This wouldn’t work. We both knew it, but it was still so easy to get attached. Even though we hardly had any time at all. We used every second we had, milked it for all it was worth.

Therapy. What an odd word. A word that entails problems that you can’t solve yourself. A word that only applies to people with enough money to get other people to solve their problems for them. Therapy is such a bitch.

I weakly smile as she makes a joke. I forgot her name, but she doesn’t need to know that. Instead, I take a fake sip of whatever is in my cup; I don’t trust it. My dad taught me that trick. “See you,” she drawls, her hair brushing my face as she turns around.

The summers of my childhood meant dirty feet from playing ball without shoes, calloused hands from one too many rounds of the monkey bars, and racing to eat popsicles before the humidity melted their contents away. I was a good kid, but also a curious one. 

Oh, how I loved “the talk” in eighth grade. The smell of Axe filled the room and I heard my peers giggling. A boy dressed in bright yellow Nike said, “I heard they tell us about popping cherries” 

 “Yeah I heard there’s blood everywhere!”

9:45.  My heart begins to race. I unconsciously cross my legs on top of one another with my foot anxiously bouncing up and down, my leggings making a soft swishing sound from the friction of them rubbing together. My teacher drones on and on and on about poetry. Normally, I’d be interested.

Pay attention to the road.

The soft mantra fills my head as the dark pouring rain pelts the windshield. The wipers beat relentlessly, expelling as much water as they can while more continues to fall.

Pay attention to the road.

“Ma, it’s morning. It’s time to get up.”

It’s late.

I’m not asleep, though. I won’t fall asleep for awhile.

I won't remember this in the morning. The way her arm feels wrapped around my shoulders. She is helping me into the car, her car, which is red like mushed up cranberries. The last time I ate cranberries was when I was seven.