A Piece of Time
Ryan looks at me and my chest augments, my ribs splitting up and open, heart bared in gory invitation even after all of these years. I left her caterpillar body on the concrete steps of a school I wasn’t fully ready to leave. I couldn’t find her in the crowd. She was swallowed up by too many people I didn’t know, they were smushed together like sardines until they all morphed into one. She could’ve been in the very back or the very front and I still would not have recognized her. Afterward, I caught her in the midst of it all and she held onto me, her hand clutching at the skirt of my uniform like she was scared to lose me again, like if she didn’t hold onto me with all she had, I might really float away, and we wouldn’t find each other again. We both knew that it would happen anyway and there was no real way to stop it because nothing lasts forever but she carved out a piece of time anyway and we stuffed ourselves inside. We looked at each other, both knowing what the other was thinking because that was how close we were back then. We used up the entire school year learning everything and nothing about each other, scared of piercing too deep, as if we weren’t up to our elbows from the beginning. We stared deeply at each other, the noise of everyone around us crawling over our skin, reminding us of where we were, my navy blue sash burning an unsightly gash into my body that only we could see. I could see in her eyes that this was a big deal. I could feel it like a tug at my spirit. I longed to touch her—so I did. I asked my friend to take a picture of us so we could hug and hold each other’s waists in front of everyone and feel like we were getting away with something. And weren’t we? When we lingered a little too long, and she couldn’t stop telling me how proud of me she was and I couldn’t stop thinking of how I was leaving her behind to find herself when I wanted nothing more than to melt into her until there was no her and no me, just us, weren’t we getting away with something? I remember wanting to yell out, at the people surrounding us, at our friends, at my family, look at us, look at us, aren’t we beautiful? Don’t we get to be beautiful?
I blink. Ryan’s hand in hand with a girl prettier than I am, and instead of crawling, she can flutter now. She looks so different, and I realize I didn’t go to her graduation. I wish she’d look at me. Then she’d see that I’m still alive and full of blood. My heart is in the same place it was then, it hasn’t escaped that moment she dug up for us, it’s still there covered in earth and shame, and it would have been nice if hers was too.
It’s nice that hers isn’t.
Her head turns, and so do I.