31. forget

when we were kids, your hair was orange.  it was brighter than anyone i
knew had seen, like fire on top of your head.  curly, and longer than a
boy's should have been, it really did look like your head and
freckle-splattered face were engulfed in flames.

when the teachers called you a hothead, i thought they were talking
about your hair.

we were what, seven? when you moved in.

i could step outside the door that summer, my little toes gripping the
rough concrete of my front stoop, and see your fiery hair from four
houses down. you used to spend all of your time outside, back then.  

you once told me that you wanted to live forever and ever, as sticky,
rainbow popsicle juice ran down our arms as we sat out on the dock
that first summer.  you said that that way, there was no way you could
be forgotten.

i never really did forget that moment.

_xxx</b>

yesterday you turned fifteen.  we went and sat at the end of the old
dock and ate ice cream like every year on your
middle-of-the-summer birthday, our shoes left at home and our
toes skimming the water.  you liked to hold my hand when we walked
down the dock.  we never thought of it as a 'more than just friends'
thing; you said that if one of us fell, both of us were falling and that if
we were together we could keep each other from the dangerous
edge.  

you had always been beyond your years; i could never forget that
either.  

this morning, i woke up to you sitting silently at the end of my bed,
watching me.  your hair flaming hair had been put out, and now it was
a bluish-black, like a bad bruise on your pale skin.  

this was new.

"what'd you do that for?" i inquired.

"do what?"

i sat up completely, my grandmother's hand-sewn quilt falling to the
floor.  i was wearing one of your old, well-worn shirts that you had
given to me, deeming it 'ugly but nice for sleeping.'  it had been big on
your slightly muscled body, but on skinny, short me, it was massive.  i
grabbed a chunk of your freshly dyed hair between my fingers and
tugged.  

"oh yeah, that." you paused, shrugging. "felt like it, i guess."

"you guess."

"i was tired of having to live up to my hair color."

you wouldn't explain that one to me.

"are you sure that's why? just acting on impulse?"

you paused again.

then, "yeah."

_xxx</b>

that evening we walked out to the dock again.  you held my hand
tighter than you usually did.  we sat on the very end of the old, wooden
dock and watched the reflection of the sunset in the glassy-smooth
water.  we were completely silent.  

i thought about all of the time we had spent on that dock; summer
after summer for eight years, we had been on the dock and in the
pond nearly every day.  you used to surprise me by suddenly leaping up
and flying into the pond with one of your perfect, olympic-worthy dives,
leaving a cold spot on my arm where i had previously been leaning on
you.  

i turned and asked you if you ever missed the old days, when we were
kids.

you looked at me with your intense emerald eyes.  "we really aren't kids
anymore, are we?"

_xxx</b>

you told me a lot that night.  

you explained that you were tired of having to be the cheerful, polite
type that people expected from other people that had bright
appearances.  you were tired of letting people down.

you told me how you were unhappy; your family was fraying around the
edges and the very threads that held it together were completely
snapping.  

you had tears in your eyes that never really spilled over when you told
me that you wanted to forget.  

i only cried when you told me that you would rather die today than live
forever and ever. that you wanted to be forgotten.

_xxx</b>

i don't think i'll ever really forget that moment, either.