She's gone

So, Rie has gone.

Friday night San and I got a train to Derby to see Rie one last time, at least for the forseeable future. It was a typically-Rie evening. I called her from the station after we had been waiting for a while, and it turned out she wasn't in Derby herself but had been visiting friends somewhere else. So I had to call her friends Anouska and Ben, who I vaguely knew from Derby -- mostly Ben -- to get them to pick us up. It could have been very awkward, but Anouska is an outgoing person who likes nothing better, it seems, than to make a fuss of people. We talked plans for the night and after Rie arrived we headed out into the night.

Like I say, it was a night typical of Rie -- I barely saw her all night, she spent the night flitting between where we were sat and talking to the DJ she had a crush on, and god knows where else. Photos were taken and stories were told. And Rie lost the keys to the flat where she had recently been staying and where me and San were supposed to stay the night. So instead, Anouska gave us sleeping bags and pillows and a duvet and we slept on her living room floor.

It was sad to say goodbye to Rie. To hug her and call her a butt-monkey and know I might never see her again. I don't know how Matt took the news that his recently-ex wife was leaving, or how he reacted when he said goodbye to her the day before.

I know she will be fine, she's a survivor -- in comparison to some of the other things she has been through in her life, this is nothing. She will see her family and some of her oldest friends again, and I expect for her life will more or less pick up where she left it, before she met Matt and everything changed.