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I’d seen her do that before
The gun ai happened Like a plug finally connecting into a working outlet At first it was just a sputter of light and i streaed rapids, that once you floated into the out Wave after wave flooded into my mind
It was the very first
It wouldn’t be the last
A ain, but I have nowhere else to go"
It’s the third time in a month my best friend has coht and asked me to sneak her in It breaks my heart, but this time I’ve decided I have to tell her no
"I can’t Not this tioing to call the cops Besides, you can’t keep cli to ht What if Sammy was here?"
"Sammy is here?!" she exclaims loudly She looks past ain she was listening to every other word I said "Sammy loves his auntie! Hey Sammy! It’s me! Your auntie is here!"
"SSSHHHHH! No, he’s not here, but you’re going to wake up the whole house!" I don’t want to scold her like she is a toddler I want to talk to her like we used to I want to have a regular conversation with her like she is still the girl I bonded hen I was four years old The girl I went to preschool with, the girl I got my first detention with because we talked too irl I’ve known er exists, and in her place is a person I don’t recognize
Her once auburn hair is now soreen eyes are glazed over and unfocused And for someone who used to take ballet very seriously and who race, she is now as jittery as if she’d downed several pots of coffee Her nails look as if she has chewed them down to the cuticles
"So, you don’t want me around your son now?" She crosses her arrabs onto a tree branch for support so she doesn’t topple to the ground Part of me wants to let her in just so she doesn’t fall and break her neck
"No I don’t" Usually I dance around the truth with her and nor like ‘Of course, I want you around hi up But I’d danced that dance and sang that song for too long and I’ve been watchinglower and lower into drugs and sex
It started out as just another teenage girl rebelling against her strict parents Our freshh school she’d sneak out in the o to parties the seniors were throwing She’d get drunk She’d get high She’d hook up with boys in our school
I don’t want to cut her out of irl isn’t the friend I’ve always known, the one asfather had ever been But nothing I’d done has worked She’d been to rehab three ti the third ti her ninety-day stint, and on the day she turned eighteen, she’d signed herself out and walked out
That’s when her parents cut her off for good That’s also when she started disappearing I wouldn’t hear froht she was dead and then she’d appear out of nowhere, looking thinner and thinner Her clothes shabbier Her hair more brittle Her skin covered with pock marks and scratches Dirt caked under her nails She’d confess toon the streets By the tie up, she’d just appear again at another time, even worse off than before
"Fine, I won’t co Can I have soh to last a week or so Maybe a hundred? For food"
"If you’re hungry I canit out to you, but no
"But…" Her lower lip starts to tremble "Skinny will kill ive hiht, but I don’t have it I spent it on a cab to couilt And it works because I areat grandmother I’ve never met and hand it over to her