Waiting

I watch your shadow dance on the cracked asphalt, extending her arms, spinning.

I think her mouth opens for a moment, singing along to the song your friend is playing on her phone. It's a good one- reminds me of when we were kids, letting popsicle juice drip down our chins as we sat on your porch steps, knee to knee.

"Turn it off." Your voice is lethal, a razors edge held to tender wrists. Silently she mutes the phone, stumbling to your side.

I watch as your shadow reaches a gentle hand towards her trembling shoulders.

You scoff, look forwards, and walk away, a new "friend" taking the place of the girl you have abandoned on the asphalt behind you.

Your shadow leans back, stretching fingertips as far as they will go towards the girl, seeking an embrace, but they fall just short, yanked away by your uncaring heels.

Indifference. You seem to project the emotion.

I know better than to believe it.

Perhaps it is not that you don't care but rather that you once cared too much.

When you were the follower instead of the leader, cast aside again and again, I stood beside you. Washed your bloody knees in my kitchen sink when they shoved you down, pulling you into my arms... always a bit too tight, as if I was afraid to lose you.

I was an idiot. I was so worried about losing you that I didn't notice when you started to lose yourself.

You turn and smile at boys sitting at a lunch table. They whistle at you, predatory eyes glinting in the sunlight.

It's almost as if I can see the old you... your shadow... lunging at them, a feral growl in her throat as she races across the pavement, a dark blur.

Instead you giggle, toss your hair, and keep walking, turning back once to wink at them before disappearing around the side of the school.

I'm sorry.

Even now as you gaze down at me from atop your empire I see the fear in your eyes.

As much as you may repeat the empty words to yourself in the mirror at night,

you are not happy.

I've seen you happy.

The days you sat across from me in math, passing crumpled notes between rusting desks.

Your teeth glinting in the darkness at our sleepovers, confiding your latest fixation, the person you would marry one day.

I would always smile along, come up with some imaginary person to be fixated on if only to have something to add to the conversation.

I wonder, even now, if the name I should have forced out of my lips was your own,

but it is far too late for such regrets.

Perhaps you push me away because we both know I can see through that manufactured smile.

Perhaps you were tired of the way I always seemed to care a little bit too much.

But for now, I'll stay.

Waiting for you to come back,

Smiling as I watch your shadow.