We sat in the park on the edge of the river. It was the middle of July so the night was warm and the thick air was practically tangible. Her skin was golden from the summer sun she had bathed in all day, the cool white moon doing nothing to tone it down. I watched her as she talked about her future. She was sleepy and her words sounded like dialogue from a dream..
Her head rested heavily on my shoulder, as if gravity was deliberately pushing on her harder than the rest of us. I wanted to ask her what she had eaten today but I was too afraid the added weight of those words would crush her. She had enough going on.
“I don’t want to go to work tomorrow,” she said quietly. I watched her thin lips, her cheeks were hollow.
“Then don’t, you’re a teenager. Quit,” I replied. My voice sounded more permanent than hers did. My vocal chords made a vibration that wanted to spread, whereas hers seemed like they wanted to recede.
She chuckled, her angular shoulder brushing against my arm. People used to call her beautiful but now they called her “dainty”. She seemed to like this compliment better for some reason. I still thought she was beautiful, but I never dared to tell her that. When people disagree they often split.
“I gotta work. College is coming,” she sighed as she straightened up. My shoulder was now cool from the absence of her touch.
She stood up from the bench, looking up at the moon before she looked down at me. Her white dress made her look heavenly. Softly, the breeze made her lace skirt flutter, revealing her knobby knees. I was amazed she could stand considering the enormity of the world on her narrow shoulders.
“We can take a gap year to just chill and figure this whole ‘life’ thing out, you know,” I said, standing up as well. I was only two inches taller than her, but I still felt like a giant with my regular frame and full voice.
“You can take a gap year. I need to get out of here,” she poked my arm playfully as we strolled. She knew how badly I wanted to leave this town, too.
“No, I mean we can get an apartment together in a different city and work part time jobs. We can have tea in the morning and water windowsill plants before we go out for brunch with our new ‘city friends’. We can just be for a little while before we have to become something instead,” I don’t know whether or not I was saying this for her sake or mine, I just hoped she needed more time too.
She stopped walking and looked at me. Her eyes looked too innocent for her face and her jawline was sharper than a butcher's knife. I was afraid that when I looked at her it was going to be the last time. Her cold hand found mine and we interlaced our fingers like we did when were young. This was how we conquered our fear of the dark, she had taken my hand and pulled me through her living room when the lights off. We jumped on the couch before laughing at how scared we had felt.
Now it was a different kind of darkness that we had to lead each other through. With college coming and real life starting, every little thing felt like it had an impact. She coped through control, I coped through reminding myself that time wasn’t real anyway.
“I’ll make you a promise,” she said, her small voice barely audible over the rustle of leaves in the damp summer breeze.
“What is it?” I asked, my heart falling at the fact that she bare acknowledged my proposal to starting life later.
“I promise to… I promise, that I’ll never leave your side. I know we have different paths, but I promise you that I won’t leave you alone to travel yours by yourself. We’ve spent eighteen years together, we can’t break the streak now,” she looked right into my eyes as she said this, her voice finally expanding enough to be heard without difficulty. I couldn’t help but smile.
“I will also commit to that promise,” I said as I pulled her in for a hug.
She felt weak in my arms, her body cold despite the warm night. I hesitated before deciding that I needed to make another very important promise with her.
“Because we’re going to be traveling this life together, I need you to promise me something else,” I pulled away from her and looked her in the eyes, “You need to take care of yourself too.”
She nodded slowly, understanding what I meant. No more “I ate before I came”, “I’m not hungry”, “I don’t feel well”. Those were lies that she knew I could see through, I wanted the truth and nothing but the truth.
There was a brief silence as we both looked at each other. We started walking again, heading towards our neighborhood. I was afraid I had overstepped myself, for when I looked at her she avoided my gaze. I knew this would’ve happened.
We continued our way home, passing by houses we had known for eighteen years but never been inside. I looked at the ground before I stopped walking, distracted by an object on the gravel in front of me. She stopped too and looked over. We looked at each other before we started laughing. There was an entire loaf of bread on the ground, out of its’ wrapper and just sitting there for no apparent reason.
“The last… promise...of the night,” she said in between giggles.
“Let me hear it,” I replied, holding my stomach, trying to get the ache from laughter to stop.
“We need to make sure we both get out of this place, away from soggy road bread,” she said, smiling brightly.
I extended my pinky, and she looked at it with playful judgement. Without a word, she hooked her pinky finger with mine and we made the promise unbreakable.