It was your idea. When we had already done all there was to do in a summer. When we had beaten every level of Super Mario Brothers twice. When we had played every board game stacked in the guest room closet. When we had called Aaron H. — and hung up. Fifteen times. When we had rifled through your father’s Playboy collection. When there was nothing else to do but clean your room and decide which toys you’d give away to Goodwill, you found a My Little Pony and asked if I wanted to play. I shrugged. But you insisted. And tore your room apart until you found Firefly and handed her to me.
So we built palaces from shoe boxes and played like we used to when both time and space dissolved. We played until your parents came home from work and yelled at you for not being ready. It’s okay, I told you. We can play tomorrow.
The next morning, you answered the door in your bikini. You grabbed me by the hand and pulled me into you. You had so much to tell me. But Sean was on his way over. A boy you had met last night at your mother’s office party. He was so cute. And funny. And you talked all night on the phone. And today, he is taking you to Wild Water Rapids.
So I didn’t want to tell you that I had brought a backpack stuffed with ponies. That I had spent an hour last night in the hot attic digging through plastic bins until I found Twilight, my favorite, and Moonbeam, yours. That I had washed them in warm, soapy water. That I had dried their tails and manes with my sister’s blow dryer. So that they were new again.
Instead, I let you do the final touches of your make-up, closing the door behind me as I left.
STORY IMAGE CREDIT: Flickr Creative Commons/Hina Ichigo
Ouch. Beautiful story.