I saw you today. I was just talking about how much I missed you and then out of thin air I see an unmistakeable bobbing green, skidding down my favorite street. I rolled down my window and shouted your name and from there I almost killed you. The brand new skateboard you got for Christmas, slipping from your feet and rolling into the distance. You didn’t run to pick it up after you stumbled to the ground. Instead, you stared at me with a beaming smile, the one that I’d been picturing in my head since the last time I saw you. “What?” you managed to say, after being scared out of your wit. “Hi!” I giggled, like the naive fool I was at the moment. Softly so only the sharpest ears could hear, you mumbled “Hey,” back. From there, I kept driving, to my home less than a minute away, wishing I could stay. You know I would’ve gotten out of the car and hugged you until neither of us could breath. Today was this lovely, deadly, unexpected encounter.

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