Chris TrentBefore the moving, before the leaving, before any friends—there was her.<br>
<br>
She was his first friend. They rode bikes through the neighborhood, cool fall air pushing against their faces, streetlights flickering as they passed. Looping around the block in an endless circuit of childhood freedom.<br>
<br>
Sometimes, they stopped at her house.<br>
<br>
It wasn’t like his. He doesn’t remember much—just that the door was always closed. A door that separated something. A door that kept something in.<br>
<br>
Inside, they played Super Nintendo, passing controllers back and forth. Their favorite game was a zombie shooter—waves of the undead moving toward them, relentless. They fought them off together, the way they were supposed to.<br>
<br>
She loved The Lion King. They’d watch it between games, the TV flickering, the world outside disappearing.<br>
<br>
And then—sometimes—she’d whisper, “We need to hide under the bed.”<br>
<br>
He never asked why. He just did. It was a game, wasn’t it? That’s what kids did. They hid. They played. They followed rules they didn’t yet understand.<br>
<br>
Then, one day, she said, “You should touch me right here.”<br>
<br>
She said it was because they were friends. And at that age, what else was there to believe?<br>
<br>
So he did. Because that’s what you do when you trust someone. When no one has told you otherwise.<br>
<br>
The memory is blurry. He doesn’t remember the atmosphere, the words, or the weight of it all. Just that it happened. That it was normal—or at least, that no one ever said otherwise.<br>
<br>
But looking back, he sees it now—the cracks in the world he didn’t understand yet.<br>
<br>
The closed door.<br>
The hiding.<br>
The way she framed touch as friendship.<br>
<br>
And now, with time stretched out behind him, he wonders—<br>
<br>
Who was behind that door? What was she hiding from?<br>
<br>
And why did no one come looking for them?<br>
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