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Please, picture me in the trees; I hit my peak at seven.
Sabrina loved Chloé. There was no question about it- she’d loved Chloé for years, her love unparalleled by anything she’d ever known. She’d loved Chloé before she’d understood what love was . She’d loved her before she understood why it was bad- why it was wrong- for her to love Chloé . She hadn’t had a clue then. She did now.
Feet in the swing over the creek, I was too scared to jump in.
She was a shy child, for the most part. She’d been timid, and her father had often called her Sabrina-souris , teasing her as she shied away from the kids at the playground. But Chloé had never been scared, not that Sabrina had seen. She was fearless, and loud, and she spoke enough for the both of them. Sabrina loved her. She wanted to hold her hand like her mommy and daddy used to and wanted to chase her through the woods and live their days out under the sunshine, together. She hadn’t understood why that was wrong .
Are there still beautiful things?
She wasn’t seven anymore. She knew, now, that the flutter she got in her stomach when Chloé gripped her palm was sinful, and that wanting to feel her cherry-sweet lips on hers was evil. She knew all that, now. But she loved Chloé, for all that she was. Chloé was beautiful when they were kids, when she hadn’t cared about sin or evil and had cared about love.
Cross your heart, won't tell no other- I still got love for you.
Their love was their little secret, then- hidden behind closed doors, concealed in the darkest of nights and the leafiest of trees. It had been a pinky-swear, blood-promise secret, one she hadn’t dared revealed to anyone else. She loved Chloé. She’d never break her promises to her, no matter how much it hurt.
Your braids like a pattern, love you to the moon and to Saturn.
Chloé had changed. Her once-lose braids had switched to a painfully tight ponytail balanced precariously at the top of her head, and she’d stopped telling Sabrina that she loved her. Sabrina still heard it, though. She heard it in the long glances, in the harsh yells of her name, in the dark blue eyes pleading for her validation.
Sabrina loved her for everything she had been and everything she was. She loved the girl who had played in the mud with her and held her hand in darkened bedrooms, and she loved the girl who yelled and who cried and who clung onto a boy as if it could change who she was.
This love lasts so long.
She loved her. She couldn’t change that. She didn’t want to change that.
How could she?
And I’ve been meaning to tell you, I think your house is haunted; Your dad is always mad and that must be why.
Chloé loved Sabrina.
It was an undeniable fact, one she tried to deny time and time again, but she’d fallen in love at seven and hadn’t fallen out yet.
But god, she wanted to.
Chloé remembered herself at seven. She was free, she remembered- free and loud and alive .
Now, all she was was numb.
Chloé liked herself better at seven.
She didn’t cower anymore at the yelling; Sabrina hasn’t begged her to live with her in years, but she was still scared. Still so, so, scared .
You won't have to cry or hide in the closet, and just like a folk song, our love will be passed on.
She’d been scared of anger before. Now she was scared of love.
Love, was that really what this was? She didn’t like to think it was. She couldn’t be in love, not with Sabrina, but…
She was in love. And she was afraid of it.
Please picture me in the weeds before I learned civility…
She liked herself better at seven.
Cross my heart, won’t tell no other...
She couldn’t tell anyone, not even ‘Brina. She wasn’t seven anymore. She had to hide it, had to pretend her love wasn’t real. She had her family to think about, and besides, it was… wrong .
I still got love for you.
Chloé loved Sabrina. She couldn’t escape it. She loved Sabrina, and every cell in her body wanted her and only her.
But it was wrong .
Pack your dolls and a sweater, we'll move to India forever.
If they could only leave. Leave the damned city, find somewhere else where they could love without her mother and father yelling. If only they could be seven again.
Chloé loved Sabrina. But she wasn’t seven anymore.
Passed down like folk songs, our love lasts so long…