April 21st 2016...
Sometimes I think I've missed some of the most important things. Like some of the most minor moments, the most important moments, are locked away in the mind of my past self.
Like this day. April 21st 2016. I wrote a diary entry on April 20th and April 22nd but for whatever reason, I didn't write one on this day.
Makes me wonder, why that would've been. Was it a bad day? A good day? Or maybe I didn't write because nothing really happened at all. But back then, nothing happening was the worst possible thing that could happen.
Back in the day, I'd always freak if Jess even death-stared me. Sometimes I'd cry and others I'd go dragging May Belle out the door and laughing our heads off as we walked down the road.
Our road. The road that used to belong to Jess and me, for our every childhood fantasy our real lives could never live up to.
But that was years ago. Many years ago and only before the accident. When that whole thing with Jess went down last year, I found comfort in going back there occasionally.
The first time I did, right after the accident, I slipped on the tree that had fallen over the creek and I scratched a small part of my back. I covered it for a few days because for whatever reason in my barely 10-year-old mind, it was important I kept that from Jess.
In April and May 2016, I'd take May Belle a while down the path until we were like 100 meters from the rope and I'd send her off to play elsewhere or told her to stay out and play where we were, at the drop off.
I know it seems merely immature and very irresponsible but I could never tell anyone about it, not even her.
Even after all these years, I still haven't told anyone. Not Tom, Barb or Grace, my three closest friends. Anyone. Nobody. Nada. And it'll forever be a secret between us, no matter what terms were on.
And so that's probably where I was April 21st; laying on the ground of that old forbidden treehouse, staring up at the now too familiar, recalled again 'roof.' Or swinging on the swing underneath it, with my three to five songs playing on my iPod which was always stuffed in my pocket. If I didn't have a pocket, I'd sit it on the swing beside me, swinging every so slowly and carefully so it wouldn't fall off, just like I had to do with myself.