Ophelia pushes herself off the trampoline and quickly gushes, “No one. Don’t you worry.” I frown and I can feel my brows touching my eyelashes, and she looks back down at her shoes then starts to back away.

“Are you going?”
“Yeah, I should…” I can barely hear her. She shuffles backwards first, then turns and picks up pace as I push myself after her. I loop around her, catching her in my arms.
“Who wrote that?” I repeat.

Ophelia’s green eyes widen and start to waver like the sea, reflecting the setting sunlight. I bring my hand up to her cheek and recoil as she flinches at my touch.
She breaks free of my grip in my moment of insecurity, and I can’t even call her name as I watch her sprint through the gap in the garden hedge.

“What is happening to us?” I whisper into the air. I wring my fingers around my wrist, and stare at the hedge gap for too long, as if she would turn around and come back for me.

I should know better. She never does.