e Glass Girl Talia Loevy-Reyes ‘23

THE GLASS GIRL

Talia Loevy-Reyes

She told me that she was made of glass. e brittle sort, invisible but for a glimpse of an outline or a slight distortion of light. I laughed when she said it, for she did not look as though she were glass or even porcelain as she rushed down the hill to join me on the sweltering August day. I poked her arm to make sure, but she batted my hand away with a smile as bright as the sun. So I assured her, “Don’t worry, you are not made of glass. Glass cannot talk.” I remember that she laughed but I cannot remember what it sounded like. I imagine it to be warm, an embodiment of the cloudless sky. “Do you want to be my friend?” she asked of me, plopping down to sit in the fresh, dew-stained grass. I followed her, my bare toes curling in the soil, already trying to memorize the lines of her round, beaming face so I could tease it out of my mind later. “Yes.” e word tasted sweet, like cherries. I twined a strand of grass around my fore nger, and she shifted, bringing her knees to her chest and hugging them close. “Even though I am made of glass?” she pressed, her smile faltering. “You are not made of glass,” I reminded her. “Glass cannot move.” e joy on her face returned, and she unfolded herself again, rising to her feet. I stood with her, the gaiety in her eyes infectious. She took my hand, and her ngers were a cool reprieve from the summer’s warmth. We walked to the swing set my grandfather had built for my mother when she was a child. e chains squealed when they moved, but I had never minded. e noise had grown comforting. e girl sat on one of the swings, her feet dragging on the ground, her hands clutching the chains. e breeze blew her hair around her head, forming a halo of frizz. She laughed and vainly tried to atten it. I passed her my favorite scrunchie, a deep purple with a tie at the top. She pulled back her hair with it, a messy ponytail with strands that poked out at every angle. It suited her strawberry cheeks and full curving mouth. “What’s your name?” I questioned. She frowned, swinging back and forth, the chains creaking and the wind snapping at the tie-dyed cloth of her sundress. “Summer,” she nally decided, pumping her legs and leaning back to let the momentum carry her. “My name is Summer. What is your name?” I understood her pause, wondering what I wanted my name with her to be. I wanted it to be something bright, memorable. A name for me and her alone, nobody else. Like a secret. e name belonging to me suddenly felt inadequate beside her. e name I had was a lonely one. “Moon,” I decided. e glass girl laughed, swinging high into the sky. I followed her, watching her every movement, deciding that we would never forget this day. at years later, we would sit on the swings and laugh about how young we were, on the fateful day that we met. We swung and talked for hours, Summer and I. e glass girl. When my father called me in for lunch, I turned to her, my eyes gleeful and wild and stinging from sweat and sunscreen. “Come,” I told her. “Eat with me.” I could not wait until my father saw her. We would eat and laugh at inside jokes and after, traipse outside with popsicles that would melt across our hands and faces. She leaped from the swing, staggering a few steps as she made contact with the ground. I followed her, loving the second of weightlessness in the air before I landed. “See?” I panted to her. “Glass cannot do that.” She turned her cheek away from me as we walked. I had to nd another place setting for her, and I gave her half of my sandwich, cut diagonally into neat triangles. When my father entered the room, I smiled and introduced them. Summer reached out, extending her hand to shake his. But my father didn’t so much as look at her. He looked at me, smiling as though I had done something endearingly wrong. He walked across the room, tugging back the chair Summer sat in.