I saw her. She was so…
I should stop thinking about her; she’s not…important…anymore.
I’m a lawyer; a successful one at that! I shouldn’t be wasting time thinking of her. For God’s sake, I haven’t even contacted her in 15 years! Why is she still stuck to my thoughts like a leech?
A leech. That’s what she is…she even looks like one, sucking on those paper poisons all day, drowning in nicotine and misery she’d rather suppress.
Leeches don’t laugh though. Resting on that bench in the park, that giggle was the spark that lit a fire of emotions and memories. It was so familiar, but it was all wrong as well. The sound was joyous and loud, but tainted somehow. The purity and innocence in my memory was buried under layers of cracking, spluttering and hacking that only abuse to the vocal cords can cause…

I was so happy she invited me to her birthday party! She’s turning 8 and I got her the perfect gift! She has to open mine first!
“Hi! I’m sosososossosososo happy you came! I wanna show you something before you go inside okay?” She’s bouncing in front of me while my mommy takes the present inside. Her blonde curls are bouncing with her and I just wanna reach out and grab them!
“C’MON!” She yells, excited and full of life. She snatches my wrist and pulls me to the back of the house. This is her Grammy’s house and I’ve never been here before. We pass the pool with the water slide. Wow! Then she pauses at a small, wooden door--one made just for kids like us!--in the backyard surrounded by a large, circular wall.
“You ready?” She giggles. “It’s a secret!” She pushes the door open and pulls me in swiftly.
“A SECRET GARDEN!” When she smiles, I can see the spot that’s black with the loss of one of her front teeth. She’s so pretty…
“Well?! Look at it!”
I turn my head and find an enclosure full of rosebushes! They’re stunning! I run toward one of them and reach in to grab the stem.
“No! Don’t!”
Too late. I’d already punctured my finger with a thorn.
“OW!!” I flinch away from it and put my finger to my lips.
“Grammy told me I could only pick one. And to be careful of the thorns. Lemme see.”
She grabs my hand before I can give her my consent and examines my superficial wound. “I’ll get you a band-aid okay? Sorry you got hurt. I shoulda warned ya. I’m sure Grammy won’t notice just one more missing flower.” She puts her index finger to her lips and smiles. “Ssh!”
She spun on her heel, sprinting to the nearest rosebush as I cradled my puncture wound. She swiftly grabbed just the bloom of a ruby red rose and cupped it in her tiny hands. She ran back and smiled at me, holding the rose’s most beautiful piece in her fingers, her emerald eyes staring gleefully at me.
That’s the best memory I have of the girl that was my best friend so many years ago. So full of happiness and life. Her skin seemed to be drenched in sunlight and her eyes sparkled with passion. Her hands gentle and soft, holding a rose’s bloom in her cupped hands like it was the most precious peace offering she could give. She looked like a cherub. A gorgeous little angel with blonde curls and the thrill of life in her eyes.
What happened to her? What has she been doing? What changed her so completely?
What took the emerald shine of her eyes and replaced it with a haze of bottle green? What took the energy, grace and thrill from her and exchanged it for lethargy, inelegance, and so much boredom that she’d use harmful chemicals to gain an illusion of flight?
It couldn’t have been the ink under the skin that used to be unmarred. It couldn’t have been the new artificial, faded color in her hair. These were effects…but what was the cause?
Is she even happy with this or does she just fool herself into believing so? It looked like such a pretentious show she was putting on for people who showed no non-verbal sign of care for her. For the girl I used to know…at least from what I could see.
For the girl I’m shocked to find I still want to know. After everything. After the monstrous, self-inflicted, internal wounds she’s causing. I have this insane want…need to grab her ankle and pull her down from the cloud nine she thought she found. I need to help her. Tell her someone cares. If I don’t…who will?
I take a deep breath and rub at my eyes. To think…all of this brought on from a single sighting in a park I happened to rest in at just the precise moment she decided to stumble into my line of vision. Funny how life works…
I have to do this before I change my mind. I simply cannot just sit back and forget about her. I became a lawyer for this precise reason. I can never relax until some form of justice and contentment is found and I’m always willing to do anything capable with words to find it. So I decide to call her.
I don’t know why I kept her number for so long. I guess I never felt ready to let her go. The mystery of what ever occurred to change a person so utterly and entirely never let me delete the one piece of contact information I still had.
It’d be some kind of miracle if this was still her phone number, but I have to try. So I press call. I don’t let myself let go of my cell phone until I hear it stop ringing.
“Hello?”