1: In which we run to the forest.

We were, yes, I think we were walking that day. My knees don't let me run for that long anymore, and you're much to dignified to skip. I remember that the sun was bright but hazy because of the ambient smog layers. It felt like it'd been hours of walking by the time we reached the park, our park, but we'd left your house only twenty minutes before. The small shade of the tame woods was pleasant and reassuring after the busy city; though when we walked under them, the trees seemed smaller, thinner, in the silent afternoon. It always surprised me when there were no real children playing hide-and-seek or tag, because my memory always filled in you and me and your brothers, chasing each other around the boles of the old oaks and pines.

I think you asked me something, but I can't remember what it was, only that it sandpapered my mouth and made me turn away from you. It was only for a moment! Yet when I turned back towards you, you'd vanished. It took me several moments of panic before I heard you giggling. A game. Clear blue relief washed over me, but it still was tinged red with anger. I think I yelled something about being too old for this, and then you stopped laughing. I wish I could remember these things clearly! You stopped laughing, and you came out from behind the tree and ...

Somehow it wasn't you. Your hair was short and grownup, dyed maybe, and your clothes were shaped and padded and taupe and navyblue and gray and your eyes--your eyes were the worst! Still brown, but not chocolate-chestnut-copperpenny brown. Now it was the brown of plain old dirt, and staring at me like I was crazy and old. It was like you couldn't remember why we were here, or what it used to be to us.

That park. Our park.

I don't remember much after that. Things just changed so suddenly from one moment to the next.

2: In which the forest rejects us.

I used to think you were the coolest thing ever. You were what I wanted to be when I grew up, you were the white-eyed hunter, hunted, wildest thing in the woods. I had such a crush on you. It wasn't like the crushes the other girls had on boys, either. It wasn't because you were cute or had a nice wardrobe, or were nice to me. It wasn't because you looked like a movie star or rock musician. There were other boys I liked because of those things, but you were special. You were the one I'd give up baseball for, if you asked me, but I knew you'd never ask. That was part of it.

You'd never ask me for the things I couldn't give.

I'd heard Cassie talking about her boyfriend and all the things he told her not to do, and I'd cringe inside. I couldn't imagine not running around in jeans with patches on the knees, or not playing ball, or, if I couldn't play ball, not playing soccer. I couldn't imagine not talking to the other boys on the team whenever I wanted, or hanging out and having pizza with my older brothers and their friends. It would be too weird, too much giving up. But you always got even dirtier than me playing in the creek and chasing newts, and you'd never offer me up to your dad like a toy doll to be examined and priced and put up on the mantlepiece for your daughters to play with when they got older. You'd love me for what I was.

I had dreams, of course. Most of them involved treehouses and castaways and lost forts in the middle of great forests surrounded by moats and dragons and lost pioneers still wounded from fighting indians. You knew that I couldn't keep my mythology straight, but you didn't care because you made your own.

Something happened when I got older and started listening to what other people said more seriously. They said you were crazy, that you were older than you acted, 'developmentally disabled', or some crazy thing like that. I tried to ignore it for a while, but you found out that I knew eventually, and after that it was never the same. I tried to think of you as my hero, but when I knew that other people considered you weak, I couldn't hold on to my belief.

It was almost a relief when my father decided that we should move to the city so he could be a manager in a big store instead of owning his small one.

I think of you still, though, and I wonder sometimes if you still hunt newts and know the calls of all the songbirds.

3: In which we reject the forest.

the hours we spent talking
are still worth an hour each,
there can be no depreciation
of time already well-spent