“Maybe she’s not texting you because she knows the only reason you’re checking in is to make yourself feel better. Yeah, maybe Gretchen wants to get on with her life and never think about you again. Maybe she thought you were dead, Jimmy. Checking tips on the hotline, coming home night after night to an empty house with only your scent on your pillow to cling to for comfort, until it too faded away and she was left all alone with nobody to make breakfast ramen for, alone with nothing but her scentless pillows and haunted thoughts of all the friends she lost in the war.”