When Fall comes, I think of you.

Because no one else has replaced your presence yet. No one else has appeared at just the time you did, so my memory of them would be connected to a rising chill, descending days and my winter coat. You still occupy that particular space, so each year, I pull you on with my knee-high black leather boots (only to be worn in after Labor Day, you know); I scratch you into my skin with my 100 percent wool cowl-neck sweater and I cocoon myself within you in my pile of winter blankets.

Of course, you marked me, so you stay with me. But that’s not why I think you in the Fall.

I think of you because no one else has come to rent out your seasonal space, the same way I think of food poisoning when I see pecan pie.

That’s it.

When the Fall comes, I think of you. Because of a logistical glitch.

I just remembered something very important that I feel like I should cop to.

I once had phone sex with a wrong number when I was 18. At my parents’ house. I hadn’t even left for college yet.

Wait ’til I tell my therapist; that’s going to be awesome