Not everyone can say they befriended a tragedy.
But I did.
I grew up knowing watercolor girl.
She was a few years older than me
and it seemed that in that time before I had tasted the earth,
she had tapped into some kind of ancient, arcane knowledge.
She wished on dandelions,
and she knew that to move a flower,
you had to dig up the roots.
She always said that she, too, would move far away one day.
This stout oasis of knowledge and beauty
was not moved by the world.
Rather, when the world got in her way,
she pinned it down and painted it with her shiny, wet watercolors until she was satisfied.
I just stood back in awe.

One horrible day, she…
She kissed a dead boy.
She kissed him too many times and she began rotting from the inside out.
Her lips grew dry and her bones grew dry and her skin grew dry.
He hollowed out her watercolor heart and filled it up with hot sand.
I was forced to watch as she became everything she hated.
She no longer dreamt of uprooting herself from this tiny town with no room to grow.
In fact, I don't think she dreamt at all.
Watercolor girl evaporated and suddenly,
all of the magic in the world was gone.
Not everyone can say they befriended a tragedy.
But I did.
I watched watercolor girl move on.