Pretexts

“I had this…friend,” Renolds began as we walked. “I use the term friend loosely. She…got into some bad things and ended up…well, dead. Yeah… She’s dead.”

Her eyes glazed over for a long moment. She shook her head and took a deep breath in, letting it out slowly.

“I’ve never said those words out loud before. I don’t know if I ever even said it to myself before. It was hard, to say the least.

“I’m not the kind of person who frowns and hurts. I move on and live. I don’t linger. But it’s hard not to dwell on the past when that’s the only place where your best friend is.

“So, I left my old town. I ran away and I had no one. For a few years I was so lost in partying and drinking… I don’t remember those years well. Eventually I woke up in the apartment of a person I didn’t know for what I wanted to be the last time. I was done being lost.

“I got a job and an apartment. I’m still not tamed, per say, but I have limits.

“I know what it’s like to be lost. Hell, I still am. Hopefully, somewhere in the confusion that is my life, you’ll find yourself.”

Renolds shrugged and took a seat on the curb. It amazed me that a girl so tiny had such a long life in so few years.

I watched her slip off her flats and set her feet on the black pavement. Perfect red toes that walked her past losing everything wiggled like it was a breezy summer day.

“Now, what’s your sob story, Flo?”

I snorted. “Does the lack of one count?”

Renolds smiled, her eyes filling with mischief and excitement again.

“Come on. Let’s go home.” We walked arm in arm, with her shoes dangling from her hand. The word home seemed like a pretty okay description for the place we were going.