Chapter Thirteen

The morning finally arrived and with it came great trepidation. The sunlight streamed into my bedroom, my curtains were drawn to reveal my balcony. Instead of lounging there like I usually did, I sprang out of bed. I walked out onto my balcony and looked over my suburban neighborhood.

The sun wasn’t high yet, the ends of the streets glittered with its rays. There were purples and pinks and oranges and I wondered why I always chose to watch the sunset and sleep through the sunrise when it was just as, if not more, beautiful.

There was no hiding it. I was nervous. I had never been so nervous. My heart felt like it was in my stomach and my stomach felt like it was in the middle of my chest and everything was pulsing wildly. I shook it out, out there on my balcony and dressed in my pajamas. I shook my arms out, waved my hands around, hopped from one foot to the other and shook wiggled about each foot, jumping up and down. My heart was pounding from the exertion after a while, but at least it was back where it belonged in my chest.

After that, I went back into the house. I was running out of time. I made my way into the bathroom and began running the water. I sat there while the water heated up, my plan racing through my mind and doing circles. I was going to lose it if I had to wait any longer, so before the room had steamed up I climbed into the shower.

I had been avoiding the mirror for the fear it might plainly reflect all the nervousness eating away at me from the inside. Once I was dressed, however, I faced it. I was wearing a suit, a navy blue dress suit with a tie. I had not worn such a nice suit since the day I had graduated from high school, but I wanted to look good. I wanted him to know that I was serious and maybe dressing to impress would aid in doing exactly that. Aside from that, I actually thought that I didn’t look half-bad, which helped.

Chocolate, Roland had said. My eyes stared back at me, a few shades darker than my skin. I sucked in a deep breath, attempting to calm myself down. I smiled, two deep clefts appearing in my cheeks as I did. I gave myself a light slap on both cheeks. I let go of the deep breath I had been holding, sighing. It was now or never.

I grabbed my jacket off of the oak coat rack that stood by the door and gave my house one last glance. It felt as though I was saying goodbye to everything, but in a good way. It was more about the fact that I was saying hello to a whole different life. I wrenched open the door before I could dart back up the stairs and lose myself to the warmth of my bed and stepped out into the day. It was warm and the sun felt good on my skin. I closed my eyes, basking in it.

I had planned on driving there but when I was outside, I felt like a walk. It had been a very long time since I had actually walked around my town, excluding the morning jogs which had become a lot less frequent anyway. When we were kids, we would walk and run everywhere.  We felt free.

So, that was that. I walked through the neighborhood before anyone else had really gotten out of bed. It was a Saturday morning. Most people were sleeping in. One or two houses already had kids playing in the gardens and driveways as I made my way down the block. The school wasn’t far from my house and I reached it quickly. After that, it was a short trek to the lake. I was tempted to enter the school grounds and walk the old way across the fields like we used to, for nostalgia’s sake, but I had not broken into the school since I was in school and I got the feeling that it probably wouldn’t be as rose-tinted if I got caught and arrested for breaking and entering as an adult.

By the time I reached the lake, my nervousness had almost completely dissipated. I was feeling better. I knew that this was what I really wanted to do. I had left the house on the premise that there was no turning back and since I was there, it would be significantly stupid to turn around and walk all the way home without going through with things. My fear of rejection was quashed only by the prospect of happiness. No matter what, I knew that I would forever regret it if I didn’t go through with this.

This was my chance to finally make up for the fact that I had ignored that letter. The very same letter was currently sitting in my pocket and that thought egged me on just a little further.

I lifted and ducked beneath the yellow tape, lower than I remember it being before. Several extra lines of it had been put up over the years. At first I thought it seemed a bit excessive but then I noticed that some of the lines were quite faded, their black letters no longer cautioning those who came near to turn away due to having become illegible with time. I wondered if our pact would still be visible. I doubted it.

Entering the vicinity, I walked slowly. The vegetation had become more out of control than ever before. It was so much so that I found myself having to look down at the ground every few moments to ensure that I didn’t trip over the roots that had broken through the surface of the earth. There was an odd kind of beauty to the place as I looked around.

My eyes wandered over the trees, overgrown, the grass that had grown so tall it was nearly at my waist, and the lake. It was desolate, abandoned, and nature had taken over. It was surreal. One day, I thought, that might happen to the rest of the planet. There were no ducks that I could see and that was somewhat saddening. I had always loved watching them.

The walk over to our tree seemed longer than I remembered it, most likely due to how carefully I had had to maneuver my way through and over and under the forest that had grown around the lake. I finally found our secret spot, right across from the old stump. The roots growing out of the ground beneath the tree were tiny and thin, as if they had only recently decided to spread their limbs. They were long arms, climbing over a small collection of pebbles at the base of the tree.

I got down on my haunches, shifting the sand that covered the pebbles. They were unrecognizable, too; mossy and muddy. I shifted all of the dirt until the words had been completely uncovered. The pebbles had moved apart and it made them a bit difficult to make out but they were still there. They still spelled out our pact. A part of me had feared that Roland might have moved or discarded them the last time he was here. People do all kinds of things when they are upset. I was angry with myself—I could only imagine how angry he must have been. Worse still, how hurt he must have been. I caused that.

With a sigh, I stood back up. I moved closer to the tree. The neurons in my brain were trying to open back up all the old pathways because suddenly all I wanted to do was take my place on the ground and sit with my back up against the tree. I settled for standing since there didn’t seem to be much grass growing on this side, what with all the low-hanging branches blocking the sunlight and rested my back up against the bark. What was the point of dressing to impress if I messed up my new suit before he even arrived?

All that was left to do was wait for him.