Prose

I was seven, and it was summer, and I had a new friend. She was tagging along with her sister’s friends, and I was tagging along with hope—because I hadn’t had a friend since we moved, and I needed to keep this one. We came across a log bridge, narrow and slick, stretching over a small dip in the ground. It wasn’t far to fall, but it looked endless to me. I said I was scared. She said I could do it. I believed her. So I crawled on. The log shifted, soft under my thighs. I sli