Piece by Piece

Four

~~ FOUR 

Growing up, we'd never really had much money. Dad worked when he was alive, as did Mam, but she never returned after he passed. 

I was never really sure where she got the money for her habit, but I never asked. I didn't say much to her at all. You'd think that since more than eight years had passed, I'd have forgiven her for what she'd done, but the little girl with the stinging cheek just couldn't let it go.

Instead of trying to repair our fragile relationship, I spent most of my fifteenth year out of the house. It was easy enough to do because I managed to get a job in a local shop, though I never told anyone about it. I didn't really have anyone to tell. Even though he'd told me his name, Nick and I didn't still speak much when we were on our swings. I wanted to talk to him, to find out more about the boy I swung with, but I could never find the right words around him, for whatever reason.

He was still the black-haired, skinny boy who swung beside me, but somewhere along the way, something had started to change between us, and it was never more evident than the night he asked me what my favourite flower was.

It wasn't a question I'd been asked before, but the first one that sprung to mind was a daisy: simple and common, yes, but thoughts of the flower lead to thoughts of Dad, who always brings a smile to my lips, as well as a pain in my heart that'll never leave.

The pain of a loss will never go away; we just learn to live with it, day by day.

Dad sang those lyrics one night in the playground, me on my swing and him pushing me from behind. We spent so many days like that: talking and laughing, him singing while I flew high in the air, feeling happy and safe and loved, like I always felt with him. When he left, that feeling went with him, and I never thought I'd get it back. 

I almost didn't — until the night I gave away one of the last pieces of my heart. 

We hadn't swung that night. Nick's swing had been broken, the chain on the right snapped in half from years of neglect. It couldn't take it anymore, so it broke, leaving behind a sight that I'd never expected to be so sad, but the way Nick's hand gripped tightly to mine assured me that I wasn't the only one who felt it. 

But not even that sorry sight could've made me give up my time with Nick — nothing could have. We didn't talk about the broken swing, nor was it a question of who got the other. With a simple look between us, we both just sat on the ground: if only one of us could swing, neither of us would.

We spent the next while like that, sitting by the patch of grass where the daisies always grew. I never really knew how long we spent out each night; it always felt too short, the minutes becoming hours so quickly that, before we'd know it, the sun would be dawning and we'd have to go our separate ways, me back to my house and Nick back to his - or so I'd always assumed, but I never did know for sure. 

Thinking back on it, there was very little about him that I did know, and even fewer things still that I'd ever have thought to ask. Things that, in hindsight, I wish he'd told me, wish I could've had longer to prepare for what was to come, but I can never blame him for keeping quiet: he'd spared me the pain for as long as he could, and for that, I'll always be grateful. 

There are many things he did that I'm grateful for, not in the least the way he gave me my flower that same night in the playground. One minute, I was looking up at the sky, wondering if Dad was up there somewhere, and the next, there was a flower right in front of my nose, startling me from my thoughts.

When my racing heart slowed down, I heard Nick mumbling something, looking just as embarrassed as he had on the night when he'd told me his name — except this time, I wasn't laughing. I couldn't have laughed — still can't, even now to this day when I look at his flower, now petal-less and brittle, but I still remember the look in his eyes when he gave it to me: he was nervous, as was I, but not even that could've stopped the realisation that I was falling in love with this lanky, messy-haired, blue-eyed boy — something I expect a certain part of me had already known for a long time.

It was scary admitting that to myself, but I think Nick realised it then, too, because all of a sudden, we were both sitting on my swing, my mind awash with memories of all the times memories of all the times we'd swung together filling my mind: how he'd wiped my tears, held my hand and stayed with me in the place where I felt safe.

He was the boy who'd always been there for me, no matter what; who'd made me feel happy and cared-for, safe – all the things I'd once feared I'd never feel again. He was my first hug, my first friend and, that night, my first kiss.

I remember my daisy gripped tightly in my hand as my lips pressed softly against his, barely touching, but I felt that small connection in me everywhere. The butterflies in my stomach erupted, their fluttering wings making my heart pound so fast that I thought I was going to burst.

We sat there like that for the rest of the night, my head on his bony shoulder as we swung on my swing. I felt so content in that moment: we were together, holding hands, and in the place that I loved most. Nothing could ruin the feeling.

That was, until my heart was ripped slowly into pieces with each night I spent waiting for him to return. 

But Nick didn't.