anti:freeze

At Hiawatha Elementary, my friends always met at the parallel bars, where we flipped and twirled and groaned about being grounded all weekend. When some older kids planted their bookbags around the mats, patrolling the new border like MPs, we became recess refugees. And we stopped meeting.

That was the year we lost J. to who-knows-what terrors; she wandered the halls with glazed eyes and robot shoulders, straight-backed and serious as a totem. She never spoke a word to me again.

The year before that, A. told me she never lived anywhere long enough to see a place close. Or to lose someone.

What about the friends you leave behind? I asked, tugging at my hair, wishing she would say something desperate or sad or sweet.

Instead, she simply shrugged. I don't lose them, she said. They lose me. She kicked up some dirt with her Keds and watched the dust blow away in the wind. Poof!