She could hear the gravel crunch under her shoes as she made her way to the old swing-set in the middle of the park. She'd always wondered why they had gravel under the swing, as a child could easily fall and cut themselves onto the gravel, sending them into a lot more pain than just the average falling off the swing.
She placed herself on the deserted swing, and lifted her legs, pulling and pushing herself higher and higher into the air. She could hear the squeaking of the old chains which held the swing together, and usually this would scare her, but this time it calmed her, it comforted her.
She felt like she was flying.
She refused to let the tears spill.
"If I fall…will you catch me?" she asked him as he pushed her on their favourite swing.
"Are you going to fall though?" he asked back, his eyebrows furrowed together as he tried to understand what the little girl was asking him.
"But just say I did fall…would you catch me?"
"Of course I would, I can't just let you fall and hurt yourself, you would cry and the grown-ups would think I said something mean," he replied in his matter-of-fact voice.
She began to grow exasperated.
"But…just say if the grown-ups wouldn't blame it on you…say they aren't around and we don't tell them…would you still catch me?"
Their swinging had stopped as she watched the boy intently, waiting his answer for which he gave a lot of thought, before he would finally answer.
"Yes."
She had no idea why she had brought herself to this park. It was the epitome of him, even the swing would just make her remember. She scolded herself as tears threatened to flow. She shouldn't be crying over him.
She never thought the day would come that she would be crying over a boy. They didn't deserve her tears. He didn't deserve her tears.
Back then they used to be best friends. They were all each other had, and they were all each other needed. But then they grew up. Children no longer had cooties and hormones got in the way of everything and destroyed most of that childhood innocence. They managed to fight it for a while, but then it got to him, and soon enough it got her as well. Though for her, they didn't make her hate him, they made her do the complete opposite.
They made her love him.
It was this secret that had ripped her up inside, it had torn her apart, and it had only made her feelings for him grow stronger and she no longer felt like she had control. And him, being the stupid male that he was, was completely oblivious to what she was feeling. She was sure that he of all people would be able to figure it out, he could read her like an open book, he knew every emotion she had but he couldn't figure out this one. Neither could anyone else.
"You wear your heart on your sleeve sometimes, but it doesn't mean that we know what your heart is saying." Her mother's words echoed through her head.
She had analysed this statement over and over in her head until it hadn't made sense to her anymore. Nothing made sense to her anymore, the only thing that made sense was her feelings for him, but yet, they still didn't make sense.
She was told she was deep, but she wasn't. She didn't say much but that wasn't because she chose not to, she just didn't know what to say. She was scared of everything but she gave off a fearless aura.
The only thing stable was him, but he was unstable, he made her moods, and she had incorporated herself to breathe in rhythm with him, subconsciously of course.
And then something inside her had snapped. Her feelings could no longer be kept in, they needed to be out in the open, they needed to be free from that cage they were put in long ago, and her heart needed to belong to someone other than herself.
Today was the day she had decided to tell him. She had made her way towards the little park where he practiced shooting hoops most afternoons. Her heart had been thumping loudly in her chest, filled with a mixture of excitement and nervousness.
She neared him and he called out her name when he spotted her. She gave him a smile and continued walking closer and closer. But she stopped abruptly when she saw one of the pretty girls walk up to him and drag him off towards her friends.
It was then when she realised that she could never compete, she would never be good enough for him. And she turned around and walked away, with her heart in a million pieces. She walked to their swings.
Her feelings remained caged, and her heart belonged to herself…and this time it was in tiny pieces which would take a while to be put back together without him. And at that moment, as she was swinging higher into the air, she gave in, and the tears flowed freely down her face. She cried silent tears, she didn't make loud sobbing noises. Just crystal tears sliding down her face, leaving trails down her cheeks, and making her eyes go a pale red colour.
She decided that she wanted to fall. She moved her legs roughly and pushed herself higher and at its highest, she let go of the chains and she lay back, and she fell. It was then that she truly felt like she was flying.
Instead of the hard gravel, which she intended to meet once she landed from her flight, she fell into something hard, something warm, and strong, and comfortable. She opened her eyes, to see whom or what she had fallen on.
"I told you I would catch you if you fell," his voice whispered into her ear.
He had understood what her heart was saying after all.
A/N: This was written for a writing competition on a Forum called Noughts et Kisses, I don't know how on earth I came up to it, but I just opened up Microsoft Word and out it all came. I hope you like it, and I apologise if it's complete crap...because it was written at around 11pm. xD I'm a night-writer.
Reviews would be lovely.
-K. :)