Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -… [831]

Joanne and I cried all over each other, saying good-bye. We promised to phone each other, to stay in touch. I don’t think we’ll be able to. It costs extra to call Olivar. We won’t be able to afford it. I don’t think she will either. Chances are, I’ll never see her again. The people I’ve grown up with are falling out of my life, one by one. — , Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -…, 831

Note

The long-distance rate as the true unit of grief: a friendship ends not in catastrophe but in a billing tier. Short declaratives accumulate like a ledger, then the last sentence widens the frame from Joanne to everyone — ‘one by one’ — turning a single goodbye into a pattern the narrator can now see.