Rina trips on her shoelaces running to catch up with me. I have short legs, short everything and still I can manage somehow, to get there faster than she can. But she finds something else,and then her run turns out better than mine.
I turn slightly and look back and find her rubbing her knee, awash in the heavy weight of the sun. We're ten, and it's July. Stopping I call back at her, about 20 feet away, louder than necessary. "Do you need HELP 'Rina?" I yell. She grimaces at me and starts to get up when a shadow appears by her. My attention averted I blink in the bright to see the dark form that stands over her now. It's- it's only Chris, my neighbor. I exhale the breath I didn't know I held. He reaches out his palm towards her.
I scoff. Dumb Chris. Boys have cooties we always chant. We don't want anything to do with those creatures. I expect Sabs (that's Rina, you know. Sab-rina.) knows the same.
See, our little club thrives on that knowledge. Sabs and me and our three others: The Fabulous Five. We would make our intentional clique, a tight circle that linked elbows sometimes and cried when the boys were mean. And we knew, boys were always mean. With cooties to boot.
I think about our club as I watch Rina carefully. She's smart and she can think of pretty sharp insults sometimes. One time, she actually called this guy a moldy mouse turd. We always laugh about that.Ow. My eyes water from the strain and the sunrays that come on all sides. I blink them hard and the world is plunged for a moment, into a dark hot pit and I open them again, and she's taken his hand.
He lifts her up and she looks at me in passing. There's some shame in her eyes but it floats away on a tear. What's left, I can't recognize anymore.
They look at each other and walk, together, slowly, still behind me. I blink again, squeezing out a few drops.
I should have picked her up. I walk too fast. What does she think she's doing?
I look back and they are still slow and I can't take it. So I walk -quick as my legs can take me- faster faster into the burning sun.