i never made it off the bridge, but my body ached like it did. and because my brain was too waterlogged with the river i failed to drown in, i was sent to the school nurse the next day.

she took one look at the bags under my eyes, at my cracked fingertips still bitten from the cold.

my lungs burned as i watched her call my father.

i'd only ever seen the man cry once before: when he tore down the door to his crumbling childhood home - tears only reserved for goodbye situations.

later, he sat me down under the glow-in-the-dark stars we pasted together on my ceiling when i was ten. he had just turned forty-three, yet his hair was whitening faster than it was supposed to.

"nothing's unfixable as long as we're alive," he told me, a plea. and i believed him. i believed him.

i believed him.


(neither of us knew it...

...but he was already talking to a corpse.)

we went for a drive, once, in late spring.

i told my mother i was seeing a friend. you told your pops you were seeing a girl.

i parked behind our local grocery store three minutes before six-thirty. you pulled up beside me three minutes after seven.

you kept your hand on my thigh, and when i laced my fingers in yours, you didn't let go. you told me you had a spot, but we couldn't find it - even in the summer sunlight.

so we parked by a mountain and climbed in your backseat, instead.

beforehand, you took off my shoes - side by side, like a habit. during, you pushed my hair from my face - carefully, like i was glass.

afterward, you cradled my head to your chest, and i watched you pluck threads from the cloth ceiling of your Buick.

"this means nothing. this means nothing. this means not a single, ******* thing."

you didn't say goodbye when you dropped me off.


(but you did kiss me, soft and slow. and you looked me dead in the eyes, a frown on your brow, and said,

"please. text me when you get home.")