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rooms. She will be reading, waiting to hear about a dear friend who was mildly injured.

I will have to walk pass her without her noticing me in an effort to avoid any type of
communication. If that fails, I will either have to run, or pretend I am someone else. I get closer and
closer to her and try to stay in a position where I can see her but she can't fully see me. At the end
of it all, I manage to get pass her, but as I'm at the exit door, I begin to think about shopping at the
Chase Mart. How I haven't been there in so long and how if I don't confront her eventually I will
never be able to go there again. How I hate going to that huge grocery store two miles away with
the lousy employees.

"Hey Julia." She looks up at me surprised. After she completely recognizes me, there is no anger or
anything of the like in her expression. Maybe the events that brought her here made her too tired to
be angry.

I realize that it's safe to converse and that any ill feelings or wills she has towards me are
temporarily suspended, so I ask her what she's reading. She tells me it's a collection of all the
works by her favorite author. Interesting.

I sit down and she begins to tell me about how her boyfriend injured himself at work, and how she
is waiting to hear about his condition. She asks me how I've been and I tell her that I'm the same as
I've ever been.

I ask her about her job, and she tells me she hates it. She talks about how she hates computers, how
she hates her boss, how she hates all the paperwork. I try to imagine what computers and
paperwork would have to do with being a clerk at a convenient store, but I can make no
connection. I guess she must have detected the confusion in my face because she then says that she
doesn't work at that store anymore, that she got a new job. This is some of the best information I
have received in a long time.

Just before visiting hours end, a doctor speaks with Julia, and then we continue our conversation
outside as the Moon watches us.

Her first words catch me off-guard as she begins to talk about how losing me forced her to become
stronger. How she had to stop herself from using drugs and making bad friends. Ultimately, she
says losing me played a large part in her getting to where she is now; not exactly having her dream
life but having a life that she can accept and call her own.

I, on the other hand, am not full of words, so the conversation ends and we part ways. That is until
we realize we are going to be taking the same bus. There are a few people on the bus we get on, but
we manage to sit near each other and end up talking about trivial matters the entire way. She gets
off before me and after she leaves the thought of definition comes back into my mind. Most of the
time, the audience of a book defines the book itself. If Joe ever wrote a book, is it possible that the
people who end up reading his book are like him? I need to stop thinking about this.

I get off the bus and begin to walk home. As I'm crossing the parking lot for my apartment
building, I see that Lynne is in her car, exactly like how she was some nights ago, and she is just