When I first finished this story I didn’t really feel it. But it nagged at me, and I re-read it a couple days later. The gradual reveal of the narrator’s circumstances — a musician and his former manager discussing something about the musician’s ex-girlfriend — is executed perfectly and hauntingly.

I know you wouldn’t want me to be doing what I’m doing right now, sitting in a deserted dive bar in Hell’s Kitchen, having a beer with my former manager. Emphasis on the word former is what you’d say to me with a tug on my sleeve and a show of eyes, the first salvo in your soft-spoken plea to stay away from Ben, to let it go once and for all.