Tell me a story

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"Why am I trying to remember a time when breathing didn't feel like choking?"

"Tell me more about your boyfriend... tell me one of your stories." The girl was about the age as my sister Annelise, maybe 12, but she had hair that was dark and knotted like mine. Her skin may not have been the color of midnight, but I felt a connection to her that I had never felt with my sister. We were real sisters because our hair was not silken ringlets, curling around to frame our faces in the picture of perfe- "Come on Charlie, tell me how you met." The girl whined and her large lower lip protruded from her face as she waited for her story. 

The girl was named Anita and our cells were beside each other. Sometimes I would hear her crying at night. Crying for her mother.

For her freedom

Sometimes. If I was feeling in the mood for it and the day had gone well, I would tell her stories. The story of Him, and of how we met

Of how loving him was like breathing And writing him like fresh air. 

 "We met on page ten." I said, page ten was where all of this started, the story of us. 

Ten. 

A perfect number. 

Easy in math, the best time to wake up, the not-too-late time to go to sleep. Ten was a number that made me feel whole so perhaps it was best we met on page ten... He made me feel whole after all. 

"No no, nothing like that. I want the story, ten isn't a story, it's just a number. Give me details, words, sentences" 

Breathe

She wanted me to breathe for her.

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