the sky is breaking open.

concetta and i would rush out to the edge of the shore to watch the waves crash down as the sky was ripped apart by lightening. our mothers would shout for us to come back, come back where it’s safe inside; but as long as we were together we were safe. holding hands, running along the sand to where the tide lapped our feet; we stood in the open air and felt the rain wash over us, cleansing us, making us whole. something about the stormy weather made us feel alive again.

concetta was the wild one, the one with the tangled hair and the mischievous eyes that held secrets that only i knew. she wasn’t afraid of anything and when i was with her, neither was i. we spent the summer running through the town, past all the older men who looked at concetta in a way that i had only seen on the movies, past the chainbound women who wore fishnets and smoked cigarettes outside the garage. it was a hot summer, steam rising up from the asphalt as the trees drooped in the heat, and there were heat waves in front of my eyes as she urged me to hurry up. “come on mary-jane!” she encouraged me, and i’d fall to my knees by a blue green ocean where the sand burnt the bottoms of my feet and the gritty shells cut into my shins. it was worth it to get to the ocean, worth the wolf whistles of the men with their leering eyes and cold stares of women who were jealous of our youth. the town was a hell but the ocean was paradise. especially when it stormed.

i only ever felt right when i was in the water. concetta was the wild one but i was the mergirl, fins instead of legs, breathing underwater. the hot air suffocated me but the water revived me. i was beautiful, floating, free. the oppression i felt from being a fifteen year old girl living in a town where freedom was a dirty word and sex was a game would slip away, and it didn’t matter that they all hated me for being what i was, hated concetta for being who she was. we lived along a deserted strip of the coast; the towns people hated it, hated the crusted starfish that littered the shoreline as the tide went out, hated the grains of sand that clung to your skin no matter how vigorously you brushed your skin down before going into their stores. i lived in fear of the old men yelling at me all whilst trying to look down my halter top, but concetta didn’t fear anything. she knew how to play their game.

at least she thought she did.

the sky is breaking open, and i am without concetta. the rain is lashing down but i no longer feel cleansed by it’s pelts. i throw a rose into the ocean and watch as the waves take it away, further and further away. just like he did with concetta. taking her farther and farther out to sea until no-one could hear her screams. i am afraid, but concetta wasn’t afraid of anything.

not even to die.