Chapter 1:- Wet Sand
Something terrible happened when I was a kid, something I've never been able to forget no matter how many times I've tried on my own and how many therapists I've consulted.

My best friend was hit by lightning, and I saw the whole thing.


* * *


We were at the neighborhood park at dusk, playing on the swings. He hopped off and wandered over to a tree and leaned against it, swigging from one of those barrel-shaped bottles of colored sugar water we all seemed to love back then.

It started to drizzle, that fine dusting of moisture that drifts down from the sky like liquid velvet, not annoying enough to make you go inside but enough to give everything a wet, glossy sheen. Those rains only ever come on warm summer evenings, it seems, when the day’s heat is finally beginning to back off.

“So, what do you want to do now?” I asked, wrapped up in the center of a gigantic tire swing. I was trying to get it to reach the top of the swing set, but it was barely budging. There was water at the bottom, and I was small.

“Dunno. Wanna build a sand fort?”

“The sand’s still dry, though.”

“I can go home and get a bucket of water.”

I looked down, and that’s when it happened.

I felt a terrible heat on my face and then, less than a moment later, an earsplitting crack. The sky was filled with drums, all beating at once.

I looked up, clapping my hands over my wounded ears.

The tree was gone, split into two smoking halves that lay on the ground like used kindling.

My friend lay there too.


* * *


They held the funeral later that week. My mother bought me an inky-colored dress with matching Mary Janes, just for that day. I don't think I ever wore them again.

After the funeral I followed the street that ran by the park, but I didn’t look over at it. I kept walking, down the hill, past the houses, past the train tracks, until I got to the river.

I sat on the bank for a long time. I didn’t do much but think. I didn’t cry, either. I remember people making a big deal about me not crying. They said it was unusual for a girl not to cry, which confused me because I had always thought adults didn’t like crying.

A frog sang a song down the bank from me. I wasn’t sure who he was singing to. I imagined a lady frog hiding, watching him.

I thought I would take root there at the bank, but the police came and took me away. The flashing lights were pretty, but I couldn’t smile. My mother had a strange smile of her own plastered on her face the whole time the they were at our house, thanking them for retrieving me, explaining that I was a bit disturbed due to “recent events,” but once they left she spanked me.

I still don’t like the rain, and I still don’t cry all that much.