bare, bleeding foot onto the tree trunk.
i grab her hand and yank, but her skin is wet with sweat and blood and the rain that won’t stop pounding down on us through the place where the roof used to be. she slips out of my grasp and sits on the ragged tree trunk like it’s a slide. i grab for her again, but she pushes off, letting herself fall. i reach for her hand, but she’s gone. the last thing i see of my best friend is her dark skin and bright pink fingernails swallowed up by the swollen river running down the street we grew up on. the water 