She smelled like rain and dragon fruit and had eyes that made him feel like he was drowning. Together they’d sit on her back porch, passing a cigarette back and forth, joking that maybe only one lung would get cancer, leaving the butts inside the remains of a potted fern. They’d laugh about that time when he was ten and crashed his bike in the graveyard they always cut through on the way to school. What they didn’t talk about what how she had sat with him, putting her hand over the blood that ran from his knee like she was trying to keep him whole, or how honest he thought she looked then, with his blood on her hands and his leg in her lap.

On days when it was too cold or too rainy, they’d spend their time sitting on the sagging orange couch in his basement, or shivering in his car, sacrificing what little gas was left in the old Jeep so they could warm their hands for a moment. They hadn’t gone inside in recent years, except for once, and after she had ran back out, red faced and shaking, he had rubbed her back while she cried and swore into the street. F*** her, f*** him, f*** all of them.

There were other girls in his life, girls with long legs and sunset eyes and drugs that they’d exchange for constellations of kisses in the front seat of their cars. There were girls that made him feel like he was made of light, girls with magic in their fingers and poison in their smiles. But none of these girls ever made him feel solid like she did. None of them had ever sat with his blood on their hands telling him that it was okay, he was going to be fine.

She laid next to him, now, sleepy, curled up between the armrest of his sofa and the broad side of his shoulder. The sun was setting, throwing bars of orange light across the bridge of her nose. She looked younger in her sleep, her face reflecting the times when her mother would still serve them apples and peanut butter after school. The memory of icy crispness of the fruit hung on her lips like a broken promise. It made him shiver.

Maybe this was why his love for her would never exceed their friendship. They both knew each other too well; Every shameful deed, every broken and bruised part of them had already been turned out to each other and left to dry.

Sometimes she would place her hand on his knee and softly trace the ancient scar with her fingertips, like she was afraid it would break open if she pressed too hard. She would look at him then, her eyes a hard and steely gray.

You know you’re my best friend, right?

Of course he knew. He always knew. She was made up of broken nails and crooked teeth and everything that was important to him. Of course he knew.

She smelled like rain.