Twelve Months Ago

The news has exploded and among the rubble is the body of a twelve-year-old girl who plunged off the side of one of the buildings that made up the backdrop she hated and landed in Florida with two things: a collection of broken bones and a collection of broken lullabies - "sweet dreams."

Rebecca Sedwick was apparently attacked viciously on social media, dented with harsh realities and speared with harsher lies until she gave in to the voracious temptation of escape, as so many do. She was less than a year younger than I; presumably entering seventh, to my eighth, grade; most noticeably, this young promise was beautiful, like a bottle of red nail polish dropped and cracked on the floor, coloring the bottoms of your feet instead of the tops. If she had learned how to fly, she wouldn't have hit the ground so hard on her way down. If she had only had time to grow those wings, with neon plumage and hollow bones, if someone had taken the time to carry her while she practiced the gentle swooping motion to follow the air current...

When I was five, there was someone there to shape my hand into holding a pencil and give me my very first long division problem while they drank overpriced coffee. When I was ten, there was someone to give me an Ibuprofen the morning of a test when my back was aching as though shot with compacted fear. And when I was twelve and a bit, there was some unknown senior on the second floor to give me directions to my locker. And then, when I was thirteen, there was someone to email me the Spanish homework while I was buried in alternative music and new textbooks. I don't remember her last name from the attendance list last year, but I do remember the green scarf she was wearing the first time I saw her, and how nice it looked with her hazelnut eyes. Rebecca never got to remember. She stopped at twelve.