I'll Forget About You

It was a few days later before I’d finally found time to get outside with the dogs again. There had been a few hangouts since the last (and most memorable) walk I had taken with the girls those three or four days ago. I couldn’t really remember.

Summer was always a hazy season because of the lack of school to keep the days straight, and I found myself even more confused and dazed as the days passed. More people to see, more people to talk to and get to know before we would all part off for good. I wasn’t exactly sure what the purpose of me making all these new friends was, when I was just going to be leaving for New York in less than a matter of months.

But I was having fun. That’s all that mattered. Even if I didn’t know if it was Friday or Monday. Nothing mattered. No one cared. Everything was easy, everything was beautiful.

I had awoken to a good morning (or in this case, afternoon) text from one of girls I had been hanging out with last night. She informed me that everyone was getting together again tonight at a party just a few neighborhoods over. For some reason, I felt the need to decline. I had been out so many nights already. Just for tonight, it felt like a good time to stay in and perhaps catch up on some reading. Lord knows I wouldn’t be finding much time to read on my own once school started up again.

My hair was thrown up into a pony tail, as I had a ritual of taking the girls out for a walk, and showering later. The heat always seemed to get to me on the walk, inducing a slight sweat that only felt right if I showered it off. I was interested in what the weather in New York was going to be like compared to here. Of course, I knew it would be quite different. I wondered how I would handle it. I was used to the heat from living in Arizona my entire life, so it was anyone’s guess how much I could take of the cold New York winters I had heard so much about.

But I wanted change. That’s why I was moving to the complete other side of the country.

The girls slipped into their harnesses, scrambling across the tractionless wood floors to wait by the front door while I slipped on my shoes. It was a great day, as always. The sun was bright and shining, the clock telling me it was just about three in the afternoon. It seemed that I was waking up later and later now, the more that I was spending time with people I used to avoid at all costs.

Funny how as I opted to move across the country for college, I was only now making connections with people I had plans of leaving behind. They were all going somewhere as well, I’m sure. Most of them were staying around home as far as I knew, but I wasn’t the only one traveling more than a few hours away.

Would any of them miss me?

I wasn’t so sure. I wasn’t so sure I would miss them. I didn’t care very much either way if I hung out with people or not. I suppose I was just indifferent. Might as well spend time with friends though so that the days would pass by a little faster. We weren’t even a month into summer yet, but it felt like it had only been a few days. Things just blurred together I suppose. Lines faded, smeared by the rough hands of summer nights and waking up late in the morning. Somewhere along the line I guess everything just became one.

All of these days that were flying by eventually just grew into the same day. Everything was one.

We started out, the girls flying forward as per usual. I wondered if they would ever get the hang of pacing themselves. I suppose I wondered this every time we went on a walk, though. I wondered if I would ever stop asking myself the same questions over and over again. The answer was always going to be the same, anyways.

We turned onto Garrett’s street. I don’t know if I was expecting something similar to the previous (and first) encounter we’d had those few days ago. I wasn’t really sure what I was expecting at all. It just felt like maybe I should take a turn down here again, in hopes of perhaps another brief, four second meeting. It was better than nothing, after all.

Worth a shot?

His car wasn’t there. I suppose I couldn’t really ask for too much. And I suppose I had to expect even less. It’s not like I was still “into” him, or whatever. It had been a year. I’d seen him once this summer. Before that, the last time I had seen him was before he graduated.

I suppose I was relatively successful in forgetting about him after he left, and I was still here. There was nothing else to do. Nothing else besides forgetting the infatuation that never grew to be anything more than that.

Maybe I should have just called up some of the boys I had been spending time with now for the past few weeks.

I’m sure they’d have no objections to taking me out. My love life had never really existed before. Maybe it was time to breath some life into it before I set off into the real world, where I wouldn’t have control over any situation.

My head was slightly spinning now as the girls and I continued on past Garrett’s house. I sighed, wondering where that oh-so-distinct Chevy could be. Off with friends, perhaps. Having a life.

The girls and I finished up the walk, them too eager to get inside and find the water bowl, me too eager for yet another hopeful glimpse of Garrett. I pushed it aside from my thoughts though, heading upstairs to shower after I unharnessed the girls and set them free to go get water.

It was funny how you could remember someone so easily after seeing them again for only a matter of moments. All of the energy spent in forgetting someone I never knew was revoked just like that. Wasted.

I took a cold shower, standing there while goosebumps began to form across my skin. The tiny hairs on my arms were raising up, standing on end before I finally gave in and adjusted the temperature of the water.

My hair was drying and I slipped into a pair of shorts and a tank. A few books that had yet to be read were sitting around in my room. For the past months they had been begging me to read them, staring back at me every time I wished I just had a few hours to pick one up and indulge. It was funny how school got in the way. Life got in the way. Those two darn things seemed to take up all my time.

And I could only imagine how little time I was going to have when I moved to New York, between class and getting to class and homework and maybe even socializing with people here and there. Maybe when you get older all of your free time is just supposed to melt away, because you’re meant to be doing more important things, like working.

I wasn’t so sure how I liked the sound of that, but I suppose I should take advantage of what time I had now.

I plopped down on the couch downstairs with two or three books. I had no intention of finishing them all--or even just one--today, but I thought I may as well have more on hand just in case I end up spending hours down here. Mom was off at work right now, gone for the day to her job as a nurse.

The words on the page seeped into my brain, flooding my mind with all of the imagery. The feeling of actually reading a book for sheer fun was suddenly unfamiliar to me now, as the only books I had been reading my senior year were assigned for classes. But I smiled a little, thinking about how this entire summer I could read as much as I want.

It was a good feeling. There was still so much time left until I would pack up and leave.

It wasn’t so long ago that I couldn’t wait to leave, and right now, well, I was just taking it day by day. This place wasn’t too horrendous, I had learned. Friends made it easier to deal with, so I had found. Maybe that’s just what I had always been lacking: something to make me want to stay here.

I was already committed to New York though, and still had every intention of leaving at the end of the summer, no matter how good things could possibly get within the next two and a half months.

A few more text messages had been received throughout the day, wondering if I was going to the party that was happening somewhere in town. I declined every time. I had been out so many nights already this summer, with people I had once told myself I couldn’t wait to get away from. I just needed a night in, I guess. Maybe something to remind me of how I used to spend all of those nights alone with my minimal amount of friends.

Hours ticked by like minutes. I was close to finishing my first book, only chapters away from the end. Day light started to fade, the sun in the stages of setting. I looked out of the window in the family room, admiring the pink and orange and various other colors in the sky. Things were so beautiful sometimes. It was a shame they often went unnoticed by the majority of the human race.

My legs were restless at this point though, my stomach growling for sustenance.

I folded the corner of the page I was on, setting the book on the coffee table and standing up. There wasn’t too much to be found in either the pantry or the fridge, but I made do with a bowl of Cheerios and a glass of orange juice.

The bowl was empty within minutes, my stomach satisfied. I finished the orange juice in the glass and set it in the sink with my cereal bowl. I looked outside. The sun was still setting, so close now to disappearing from sight, soon to let the night sky take over.

For the first time in what might have been months or even years, I decided to take a short walk to a place I hadn’t been in so long.

I wrote on a sticky note, alerting my mom that I was just going out, and would call her if I wasn’t going to be home before midnight. I took my keys with me, locking the front door before setting off on the sidewalk. The destination I had in mind was only a few minutes away. My heart did race slightly from the anticipation. I hadn’t been here in so long. We used to come here all the time, just to hang out, just to unwind and have fun.

I’d lived in this neighborhood since seventh grade, and there was always some kind of comfort that the playground of the elementary school within our neighborhood brought. I didn’t attend that elementary school, but a strong majority of the people I knew in the neighborhood had, of course.

The swing set it what always mesmerized me. There was that feeling of flying when you were swinging. The small hope that you would just never come down when you were at the highest point of the swing, feeling the chains go slack, your stomach in your throat. Nothing could ever compare to that feeling.

It was just flying. Flying for three or four seconds while you had a view of the entire field that bordered the playground, wishing that you could just sail into the sky and never, never come back.

Because everything was perfect when you were laughing and smiling and sailing through the air as if gravity didn’t exist.

Until you came crashing down, all too aware that gravity did exist, and you wouldn’t be sailing into the sky any time soon.

I took a spot on the swing, the entire playground empty. It was so quiet, except for the fact that the school bordered one of the main roads, so the occasional passing car would ruin the perfect silence. That couldn’t make me find this place any less beautiful, though. Sure, it was just an elementary school. Nothing special or remotely even interesting, other than the fact that there were some quirky little dinosaur shaped things that I supposed kids would climb on.

I sat on the swing for quite some time, swinging back and forth gently, not feeling quite up to pumping my legs so that I could fly through the night air, hoping to land amongst the stars.

It was still quiet, my thoughts being the only thing I could hear.

Sometime later thought I heard the crunch of feet on summer grass. My mind didn’t tune into the noise too much, figuring it was just someone passing through the field. I didn’t really care to look and find the shape of who was crossing.

Until the noise got closer, and I heard much more than just feet crunching summer grass. It was the screech and squeak of old metal being moved, the sound of the chains on the swing next to me. The sound of the swing next to me suddenly being occupied by another body.

My head turned slightly, bangs in my eyes as I really hoped this wasn’t someone preparing to kidnap and rape me.

My heart was beating, beating. I heard it all the way in my ears, thumping from fear as I allowed my eyes to trace over the face of the person sitting next to me, barely illuminated by the moon that was slow to rise in the night.

I knew this face. The messy brown hair. The blue eyes that I couldn’t exactly see, but knew were there. The night had a way of fading details into oblivion. Everything was always slightly more hazy with a lack of light. I knew who this was, though.

And my perverted mind actually smiled ever so secretively at the thought of being kidnapped by this one.

I sat there in silence for a few seconds though, not exactly sure what was going on. Was I supposed to say something? Was he going to say something? I was still, of course, generally curious as to why he chose the swing next to me, out of the other four on each side of me.

He broke the silence though, his words piercing through the calm night air like chucking a glass plate at the wall. Sudden, abrupt, unexpected. Slightly terrifying.

“You uh, you went to Desert Vista, didn’t you?”

I wasn’t so sure how to reply. Yes, of course I went there. But suddenly all of my words were caught in my throat, yearning to escape, while I had forgotten how to open my mouth. Perhaps I had even forgotten how to breath.

“Yeah,” I stumbled. “I did.”

I thought this was an odd way to start a conversation.

“Thought so,” he replied coolly. “I remember seeing you around a few times.”

Oh.

“But you were a junior, I think, right?”

The sound of the chains of his swing creaking as he slowly swayed back and forth was the only noise between us. I couldn’t seem to move at all.

“Yeah, just graduated this year,” I said. Wow. How strange was it now to be able to say that I had actually graduated? Well, pretty strange.

“I’m Garrett,” he said. Formal introduction: check.

“I’m Alaina,” I replied.

Initial first meeting, first formal introduction. What was to come next?

“So have you always lived around here? Or…” he trailed off, and I assumed he was asking if I had lived here during high school.

“We moved here like, right at the end of seventh grade.” I wondered if he wondered why we had never bumped into each other around here. I suppose I was always wondering the same thing, too.

Maybe we had seen each other around here and there, fleeting moments of walking past each other on the street without even realizing it. We’d made it through all of high school without knowing each other. Well, until the end of my junior (and Garrett’s senior) year. Then somehow things started falling into place. Just a few frames of time coincidentally lined up next to each other.

Somehow they had all led up to this very moment, I suppose.

“Oh,” he said. “Kind of funny, I mean, that we live in the same neighborhood and never really saw each other in school until I was just about finished altogether.”

I chuckled dryly.

“Weird, isn’t it…” I said quietly. I wondered what made him come to the park tonight, what made him sit next to me, why he even bothered to spit out a few words.

“Guess it’s a small world and a big world in the same sense.” I heard the swing creak beneath him as he moved around a little, barely swinging back and forth.

Small world: living in the same neighborhood as the same guy I’d had a major crush on at the end of my junior year.

Big world: not even knowing Garrett existed until the end of my junior year. Not seeing him once throughout the duration of high school even though his house was only streets away from mine.

Was it just coincidence that ended up in the discovery that Garrett lived in my neighborhood upon seeing him departing one afternoon in that yellow Chevy? Was it further coincidence that we brushed into small contact a few days ago when I was on a walk with my dogs?

I wasn’t sure. Maybe this was just all some sort of weird joke the universe was deciding to play on me.

As I am set to leave in a matter of months, I’m handed Garrett Nickelsen, the boy I had crushed over (and equally been crushed by) during the final weeks of my junior year.

For now though, I could pretend I wasn’t going anywhere.