Walking through the halls of PSU, I sometimes saw a flash of long dark hair from behind, heard a certain cadence of laughter, and my heart would stutter for a split second.
It was never her, of course. It was just my mind, forever wired to seek her pattern in the noise of the world. The echoes were less painful now, more like the phantom ache of a healed bone—a reminder of what had been, proof that I had survived it.