking and pick up exactly where we left off.
Six weeks was longer than th
