I used to know a girl with hair the color of rainclouds and eyes the color of moss. Her favorite number was ninety-five, because that’s the year she wished she was born, and her favorite food was pound cake, because nobody else liked pound cake, so she had to like it enough for everyone. She laughed like she knew everyone was watching, and she drank coffee through a straw, because she had a tendency to spill hot things on herself.
When she was little, she met a boy who didn’t know how to jump rope. His three sisters didn’t have the patience to teach him, so every day he sat on the steps, his face in his hands, and watched them play double-dutch. This boy was me. One day, the girl walked over to me and snapped a jump rope at my feet.
“Let’s go,” she said, and day after day she taught me how to time my movements with the rope until I could jump one-footed, backwards, with my eyes closed.
We became best friends, then we grew up.
We dated, briefly, until I cheated on her with a girl from my class who read poetry, but did not write it, and taught me sign language even though I didn’t want to learn it.
We drifted apart until we weren’t friends anymore, and one day I saw her at a coffee shop. She was laughing with a tall boy, and I watched her sip her coffee without a straw.
Realistic Fiction
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