She did. He coughed. She called him a disaster. He decided he wanted to be a disaster forever.
That was the start. For the next six weeks, they were inseparable in the way only summer allows—no school, no clock, no witness but the sun. She taught him how to skip stones across the creek so they’d bounce seven times. He showed her the treehouse, and she declared it “a fire hazard and a masterpiece.” They lay on the roof at midnight, counting satellites, and she told him about her mom who’d left when she was ten, about the four cities she’d lived in since, about the way she never stayed long enough to unpack.
He came down. His legs felt like stilts. By the time he reached her fence, his heart was a fist in his throat. the missing -2014-
Mira was seventeen. She wore a leather jacket even in the heat and sat on her porch steps smoking thin cigarettes, blowing the smoke up at the sky like she was sending messages. Leo had never spoken to her, but he’d memorized the way she tucked her hair behind one ear, the way she laughed at her phone with her whole body.
One afternoon, she looked up—straight at the treehouse. Waved. She did
Leo— Dad got a call. New job, new state. We left an hour ago. I’m sorry I couldn’t say it in person. You’re not boring. You’re the least boring person I’ve ever met. Keep watching the sky. It’s the same everywhere. —Mira
“Seven,” Leo corrected. Then, because his mouth had no filter: “You smoke a lot.” He decided he wanted to be a disaster forever
Mira laughed. It was a real laugh, not a mean one. “You don’t talk to a lot of people, do you?”