Green Window Lost Hoodie

"You told him to wait in the car."

You did. You remember saying it. "Wait here, five minutes, don't move." The car was locked. The rain started. The house had a green light in the window that was not on when you went inside. The light was not a bulb. It was a shape. A shape that looked at him while he looked at it, and neither of them blinked because neither of them was the first to agree this was happening.

The tears are not from rain. Rain does not run in straight lines down cheeks. Rain does not choose paths. These tears chose. They chose the left cheek first, then the right, then both at once when he realized the car door was not locked anymore. It was open. It had been open since he looked away. Since he looked at the green window. Since the green window looked back.

The hoodie is torn at the elbow. You did not buy it torn. The tear is new. The tear is wet on the inside, as if something reached through the fabric and touched what was underneath. The hands are clasped not in prayer. They are clasped because they are cold, and the cold came from inside the car, from the open door, from the green window that is now a green door that was always a door and you just saw it wrong because you were in a hurry.

"Five minutes. You said five minutes. It has been five minutes for three hours now."