Like so many things, it begins with a girl.
(There’s also a boy, but he’s much less important. He’s only the teller of tales, a word-style hero who has occasional flashes of being better than he has any right to be. Let’s just get it out of the way, the boy is me. I’m just here to narrate.)
So, a girl, and a boy. Also to get it out of the way, this isn’t a story where the boy gets the girl, or the girl gets the boy. If that’s the kind of happy ending you need, to quote the Man in Black, get used to disappointment.
Don’t get me wrong—the boy cared about the girl very, very much. And he was pretty sure she cared for him, as well. At the very least, she let him stick around while casting off so many others who had become tiresome or predictable. They loved most of the same things, and always got each other’s obscure references. He made her laugh. And sometimes, when he said something particularly clever or charming, she had a way of smiling at him that lit up her whole face and made her, without a doubt, the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
They were friends for a long time. She became the most important constellation in his sky. He’d have taken a bullet for her, and very nearly did once. She played a key role in him becoming the person he is today.
They fell out of touch eventually, but the echo of her presence in his life was something he always treasured.
And then one day, he found out she was gone.
And that made him feel a certain kind of a way about a great many things.