I lost myself in books because they were friends who never letme down, and I didn’t hide enough of myself the way everyone else did, so people didn’t ‘get’ me. I often recited Shakespeare from memory because of my dad, who is a librarian. I carried around snow globesbecause I was in love with every place I’d never been.
The cookout was crowded, and none of the other kids were talking to me because, like I said, I was the neighborhood weirdo. I thought that maybe kids weren't nice to girls like her either. Something about the way she was smiling as she stuttered out the question helped me know I needn't bother with being shy, because she was being so brave. Girls who thought the world was beautiful, and who read too many books, and who never saw cruelty coming. Because time and taught me that kids weren't kind to girls like me: Girls who were dreamy and moony-eyed and a little too nice. Usually when kids I didn't know came up to me, I clamped my mouth shut like the heavy cover of an old book falling closed. To this day I don’t know why I picked that moment to be so honest. “I was kind of a weird kid, so when I answered, I said ‘Spinning stories,’ calling it what Gigi had always called it when I got lost in my own head, but my voice cracked on the phrase and another tear slipped down my cheek. While I expected her to say ‘What’s wrong?’-a question I didn’t want to have to answer-she asked ‘What are you doing?’ instead, and I was glad. I had never met anyone who…spoke the way that she did, and I thought that her speech might have been why she waited so long to speak to me. I had noticed a girl watching me, but it took her a long time to come over, and even longer to say anything. I heard a small voice behind me, asking if I was okay. But she was gone and I didn't know if I'd ever be okay again. When Gigi had told me stories, they'd felt like miracles. I was telling myself a story about what it might be like to live in London, a place that was unimaginably far and sitting in the palm of my hands all at once. I was cupping the last snow globe she’d ever given me in my small, sweaty hands and despite the heat, I couldn’t help imagining myself inside the tiny, perfect, snow-filled world. ‘What a Wonderful World’ was playing through a speaker someone had brought with them to the park, and it reminded me too much of my Granny Georgina. And pretty black and brown people were everywhere. There wasn't a cloud in the flawless blue sky. It was one of those hot Brooklyn afternoons that always made me feel like I'd stepped out of my life and onto a movie set because the hydrants were open, splashing water all over the hot asphalt. I met my best friend at a neighborhood cookout the year we would both turn twelve. “The same song was playing the second I met my ex–best friend and the moment I realized I’d lost her.
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