He had left Athens, Georgia three days earlier, after an argument that had not exactly ended. Nothing in his life ever ended properly. Arguments stayed open, relationships stayed half finished, the songs he wrote in his notebooks always broke apart by the third verse. Mavis, the woman he had left behind, had told him something on that last night that had lodged itself beneath his ribs like a nail.

“You’re not free, Leo. You just never stay anywhere long enough to see what you are.”

He had laughed. Not because it was funny. Because when something is true and catches you tired, laughter comes easier than admitting it.