I Remember

Lake and tree with mountains in the background at night. Photo by: Petr Kratochvil.

Do you remember that night? The way the crescent moon shone through a single cloud. The soft hum of crickets. The frogs leaping frantically to safety as your footsteps drew nearer the lake. Do you remember the countless times your mother told you not to walk alone at night, no matter what, regardless of how safe you were, how aware, because you just never know—

Crouched among the lily pads, I remembered other things.

That day in church: a pearl-studded heel peeking around the pew. Me, sprawled in a heap of hair and secondhand cotton while the room crescendoed into “ha-ha.” The same tune as the day before, when a “kick me” sign (real original) swung from my fraying tunic. Because being smart was uncool, but being poor was the greater sin.

Then you appeared along the shoreline, a song screaming from your headphones:

“And when her father he came home/He said, ‘Where is my daughter gone?’”

I thought: she’d never tell anyone she likes “The Butcher Boy.”

I thought: she’s secretly just like me.

Did you know I was there, holding my breath as you passed? Or did I fade into the background, as always, when nobody was there to tell you “good job?”

Do you remember the night? Or is it as the atheists say, and I’m the only one left with this?