sjsprWriting

I grabbed my bag and headed out around 2 A.M. The street smelled of stale urine and defective persons. Defective persons. Huh. That’s what I used to call myself.

I got to the park at about 2:17 A.M, give or take a few seconds. The cold air was proving tough on my lungs as oh-so-sweet hyperventilation began to creep in- nothing unusual, really. I trudged along the outskirts of the park, counting my steps so time would go faster, counting even slower so that the number of seconds I had arrived at was actually double in reality. Maybe that way her getting there would give me this pseudo-spontaneous feeling of happiness, purely in spite of my burgeoning awareness that she’d be there soon. I’m so delightful.

The park was abandoned, and at this time of night I could only perceive it as melancholy. There were a couple of benches sitting at the edges of the park, both of which I had deemed unsafe to sit on as per me falling through one of them. So, let me correct myself: there is a bench and a suspicious pile of sticks sitting at the edges of the park. Other than that there’s not much; a few tree stubs, the remains of an old, red seesaw that I suppose the workers responsible for tearing down the place were too lazy to finish off. In the center of the park, however, there was a bench that did not completely give under my weight, or the weight of Aisa, or any combination of the two. The moonlight would often cast a dim light over the bench, and the pebbles beaded below it would shimmer in unison. The scene was crestfallen at best, but we loved it.

“It’s beautiful tonight.” Aisa called out, slowly approaching me in that cold grace only she could pull off.

“Yeah, it really is.” I said, my body already beginning to feel limp.

“You okay? You seem, perhaps, desperate is the word?” She laughed.

“Oh, completely.”

“Maybe you should just leave now.”

“Before I embarrass myself any further?”

“Exactly.”

“And what if I choose otherwise?”

“Then I guess you’ll have to be stuck with me.”

“That doesn’t drastically terrible.”

“But it is. It’s the worst thing you can ask for.”

“Who said I was asking?”

“Oh, so suddenly you’re all grown up?”

“As of two and half hours ago, yeah.”

“I see.” Her face became stern.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Yeah.” 

“No you’re not. Tell me.”

“It’s just that I forgot to bring something, the picture. This would have been the perfect night to bring it, and I just forgot it.”

She was standing still now. The tiniest quiver escaped her lips.

“You know, I think we can make do without it. How many times have we looked at it now? Fifty, fifty five?

“Sixty one.”

“Sixty one.” I nodded in agreement.

She was silent.

“Come on. Let’s sit.”

We walked gingerly towards our moonlit bench. It was the place where we first met two months ago. Aisa said she used to come here all the time when she was kid. She never spoke much about it, although, she did say that there was one thing that never changed: it would always serve as someone’s sanctuary.

“How does it feel?” She asked as we sat down.

“How does what feel?”

“Well, you’re an adult now, right?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“So?”

“So, it’s not really that big a deal. It doesn’t matter if my title reads adult so long as I keep acting like a kid.”

“Who says you act like a kid?”

“Who doesn’t?” I said, abruptly ending the conversation.

Ever since I had met Aisa; the most beautifully solemn two months I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing someone, almost everyone else had suddenly become concerned about my life decisions- which was a first. It’s just that the circumstances Aisa and I had met each other under were curious at best, terrifying if you’re a realist. I knew I wasn’t doing my parents any favors. They were already in possession of the most tumultuously-minded kid I could think of- excuse the possible narcissism there. And it certainly didn’t help that I was hanging around a girl like Aisa. I mean, she was the girl who saw me jump out of a ten-story-high window, twice, and live both times in the span of twenty minutes, and then proceed to ask if she could join me for the third.  Given what had just happened, I decided it best to pass on the offer.