I remember that my shoelaces were untied. They were thin and white and cloth only at the very base where they sprouted from the miniscule rings of metal. The rest of those strips were turned grey; they were more dirt than material. They were the shoes you gave me for my birthday a year before. Those black canvas shoes that mom told me would never last. She was right and wrong. The rubber had peeled away from the base at my toes. Sometimes I could see the dark red of my socks poking out. The tiny cursive letters on the side, that twirled around that blue star had all faded off. All the words you’d ever said to me eventually faded away. Tiny dusty memories and mirrors are all I had left of you. Did you find it hard to forget me? Did you see my face every time you look into a mug of dark black coffee? Because you would never take it with milk or sugar. Mom always hated that.

I looked at my feet that whole day long. I watched those tattered laces slap against the wet pavement. I ignored the light mist falling on the back of my neck. I ignored the fact that I only had on a tank top and tiny bumps were erupting down the length of my arms. I only watched those bits of braided thread hit the concrete again and again. They screamed with anger, but their voices were course. Slap, slap, slap. All day long.

I didn’t go home that day. I walked down streets with names I didn’t know and buildings I didn’t recognize. I didn’t have a phone. Do you remember why? I hope the memory fills you with shame that pours down your arms and legs, drying and cracking along your skin when you try to move. You never had the courage to finish anything. But you probably don’t remember. You’ve probably wiped these blackened bits of your heart away.

Mom told me she would get me a phone once I went into high school and I was so excited. You told me it looked like there were stars in my eyes. You used to always tell me things like that. Mom collected all her uncashed paychecks that she had saved. She took them to the bank and carried the money home, safely folded away in a pocket in her bag. I had never seen so many green faces at once. They stared up at me from the spot on her bedside table. She told me that after my first day we would go to the store together. I fell asleep smiling, my cheeks pressed into my eyes. I hope you know I was smiling because you were the first person I wanted to call when I finally got it. I wanted to sit right next to you at the dinner table and whip it out of my pocket like the other girls at my school did. I wanted to dial your number because I had it memorized by second grade, pressing my finger down on each button slowly. I had memorized every bit of you. Did you know that?

I woke up the next morning exhausted. I had to wake up so much earlier for high school. I walked into the kitchen and mom was sitting on the little stool we kept in the corner. It’s right next to the window. Her hands were covering her face and tiny tears leaked out through the cracks in her fingers. Her knuckles looked so old and tired. As if they had worked a thousand days without stopping. I dropped my bag to the floor and felt a tiny cold drop of something empty fall into my stomach. That hollow little something sprouted quickly and spread through my arms and legs, twisting along my veins like gnarled branches that grow around crumbling brick. I stepped towards my shaking mother. I hope you know how much her thin shoulders were trembling. I slid my hand through her unwashed hair. She pulled her hands away from her face slowly. I asked her what was wrong. My lips shoom until I pressed them together. Her eyes were bloodshot. Tiny red roots crept through their whites and edged towards the deep pool of brown in the center.

For a moment she stayed silent. A tear slid over her lip and into her mouth when she tried to talk. I could taste their salt on my gums. She slowly managed to tell me you had left. In the middle of the night you realized I was going into high school. You thought you had already wasted too much time with a woman and daughter you had never planned to stay with. You took the money from mom’s bedside table. All those watching emerald eyes glared at you from the worn paper that you slipped into the pocket of your jeans. You didn’t care. Mom couldn’t finish her sentence, but I understood. The man who had always been there had suddenly torn a tiny bit away from my heart. You added it to your collection.

I don’t know how I got to the first day of school that day. I don’t remember the people I saw or the hands that waved at me. I don’t remember how I woke up in my bed the next day because I thought that I never went home.

But I remember that my shoelaces were untied. And I remember that my socks poked out of the hole left in the rubber after half a year of wearing them. The one thing you left me other than a shattered woman and a house that was silent without your laughter. You left me those old shoes. They were broken too.