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Excerpt from "Orange Slice Smile", by Michaela Nardo
Originally published by Harness Magazine

1999
The year we met
And on your birthday, you, her, and I gathered on a playground by the lake and our moms dressed us in printed bathings suits and we swam and listened to boy bands and sipped Hi-C orange and it was happiness and sunshine our small hearts couldn’t rationalize–those years of cheap presents and new friends coloring cheeks pink and making smiles wide

2008
The year a boy broke us up
When all we wanted was his braces connecting to our braces in a metal death-match–winner take most embarrassing kiss story and a new beau to high school

And on your birthday, I told you I’d buy you a skate board so we could flirt with him and them (they had long, shaggy hair and crooked noses)

By the end of the summer–when sunshine was locked out of a new school building and all we had left of the warm were bruises and memories of stolen moments with floppy-haired, raven-eyed boys–we found it was still our long talks and sleepovers spent drinking Hi-C orange that made our smiles wide.

Instead of fighting over who would take him to a dance (it was always a giggly death-match) we went to dances together. And we sang to new boy bands with older lead singers who played guitar solos instead of busting out dance moves; our smiles wide and fights forgotten.

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