A week goes by with no reply. It's disheartening, but not the end of the world. The letter I sent her was kinda dumb. She probably thought it was a prank from a friend or maybe it never arrived. Maybe her address changed and some stranger got my rumblings. Knowing all this, I still write another. My reasoning is simple: If Zarah gets it, great. If some rando gets its, that's okay too. I'm hundreds of miles from them with nothing to fear.

Zarah,

Have you ever bitten your tongue so hard you feared it might fall right off?

I have.

I did it tonight a hundred times on the date my parents set me on with Timothy Brown. He chewed with his mouth open and talked about sports ninety percent of the time. You probably think that's not that bad. You're right. It's not, unless you've been on a date with a Timothy Brown clone every weekend for the past year.

— Sent February 13th —