“I heard.”
At the time, warmth spread through my chest.
I thought Ben was being kind.
I did not yet understand that some childhood promises grow into something much larger.
The years passed quietly.
Ben rode his bicycle to our house almost every afternoon.
My mother tolerated the noise we made.
My father barely looked up from his newspaper when Ben walked through the door.
Rosie, however, always waited near the front window for the sound of his tires on the driveway.
He helped her with homework.
She made him bracelets from colorful beads.
He watched the same animated movies with her so many times that he could recite every line.
By the time we were seventeen, I had started imagining a future with Ben.
I never told him.
The thoughts lived only in private moments while I brushed my hair or lay awake at night.
