Thumb on the spacebar, Dahlia clicked her way down. Facebook. Her favorite collection. A lifetime worth of the people who had been important to her all in one place. Jason was having another baby. Teresa was having her wedding in the spring. Sarah was still as political as she had been 9 years ago, and her opinions were just as half-baked. People who she went through cycles with, engaging the occasional exchange of texts or emails before fading back out into the fringes of one another's lives.

And then there were the gaping voids.

The pages that poked up only on anniversaries and birthdays.

Happy Birthday, Buddy. I still think of you every day.

Dozens of likes, rarely a comment.

Remember that time we . . .

I can't believe it's been five years.

A heavy sigh turned her chest into a cavity with the stinging ache to match, slipping her hand over so she could click on the 'X' and forcibly put an end to the rabbit hole she was threatening to plunge into.

"

Dark but living, living but friendly, friendly but not grasping.

"

- p. 10 ♬

"

. . . drunk Noise is like a drunk man: blurry and boring and dangerous.

"

- p. 25 ♬

"

The Noise is a man unfiltered, and without a filter, a man is just walking chaos.

"

- p. 42 ♬

"

Anything you might want to touch here would cut you.

"

- p. 134 ♬

"

The only place you belong is the place you can never go back. And so yer always alone, forever and always.

"

- p. 151 ♬

"

. . . love fuzzing all over his Noise.

"

- p. 154 ♬