Low roar

It was her birthday, nineteen, a year without a cake or a song, without foster parents anymore, the cold people who’d at least kept them sleeping indoors. They slept on the streets in Brno, wearing three layers of coats and leggings under their jeans, hiding their faces in scarves and curling into one another as close as they could. They walked at night when they couldn’t fall asleep, when they got chased out of the square. That night they’d gone over the bridge, over the river, following the street called Sokolova. He’d laughed at the sign and said, close enough. He’d joked that they were almost home.