‘Jay’ drove back to college after another holiday season at home. His sister now attended Michigan State University as well, pursuing a Ph.D. in Psychology after graduating from Cornell University. Jay often regrets the missed opportunities he had to be so close to his sister after four years apart, but he was young, immature (even for 21), and unaware of the next tragedy about to befall him. While home for the holidays, he and his sister saw their parents’ marriage breaking apart. He left with the hope that they might work things out, but the day after returning to school, his father left his mother after 25 years of marriage.

It was another stunning blow to a young man whose friends and acquaintances assumed he had a charmed life. Jay had everything he wanted, a college education paid for which he in turn pissed away by doing the minimum amount necessary to squeak by, and spending money every month. He was a spoiled brat who had hidden from the darkness of the loss of his friend through four years of partying and trying to fit in among his classmates. Since high school, he buried both grandfathers, six more friends, two well-loved teachers, and now he faced another major loss. He continued to spiral away from people who meant the most to him, including his dear sister.

A young woman, the girlfriend of his roommate, who shared his birthday, helped keep him from completely self-destructing. Katie, whose relationship with Jay was strictly platonic, was the first person outside his family to urge him to follow his dreams. She attended the early performances of his first band, Delusions of Grandeur, and listened to the stories swimming around in his head. She read the earliest drafts of his writing as he struggled to complete his first novel.

He never came close to that goal in Michigan and in fact wouldn’t actually complete anything -short story of otherwise- until the turn of the millennia.