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Jess Bello
I look down at my knuckles, white as room, giving my mother what she thought she
pearls on my hands. I touch one, then the oth- needed from me. But I was getting older and
my pride was starting to have its way with
er, not feeling a single thing. me, so in a wave of anger and in the dead of
We had been four years old when we first the night I left my home with a backpack full
of clothes. I walked around my neighborhood
met. I moved away from my grandparents' twice, ambling along the sidewalks, kicking
apartment and into a white house on the top the leaves in the street. My heart was pound-
of a hill when my mother remarried a man ing with disappointment and fear as I passed
named Joseph. I was little when I started to Grace's house. I stopped and stared up at her
play with the girl from next door. She was as window. I thought if I stared long enough,
delicate as a swan with the name of Grace. I she would feel it and wake up. And because
I needed her, her lovely face appeared in the
~an remember the blue sky stretching above window. With surprise her eyes took in my
ber small face when we would play in her form. In two minutes she crept outside, I was
ackyard. She would smile and the clouds still standing, waiting for her.
Would roll by and the wind would weave Gently she approached me, getting closer
w·Iht enthusiasm around us both. When we
Wereeight she let me cut off one of her blonde until she could read my look in the dark. She
reached out and stroked my cheek, pushing
~Urlsand I kept it in my sock drawer. When the hot tears off my face as they slipped from
oseph grew angry with me I would close my eyes. I remember blinking, and in that
myself away and sometimes on my loneliest second, feeling her lips pressed to mine. That
ni lghts, take out the strand of' blonde hair and night burst with feelings, my hot anger and
thi.nk about what Grace was doing next door. her sweet compassion. She wore cotton pa-
jamas and her golden hair felt like silk in my
f I always hoped that things were better
or her over there than they were for me. hands.
In school, I began to walk her to class and
of We spent many long evenings outside
pick her up after play practice. I made it a
fro~ur.houses talking until the moon slipped weekly tradition to stand outside her window
w Its place behind the clouds. "If you and try, like that first night, to get her to sense
bier~ king for a day," she used to ask me, her my presence.
wg I rown eyes open with wonder, "what After two years of high school dances
ano~ d you do?" And then we would spend
and shared lockers we were alone in her
e aborate hour drawing by the light of the bedroom before her parents came home one
satnreethtla mp until. one parent, and then slowly afternoon. Her jeans were crumpled on the
if 0 er,would call us in for bed. "Well,what floor and in both of my fists was her silky
hair. As the waters passed to calm we lay to-
he~ou Were queen," I would sometimes ask gether and she stroked my hands. "You have
hea:s wwe parted, She would just shake her knuckles like pearls," she would always say
and 'I antmg only to know what my dreams at that moment, "and your face is peaceful."
And I would tell her, "If I were king for a day,
~ns were filled of. I would stay here with you like this, and let
hom en we were fourteen I ran away from my court run things without me." She would
an a e. Joseph was angry at me and I was at
bric~: ~hen hi~words slammed into me like
lOok· was bred of my mother's pleading
DsuasUandI Ih er SI·1ent mouthing of "I'm sorry."
I step Y d et Joseph's words fall to the floor as
pe over them quietly, retreating to my
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