It was winter, a few days after New Year’s. Snow was on the ground. It was the perfect setting for an ending.

She was wearing a baby blue parka, one too big for her; it sagged around her shoulders, nearly swallowed her dark hair and pale skin.

Neither of us knew what to say as we stood on the porch. She broke the silence: “I’ll see you around.” It’s almost laughable how cavalier the whole thing was. Like friends parting ways after lunch, not two people whose lives were diverging after half a decade.

There was no anger, no bitterness. Just resignation. She walked away, down the path toward her car. I didn’t know what to do. I watched her until she receded from my view. For some reason, I told myself that this was a moment to catalogue.

When she left, I took one last look at the apartment, and then I drove away. And then I drank heavily for the rest of the winter.

And then I forgot about her. At least I thought I did.

Her statement wasn’t true. I haven’t seen her since then, and I most likely will never see her again.

But I still remember it, even years later, after other girls have come and gone.

Memories are funny.

He’s a good writer, of course, but there are two things I want to point out here above the obvious cop-out of not writing something myself for this blog entry.

Young writers, especially the ultra-competitive journalist kind that drift out to this country’s coasts and gauge their success in retweets and likes, don’t encourage and promote each other’s professional and creative victories enough.

Norman Mailer confessed to a crippling sense of professional jealousy in relation to his peers, and while it’s easy to wallow in that, we owe it to ourselves and our peers to rise above, and not just superficially. Honestly. Genuinely.

A win for them is a win for us. Creators over haters.

The other point is that it’s just damn good writing.