In autumn, the trees molt incessantly; dispelling their yellow leaves over the pavement and streets. She treads carefully when she walks home from school; remembering how fast a fall can happen, remembering how quickly children find something to laugh at. She will always remember the damp, slippery leaves becoming compost beneath their sneakers and the smell of rain in her hair basted onto her face against the weight of his bare shoulder.
She stared down at her dirty sketchers and fingered the hole ripped into the knee of her jeans as he brushed the wisps of hair behind her ear. Her mind seemed to have escaped the present moment as she began to think about how her grandfather always volunteered to rub sun block on her in the summer, and how she hated to feel his rough, leathery hands run over her twigged legs. There was a tiny, yellow maple leaf stuck to the bottom of her sneaker, and as she bent down to grab it, she was thrust to the carpeted floor and felt the rush of air being pushed out of her lungs. He held his hand tight across her mouth and she thought of herself, years ago, crouched by the crack of her parent’s bedroom door, her hand fixed to cover her own mouth so that her breath would not give her away. Her eyes intent on her parent’s bodies writhing against one another, gazing at their motions in curiosity.
When she felt the fatigue in her muscles, tiring from the weight of him, the yanking and slamming of her tiny wrists, he finally entered her with a piercing pain, and the tears began. And, all she could think was that she had always hated the feeling of wet strands of hair sticking to her face. She wanted so much to be able to tuck them behind her ears.
