It was not until then that I realized that nothing she'd ever said was to be taken at face value. She wasn't killing herself, she wanted to drown the part of herself that I knew, the part that loved me.
I'd been reading her like a book, when all along she'd been begging to be read like a poem. I'd mistaken metaphors for sloppy desperation, subpar theatrics.
And not only did I fail to save her, I'd unknowingly given a nod to her suicide. She was dead, far beyond reviving, and I'd once considered my attempt successful. I thought that I'd done it; I'd thought that it was possible for me to save her, never once wondering why it had been so easy.
If not for the ring on what's left of her finger, the ring she'd sworn she'd cast into the river, I may not have believed her at all. The flesh of the girl I'd known has rotted away. Some has been eaten by whatever creatures she encountered in the river's muddy water. She doesn't look like herself anymore, she doesn't look like anyone.
I gather her bones for burial and slide the ring onto my finger.
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