THIRTY-FOUR.

35: you were only seventeen.

“Regina”

“Oh Regina”

He ended the voicemail with the same words he began with.

With the soft call of his wife’s name.

And Zachary couldn’t even bring him to hear it all again. He even had tears falling frailly down his cheeks as he tossed it away.

He sniffled as he attempted to communicate with Katharina while his ears fell on his favorite song on the radio. It was timely, perhaps—

—cigarette daydreams by Cage the Elephant.

What a name you would have thought, but it meant something more to Zachary. The lyrics, because food was his cigarette that he was addicted to. And also the fact that he was barely even seventeen and still faced as much strugg