In 2000 Kirsten Butler Went Missing From TCU And I Think I’ve Uncovered What Really Happened To Her

All Luke left in our old apartment for me was a single banker’s box of what he considered to be “my possessions.” One of those white cardboard boxes with the handles built into the side, the box truly signified that I had been fired from my seven-year relationship.

The move was cruel and calculated, but it was factual. A Texas vagabond who never left owned enough possessions to where she couldn’t pack up and move to another town at the drop of a hat, the few things which were truly mine sat cased in that box.

I tipped the contents of the box out onto the floor to take stock of my arsenal. A hairbrush, a stick of Secret with only 25% remaining, a frayed toothbrush, a half-filled pint of cheap vodka and a few changes of clothes (unwashed) fell out onto the stiff carpet. Stuck in the bottom of the box were my only non-essential possessions that Luke returned to me – my high school yearbooks.

I laughed out loud when I saw the yearbooks lying there next to a pair of stained socks. The yearbooks were the only possessions of mine recovered from my mom’s house after she died, mailed to me by my aunt Helen along with a note which scolded me for my lack of sobriety at my mom’s funeral.

Nothing else to do on a Winter’s Sunday afternoon and a pinch of sad nostalgia coursing through my veins, I sat down on the floor and started combing through the yearbooks. I never could have imagined my early adult life would get so sad that I would yearn for the days of acne, broken braces, 7:50 a.m. bells and my fickle group of friends from East Lubbock High School, but that’s where I was. Sad. Sad. Sad.