She slid watermelon popsicles down her throat and you were jealous jealous jealous of her garters and ribbon. You were jealous (oh, let's be honest) of the way his mouth creased around her name. Like a promise. Like a secret. Like a kiss. Saccharine, you told her, is just another way of saying something's much too sweet.

And she smiled at you, of course she did, and of course you were jealous of her sympathy, too. Her sincerity. Of that fucking spotlight smile, the one without your chipped front tooth, because she'd never been hit, not in that priceless porcelain jaw.

She hadn't, and you had. You were the wounded one.

But the days you were together, you balanced, careful sway of compromises and concern, as pretty and precarious as two little girls with linked arms. You wore tattered secondhand t-shirts of bands no one knew, and she blushed beneath virginpink dresses, stretched tender fingers toward you like she was reaching for sunlight.

We could be light enough to fly, she said.

And you laughed, too loud and too sharp, popped her soft edges like bubblegum against your teeth. "Impossible," you said, "You're --"

(Did you say you're? You meant we're. You meant to say, we're --)

"--too heavy."

And it was wrong, all wrong. She was still smiling but the smile was not for you.

"I'll do it," she said. "You'll see."