Sunshiner

The thing about humankind is this: we can never stand to be alone. We are social creatures and it seems that it would be utterly impossible to live in solitude. Some species of animals live their entire lives utterly alone and absolutely independent; humans do not. Humans cannot.

We have made specific places whose purpose is to help us escape the threat of loneliness. Take the beach, for example. You can go to the ocean and look around and all you see is hundreds and hundreds of people lying around under the sun. And for what? It certainly isn’t just for the sand or the nice view; those things are meaningless. We go to the beach to be surrounded by other people, whether we consciously realize it or not. The same goes for malls and densely populated cities. We surround ourselves by people we know and even people we don’t know because they are people and humans cannot cope with the frightening feeling of being in this world alone.

We hide within these massive crowds simply because people need each other. Despite the fact that humankind is capable of an unbelievable amount of cruelty and hatred, we are capable of love, too. And although this love is more of a blind need than anything else, it is still love. People really need each other. We need friends and family and lovers. We even need strangers.

But it seemed that for me, the only thing I needed was Candace.

The feeling I had for Candace was something of a blind need and more. Maybe it was love. I don’t know. I think it was too soon for love. All I knew is that I needed to be with her at all times and God forbid I would ever be alone. Even if I was surrounded by other people – Johnny Boy, my mom, my entire team; it didn’t matter – I would still feel lonely. If I wasn’t by her side for nearly all hours of the day I felt as though I was trying to breathe underwater; soon I would suffocate and die a torturously slow death.

We had been inseparable for over a week – eight and a half days, to be precise. I counted. There were twenty-four hours in a day. There were one thousand, four hundred and forty minutes in those twenty-four hours. And there were eighty-six thousand and four hundred seconds in those minutes. I counted all of it.

The strangest part about our relationship was that it wasn’t awkward at all. It felt weird because it wasn’t weird. We were just as comfortable around each other as we were before, except…now there was more touching and flirting and kissing. There weren’t any new butterflies in my stomach when I saw her – those had been there all along, but I had never admitted it to myself. So everything was still the same only we weren’t so stubborn. And we were so much happier.

She had broken up with Chad, of course. It was awesome. I watched. I had to hide behind a tree as to not get caught otherwise Candace would have kicked my ass; I think she felt bad about breaking his heart. Ha ha.

Of course, we still only saw each other in secret. Although we didn’t talk about it, we knew that neither of us wanted anyone to know that we were…well, together. Hell, I didn’t even know if we were together. What the hell does that mean, anyway? We weren’t dating, because I didn’t take her out on any dates. But we were together in the sense that we spent all of our available time by each other’s side and we couldn’t bear to spend more than a few hours apart. So I guess we were a couple in that way.

That was one of the reasons why we didn’t want anyone to know about it, though. People would wonder what we really were; if we were fuck buddies or dating or engaged or I don’t know what. People had to know real, solid answers, and I knew that my definition of ‘together’ just wouldn’t sit well with them. They would demand us to surrender all of our secrets, and they would whisper and gossip and try to find out everything about us. They would want more, more and more. And I think that would ruin our relationship. We just wanted to be together – it was a simple desire, really; just the two of us, alone – and if anyone else was there to witness it, then that would ruin it. It would ruin us.

And thus we kept it a secret.

Sometimes it really fucking sucked, though. I couldn’t fully pay attention to conversations I was having with my mom or my friends because I would think about her. I was irritable when I had gone more than six hours without her. Sometimes I would lay awake all night just wishing that I could fall asleep so that I could dream about her. No matter what I was doing with my life, it was always about her, her, her. I could never get enough.

Today was another secret day. I told Johnny Boy that I was at home doing chores for my mom; I told my mom I was out with Johnny Boy. No one else really cared where I was and so I didn’t need to tell any more lies. Fortunately the only friend I had that cared was Johnny Boy, and he hadn’t been getting on my case too much lately because he had been spending more and more time with that girl Cindy from the ice cream parlor. I think their relationship had gotten to a point when they were actually dating – a rare thing in Dayton. And I was surprised that Johnny Boy had actually tamed himself enough to be tied down to one girl. Johnny Boy had different a different philosophy than I did when it came to girls: he tended to hook up with multiple girls at once (sometimes there’d be two or more girls in one night); whereas I tended to me a one-girl guy. Yeah, okay, it was true that I sort of went through girls quickly. And I didn’t really like a girl as much as I should have before I did those…things with her. But if I was with a girl, whether I was dating her or just hooking up with her on occasion, I wouldn’t be messing around with anyone else.

Anyway, he didn’t really worry about me because I hung out with him when I wasn’t with Candace. So he didn’t suspect a thing. No one did.

Today was therefore open to all sorts of adventures. It was a cloudy day and every once in a while it would rain for a few minutes and then it would stop; although the weather wasn’t too overcast, it was dreary enough for everyone to remain indoors for the day.

Hand in hand, we trudged through the marsh area that was located near the outskirts of the Lake as Louie the golden retriever bounded gleefully before us. He was our adventure tour-guide, since he had an incredible sense of smell and could sniff out any mysterious “treasures” (whatever they may be). However, he was a bit more rambunctious than usual and seemed to be having a very fun time sloshing around in the murky swamp waters, turning his magnificent golden coat a grimy shade of vomit-green.

“Louie, you stupid little idiot, get out of there,” Candace commanded, but her voice lacked the power and authority it usually had and I got the sense that her mood didn’t match her words. If I had to guess, I would think that she only yelled at her dog out of habit; she was perfectly fine with him getting himself filthy. She wanted him to have fun, I think. She was in a good mood today.

I smiled. I was in a good mood, too.

“Where’s that dumb dog taking us?” she sighed, leaning into my shoulder as she stared off in the distance. I followed her gaze and saw Louie barking madly at a dragonfly. “I think he’s lost his gift,” she continued, referring to his sensitive nose.

“Don’t worry, I know where we’re going,” I said and began to lead the way.

“You mean you’ve been here before?” she said as she followed me. I turned around and saw her jump out of the way of a swamp puddle, and she made a face as her foot slipped and splashed in the nasty water.

“Yeah,” I replied, trying not to laugh as she cursed at her now-filthy toes (we were walking barefoot, of course, since it was midsummer; not a great idea when you’re in swamp, but we didn’t really plan ahead that well). “Johnny Boy and I used to come here all the time.”

“Why?” she asked and whistled towards Louie as he began to stray too far. He came prancing back, dancing through the waters merrily with his tongue lolling out of his mouth. “It’s disgusting here,” she added.

“It’s not so bad further up,” I explained. “The swamp turns into a river when we get closer to the Lake. It’s cleaner. And there are a lot less bugs.”

“Good,” was her curt reply, and our conversation ended as we concentrated on hopping from one dry area to the next as to avoid getting wet and covered with leeches. I hated leeches; any sort of parasite disgusted me. My hatred for them was like a girl’s dislike for bugs. It was embarrassing sometimes.

When the marsh reeds thickened and the shrubs turned into trees, indicating that we had entered the forest, the water grew clearer and it gained a twisting but definite form as it matured into a free-flowing river. The tinkling water danced to the song of the birds and the rain had started up again. It was a slow drizzle at first but now the drops were coming down in light sheets that painted the forest in diamonds. A mist floated carelessly around our feet as we continued to walk, and it seemed as if we were walking on clouds as the silver fog breathed on our toes with tiny droplets of water.

“So where are we going, exactly?”

“To the tree house.”

“The tree house?” she echoed.

“Last time I checked it was the only one in Dayton. So yes, the tree house.”

“I didn’t even know there was a tree house.”

“Only Johnny Boy and I know about it. We used to come out here all the time as kids.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me about it?” she pouted.

“First of all, I hated you,” I said with a smirk, “and secondly, Johnny Boy and I discovered it by ourselves. We liked keeping it a secret. It made it cooler. Besides, every group of boys needs a secret hideout.”

“You didn’t build it yourselves, then?” she asked, mildly surprised.

“No.”

“Then who did?”

“I don’t know.”

“How old is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“How do you know it’s safe?”

“I don’t.”

“What if the wood’s rotten and we fall through?”

To that, I finally had an answer. “We won’t fall through. We can’t. It’s built on the ground.”

“What kind of a tree house is that?”

I smiled. “An awesome one.”

“It doesn’t sound very – ”

“You’ll see,” I assured her, and we fell into another silence.

It wasn’t long before the trees parted and then we were there. I had expected Candace to begin talking as soon as she saw it, to praise it or at least blabber about how she hated it. (She always managed to find something negative about everything – it was a pet peeve of mine, and I wished she would stop, but what could I do? Everyone had annoying habits. I had mine, and she had hers.) But instead, she said nothing, which surprised me. I turned around to look at her and saw that she was in fact speechless: her mouth hung open and she just stared at it in awe. I smiled. The river laughed. It was as if the forest enjoyed her reaction as much as I did.

It was quite a beautiful sight to see, even more so since I hadn’t been back here in years and my tired eyes had missed it. The tree house was located on a massive, ancient Weeping Willow with a twisted tree trunk that held many secrets. Its delicate branches dangled like elongated fingers as they stroked the ground gently, and the leaves fluttered happily as they conversed with the wind. The tree house was indeed built upon the ground, but there were benefits to this: the silky moss that carpeted the forest acted as a very comfortable floor for the tree house, and it was built low enough so that the Willow’s branches acted like a silvery green curtain that shielded it from the rest of the world. Besides, a Weeping Willow wasn’t a very good tree to build a tree house in, and therefore it was only suitable for it to be built on the ground. Whoever had built it – which must have been so many years ago – had thought it through. And they must have been geniuses, too; this was the most perfect and most beautiful place in all of Dayton.

“It’s amazing,” Candace whispered and I just smiled and took her hand in mine. Her hand always seemed so warm and I liked it.

“Come on,” I whispered and led her inside.

Stepping into the tree house was like stepping into another universe. Everything glinted green and silver as if it was powdered in a sparkling dust, and the sunshine (which wasn’t present today, but I could still remember it from my childhood) could only puncture through the Willow’s shield in tiny bursts of glittering warmth. The tree house’s walls were covered in a tangled mess of ivy (not poison ivy, thankfully) and vine-like wildflowers, which were currently in bloom and decorated everything in scattered dots of orange buds. The tree house itself was built in a sturdy, everlasting wood, and even though the place hadn’t been tended to in years, there was no trace of rotting, though it was hard to tell since the plant life was practically devouring it.

“I love it,” she announced and Louie barked his approval.

“You should see it at night,” I replied, a goofy smile plastered on my face as I conjured up old memories. “The fireflies are spectacular.”

Her gaze turned to the trunk of the Weeping Willow and I watched as her fingers traced over something; as I looked closer I saw that long ago someone had inscribed a heart with the letters FW + SL. I had seen the engraving before, but I had never really thought much of it.

“They were the ones who made this,” she murmured, tracing over the faded letters.

“Or they just found it before we did,” I shrugged.

“The tree house couldn’t have been along for that long,” she countered, “otherwise the wood would be rotten by now. I bet they were the ones who built it.”

I shrugged and said nothing. I had never given the founders of this tree house much thought; as a child, I had strongly believed that this was my hideout (well, and Johnny Boy’s) and I didn’t like the idea that it belonged to someone else. Now that I was older, however, I realized that I did sort of like the idea of a legacy. It gave the tree house a story, a legend.

“They were lovers,” she said with a smile.

“What?”

“FW and SL. They were lovers.”

“If you say so,” I laughed. Girls could really let things get to their heads sometimes.

Candace propped herself up on the railing and watched as Louie snapped at the swaying Willow branches. “Have you ever brought anyone else out here?”

“Only Johnny Boy, but I bet he’s forgotten about this place by now,” I said. “You’re the only other one who’s seen this place.”

“Ooh,” she cooed, smiling playfully. “I feel pretty damn special.”

“You better,” I smirked and secured my arms around her waist. She wrapped her legs around me and then reached up to pull me in for a kiss.

“I like it here,” she said after a few minutes as we were trying to catch our breaths. “It’s so secretive and it’s easy to hide from everyone else. I really just like the fact that there aren’t any people here.”

“Hmm,” I agreed, paying more attention to her lips than I was to her words.

“I’ve been thinking,” she went on. “It’s sort of a crazy idea, and you’ll probably say no…”

I didn’t reply (still not listening), and so she went on.

“We should disappear together.”

I snapped back to attention. “W-What?”

“Only for like a week or something,” she said sheepishly, humbled by my shocked reaction. “Just to be alone without having to sneak around all the time.”

“What do you mean by disappear?” I asked incredulously.

“You know…just leave. Without telling anyone. We can pack a bag or two, bring some money, take off in your car…and after a week we’ll come home.”

“And we won’t tell anyone? Not even our parents?”

“Not a soul.”

Her grin was enticing and I almost said yes. But – but this was insane. Candace was known to do spontaneous things, but this was over the limit. My mom would be absolutely pissed at me if I left without a word.

“So what do you say?” she asked and ran a hand through my dark brown hair.

“I…” I mumbled slowly, and I felt terrible when I saw the hurt expression on her face. “I have to think about it.”