My fingertips were beginning to numb at their points, but if I were to let go of the cool metal, I wold fall from the spring. I had forgotten my gloves today, because my parents were fighting at home and I wanted to get out of school as early as possible. Consequently, I also did not want to go home, so I found myself walking to my old elementary school playground, and settling there before going home.
I flew on the swing set of my reminiscence , watching the trees blur and the sidewalks become hazy as my eyes sped past. Up and down, again and again, the repetitiveness lulled me into a state of relaxation, of forgetfulness. I hadn't notice that it had gotten dark, rather, I had noticed that the birds has all gone away for the night. The temperature was starting to drop, and although I had a jacket, long pants, and boots, the numbness in my fingertips gradually began to creep up into my knuckles.
It was as if the cold was slowly advancing, invading the unknown territory one step at a time. It working it's way up my hands until goosebumps rose on my arms and an aching in my wrists dragged me out of my lull.
My parents were going to be mad. I settled my feet slowly into the dry sand, sifting outwards with every heavy, tired step. Though spring was approaching, snow piles littered the parking lot, where they had been piled up by plows during the harsher winter months. The sight of them nearly brought me to tears, as they made me only painfully aware of the burning in my fingertips.
A girl, about my year, advanced just quickly enough to be noticeable, and soon was standing before me. She was a couple of inches taller than me, and a bit heavy-set, with wide eyes and long earrings that pulled her earlobes to the ground. As gust of wind blew past, causing my body to convulse in an involuntary shudder, which in turn caused her to frown.
"I'm Ella, and you seem very cold," she explained to me, a little bit too fast, a little bit apologetically. "So, I have these extra gloves right, so I thought that you might want them, because your hands look kind of red and you're kind of shaky and stuff..."
I didn't say anything, still a bit surprised that someone else was not only awake and outside at this hour, but that someone very much similar to myself was awake and outside at this hour. Additionally, someone was very much similar to me and awake and outside at the hour, and they were talking to me. I smiled, and readily accepted the gloves from her palms.
I slipped them on, almost immediately feeling a bit of relief. Massaging my hands, I looked up at her. Hands clasped behind her back, she swung her body from side to side slightly, her earrings swinging with the motion. I caught her eyes for a moment before she began to turn away shyly, awkwardly. Her dry lips cracked a bit as she smiled at me, muttering something about how she was going to go, now, but it was nice to meet me and I could have the gloves because they were an extra, if I wanted.
I was shocked. She didn't actually expect me to want her gone, did she? But then I thought, didn't I think she would have wanted the same for me? Maybe we were just as confused as each other, just as lonely, just as anxious and guarded.
"Hey!" I shouted as she began to walk, and she started a bit before I could explain myself, so I hurried.
"Thanks...a lot, my hands were...pretty cold, yeah. I'm Syd..." I smiled as genuinely as I could, though I was tired and drained and losing energy by the second. She seemed to understand, and smiled as joyfully as I had ever seen someone do so before. Nodding, she walked the other way to what I assumed was her home, leaving me standing alone in the parking lot.
I felt kind of better.
.
The next time I saw Ella, she had cut her hair short, but I remembered the outline of her lips and the swaying of her earrings, her concise and repetitive body language setting off remembrance sirens in my mind. I called her name, and she turned quickly, a little bit put-off until she saw me waving. She came over to me in the hallway, and I walked with her to her locker. We small-talked and caught up with each other over her getting her books out, and then we set off on our different ways to our homerooms.
I was the last person out of my homeroom, as was usual for someone who liked to avoid crowds as I did, Ella was waiting outside of the door. She leaned up against the wall, and started walking in time to my steps, stumbling over her words and complaining about the boy who sat behind her. I wasn't a complete loner, but I only had a couple of friends in my clarinet section of band, so I was thankful for the company.
After a few days, it became the norm, and I was surprised when I didn't find Ella waiting for me outside of my homeroom. I assumed she just missed me when I waited by her locker, because our busses got to the school at different times some days. But when I got to my fourth hour, and she wasn't sitting at her desk, I sighed, not understanding how much I missed her until I was faced with the situation. It didn't take long for me to grow attached.
In fifth hour band, I asked one of my friends if they knew what happened. They just shrugged, and said she was sick, giving me her number so that I could text her. I spent that night sending her pictures of my cat and bad puns to try and make her cold go away, as if i could destroy all of life's deterrents with a dry sense of humor.
I was very tired the next day, but when I left my homeroom, Ella was there, leaning her back against the tile and sniffling her nose a bit.
.
The year progressed quickly, and we grew closer in a gradual and completely inevitable way. I had begun to reach the part of Ella that she hadn't shown other people, and I had opened up to her things that I thought I would take to my grave. We shared in our social anxiety, and my touch aversion peaked around junior year, though I never felt worried or tensed around Ella. It scared me, opening up my secrets to her. I couldn't believe I was friends with such an understanding, compassionate, helpful human being, which was enough for me to doubt myself.
Even so, she assured me, through tears and gasps and late-night panic texts, that she wouldn't leave me. And I promised her the same.
And then senior year came and went, and I prepared to leave for college.
College. In Wisconsin.
While Ella kept living in Michigan.
.
The day before I left, we met up in the parking lot. If I'm being completely honest, I went to the lot for the sole purpose of hoping to catch her there, and I went weak in the knees with giddiness when I saw her sat upon the swing set. Her feet dragged craters into the sand as she slowed herself enough to jump off and run to me, arms open for a hug. I complied, thought I hated most hugs, and held on, desperately forcing my senses to take everything in so that I could remember.
I gripped her jacket, breathing in the smell of firewood, wet sand, and cold metal on her shirt. I felt the cold of her nose in my shoulder, and the warmth of her slowing breath in the frozen moment. Though her hands were cold, I didn't want to let go of them. Linking fingers, we walked to the swing set, just sitting in silence for an hour or so. The leaves fell around us, the winter chill beginning to return. I would be leaving soon. I would be leaving tomorrow.
We talked about nonsense, surprisingly enough, though I had originally expected to give her a long and dramatic speech about what she meant to me. I was prepared to spill my feelings from my stomach and give her the breath in my lungs just to let her know how much I was going to miss her. I wanted to let her know that I wouldn't forget, I wanted her to not forget. I wanted a way to imprint myself into her life, even though I was going to be gone. I wanted the moment to last forever.
Our hands still linked, the swings lurched to a stop, and I pulled my hand away, along with her glove. She frowned a bit, then laughed loudly, thinking it was an accident. I smiled and pulled my one glove off, handing it to her and putting her one glove on my hands. Her laugh abruptly turned into a cry, and her upper body heaved with remorse. Taking out one of her long earrings, she handed it to me, and I accepted it with honor, putting it into my earlobe. The hole had closed up a little, I didn't usually wear earrings, but I didn't care as long as it made me feel attached to her.
We were young and unstoppable, inseparable since that day in the lot four years ago, and suddenly our normal and complacent world was coming to an end. She put on my glove, and we sat with mismatched gloves for a while, high-fiving and laughing and messing around as teenagers do.
She handed me a box when I finally headed home that night.
"Don't open it until you miss me. Not until you really, really miss me, okay? Please?"
I nodded, hugging her, crying, and thanking her from across the parking lot until I couldn't hear her footsteps anymore. Then I walked home, and went to bed.
.
The next night, at my college dorm room, I sat on my bed, getting ready to go to sleep. I had texted Ella, but she wasn't responding, and I knew she had fallen asleep because it was late. I had a longing, gruesome churning in my gut, a tugging in my chest, an aching behind my eyes, just thinking about her. I wanted to cry, but I knew it wouldn't do any good. I contemplated a little while, but only a very short while, before reaching into my backpack and lifting the lid off of the little cardboard box.
Inside of it was a pendulum, a simple, reflective, silver-colored pendulum hanging from a base that extended up. I flicked it with my finger, watching as it clicked back and forth, an indefinite repetition that reminded me so starkly of a certain someone's body language. Each click reverberated in my ears, filling me with the sound, filling the longing in my gut and pressing air back into my lungs.
I shot Ella a text, just saying thank you. Nothing but Thank You. There wasn't much else that I could do.
I set the pendulum on my dresser,
And I cried myself to sleep.
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