I used to think other people didn’t see us. It wasn’t really anything in particular that got me thinking those thoughts. Those strange, lukewarm thoughts that always came to me on that cold park bench. Our bench.
Not through some special arrangement. Not that we meant for it to be ours. We were never those people. But somehow, each time we got there, it was always empty. I think we sat on it by chance, the first couple of times. And then, after that, it felt like we should at least check if ‘our bench’ was free. If it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be a big deal. We’d just go down, sit by the lake, or… but that’s the thing, it was never occupied. Like someone knew we were coming there and kept it unoccupied on purpose. Like that someone was, in a strange way, waiting just for us.
Or something.
All I can tell you is it felt special. ‘Cause we’d never had anything like that before, nobody ever waited for either of us. We were never first in class, or first in our parents’ eyes. And I suppose it was alright for me. I was the third of four children, it was sorta obvious I’d never get noticed. I didn’t particularly shine in any one aspect of my life and that was alright, I was used to blending in. I was good at it. And besides, less attention means less getting in trouble, right?
But I suppose it was tougher on Will. Because Will was an only child and I think it’s much harder to blend in when there’s no one else around. I can just see it, those long dinners, the kitchen light bulb always a little dim, like it wasn’t lighting up the whole kitchen on purpose. Like it liked playing with the shadows. And his parents, on either end of the table. That was something always puzzled me about the Cranes. They never, for as long as I knew them, ate or for that matter sat within touching distance.
I suppose that tells you something, but I guess I was too young to notice. Young. In love. Call it what you will.
Point is, we were alright with not being seen. We’d go and sit on our little wooden bench – that nobody’d scrawled on, no cans left around. Like somebody took care of it for us when we were not there. And when we got sitting there, it no longer felt like we were in the park. Like there was anyone around. It felt...like fire. Like being swallowed up inside your very own forest. And it was weird, because sometimes, I’d get the strangest ideas sitting on that bench. I told you, voices. Or did I?
I suppose it doesn’t matter, you’ll know the whole story soon enough. All in good time.
I used to become really certain that we were inside the woods, you know, even though I knew, in my head, that we were a few feet from civilization, that we’d come down the concrete road and then stepped off into the grass and that we were alright. But that never mattered when I got those ideas in my head. And I used to be so convinced that we were lost. Because once you’re lost in the forest, that’s it for you, you know? There’s no one coming to save you, not until it’s too late. And it would be far too late for me and Will.
I felt so certain then and Will would always try to comfort me, to calm me down, to tell me everything was alright and that we weren’t, in fact, lost.
But one day, Will disappeared and after that, it got a whole lot harder believing we were alright. I waited for Will on that day. It was a Friday and we were both out early. Me from school and him from his job. Will was too young to have a job, but nobody asked him. And the Cranes never knew what their son got up to in all those afternoons when they were breaking their backs for college money. Suppose it served them right. I’ve never met a more unlikable couple than the Cranes.
So, Will had quit school in the winter, right before break. I mean, he showed up every now and then, but it just wasn’t the same. He convinced the headmaster his father was violent, that his mother was going through a hard time. I don’t know. Sometimes, even Will got lost in all the stories he told.
Anyway, he didn’t formally quit, you know? Because then, his father would have really killed him. Mr. Crane was many things, and while not actually a violent man, there was something wrong inside his soul. Like something gone bad in there that he didn’t quite know how to let out.
But Will didn’t show up that afternoon. I waited and I waited and after a while, I called. And you know what the worst part about waiting like that was? That I felt like people could see me. Because my eyes had nowhere to go, nothing to look at, so they just sort of...drifted. And every now and then, they’d meet other eyes. A girl in the bushes, a boy writing in a notebook. People. But they’re not important. No one’s important to the story, just Will.
And Will wasn’t there.
He didn’t answer and he didn’t call back, so that when it got really dark, I had no choice but to go home. Nobody asked where I’d been or why I was out so late and I don’t know what I would’ve said if they did.
The next day, walking up the hill, I saw him. Sitting on the bench, looking down at the ducks below. And he was him, he was alright, not worse for wear. Not better. He didn’t say anything about why he’d been gone and I didn’t know how to ask. Every time I tried to say it, it felt as if my mouth didn’t want to articulate the words. It seemed so unreal that he’d missed one day. Because he never did that before and I was afraid that if I said anything, he’d miss another. He could and I used to think he wouldn’t, but now I no longer knew what to think.
The day after he disappeared, Will showed me a trick that he’d just thought up. He made up a flower, where there hadn’t been one before, like magic. And I didn’t laugh. I was really, really still. Because it’s not a good idea to play around with magic like that and all I could see, when I looked at that blood-red rose, were the walls crumbling down.
So, I thought really hard and I concentrated everything into that rose and for a while, everything was alright again.
For a while.
To Be Continued...
