0. First Light We were young enough that summer had a smell and we both knew what it was. You still know. I remember knowing. We chased the same light through the same long grass. You were running and I didn't think yet about why I followed. That was the last year I didn't think about why. I. White Bud You were the kind of girl who laughed before the joke was finished. I knew the sound by heart — the way it went up at the end, like a question it didn't mean to ask. I called it friendship. I was very good at that. II. White to Red I watched you glow — and I use that word carefully — not like a lamp, not like a mirror, like something deciding what it was going to be. That summer you came back different. You had a name in your mouth you kept almost saying. I heard the shape of it. I wanted to hand you something. Heavy. I didn't. You were still so cleanly white. III. When I Learned to Read How the light moves the same way every morning, how the fruit knows before it knows. How I always found you in a room without looking. I had a thousand words. I kept all of them. IV. The Stain Here is what I know about mulberry: the tree doesn't try. You press against it, you walk away marked. You passed through me for years, Emily. Every season. You don't know what color you left. I do. I kept all of it. V. Purple You went red. I was always going to be here when you did. — not sent