Talking Out Loud

Abbi

SIXTEEN YEARS LATER

If I had to sell my backyard, this is how I would describe it: Full of color. Soft breeze can always be felt, even on the windless of days. Tire swing that can’t be outgrown.

          Reading always takes my mind off things, especially reading in the round tire swing, but today my mind wanders. It wanders to what this day in history is to Will and I. Sixteen years since I was found, a bouncing fifteen month girl that loved to walk, but hated to get up from laying down. Sixteen years since Will’s parent’s passed. Fifteen years since our paths crossed. Twelve years since we started school.

          Oh yes, the first day of school as a senior, the top of the high school food chain. All the drama from last year hits you in the face. The over-summer romances, the lives that now have to stop because school starts, and why their parent’s won’t let them drop out or get pregnant. Sometimes I feel like my life is a bubble, and it’ll pop if I hear one more word about the end of the world. High school will be one big memory that I’ll want to forget at the end of the year. You’d have to pay me big bucks to repeat it.

          Sometimes I think that the world is flat even though I know that its round. Other times, I think that the world is way too big, and that my life doesn’t matter. Luckily for me, Will’s always there to point me in the right direction, but once a year, today, is when I have to be the person he is: the person that comforts and pulls you back up and onto the right path. I have to be him to help him through this day of the year.

          “Hey Cheesecake. What are you sulking for?” a voice that I know extremely well, almost as well as I know my own voice, says behind me. I smile and turn the tire swing until I’m facing him: my best friend.

          “Hey Will. I’m not sulking, just thinking,” I say, making room for him on the enormous tracker tire. He sits down, our legs touching, his arm behind me, gripping the rubber side of the tire. I lean my head on his shoulder, the top of my head meeting the edge his short blonde hair.

          “What were you thinking about?” he asks.

          “Nothing in particular.” I don’t want to mention his parents before he mentions them himself.

          “You do know what today is.” BAM! There it is.

          “Yep, the day I was found. September 1st. Also the first day of school.

          “You’re missing something,” he says. I bite my lip.

          “Um, the day we first met.”

          “Yes, and the day my parents died.” I get up really quickly.

          “Do you want to take walk? It’s not really hot and steamy anymore.” He sighs, gets up and out of the swing, takes my hand, and swings it as we walk down the street. I smile at him, trying to lift his spirit from his dark and gloomy mood, but he kept on talking.

          “You know, it’s better to talk about it.”

          “But-” he put his finger to my lips.

          “No. Listen to me. I want to talk about it.” I’m silent, not wanting him to get mad at me. “I don’t remember getting hit. I remember being in the car, then crying, and then waking up in the hospital and Edric, it seemed, barely alive for me to talk to him.” He squeezes my hand, lets it go, and walks ahead, not talking. What would Will do? I run up to him and grab his arm. He turns, and I hug him. He clings to me for a little bit, but then lets me go. I hold on to his hand, and we walk back to the tire swing, sit right back down, and twist on the swing until we get too dizzy to turn anymore.