She’s in the hammock in the back yard, the one we strung up a few summers ago after we broke the first one. It’s warm, balmy even. And the stars.

Oh, the stars.

I stuff my hands into the faded pockets of my old blue jeans, the ones she borrowed once and spilled bleach on. The ones with the patch on the knee – a ragged piece from a dress she ripped climbing over the fence in my yard.

She’s staring blankly up at the sky, her face illuminated in the light of a dying backyard fire. Tears run freely from both eyes. The hammock shakes delicatly.

I want to touch her, but I fleetingly wonder if she will shatter under my fingertips.

And it seems backwards, somehow, that I should stand here while she cries. She is suppose to be the one who never lets life get in her way.

The one who is always pulling me back together is suddenly the one who is falling apart.

And I don’t know what to say, so I climb into the hammock with her and cradle her in my arms. And even then, it doesn’t feel like enough.