The Pink Hour When Time Learned to Roll Again

I used to believe that grief was a fixed point, a vault where time went to die. Then I dyed my hair the color of a wound still breathing—pink, absurd, alive—and I pushed off the curb on four small wheels and felt the city exhale around me.
He never introduced himself. He only arrived at the skatepark when the light turned to amber dust, rolling beside me like a secret kept in sync. His shadow would stretch across the concrete and touch mine, and for one suspended second I was not the girl who had lost everything last winter, but two bodies moving through the same warm current.
My neon hoodie still smells faintly of him—of cedar and rain—though I tell myself it is only the dye. The wheels grind a low hymn; my hair flies like a banner I finally raised against the grey. I do not speak to him, but I lean my whole weight into the turn, trusting that someone, somewhere behind me, is leaning with me.
Time, it turns out, was never buried. It was only waiting for us to roll forward again.

Editor: Antique Box