The Portrait

Erin and I had wound up in the park one day. Normally, Central Park would be crawling with children and parents, but today, today it was rainy and gray. So we had the park mostly to ourselves.
I realized that day, just how much I loved gray days.
We were sitting on the swings, swinging back and forth in time. It was nice. Not having to talk, just swing. It had been so long since I had last been in a park, much less actually participated in what it had to offer.

"Up and down, up and down, up and down." Erin was singing softly.

Her feet, wrapped in black, beatup hightops were tracing through the air, laces trailing wildly behind her. I smiled, looking down at my own shoes. My shoes were black leather, polished to a shine, laces securely tied.
Our shoes were physical proof of our differences.
Erin was now laughing wildly, her grin lighting up the park as she sang louder and louder.

"Up and down! Up and down! UP AND DOWN!" her voice was reaching a high-pitched yell and she was giggling madly.
I was falling behind in the swinging rythym as she began pumping her legs faster and faster until she was rising high above my head, as high as the chain would allow.
I slowed to a crawl and began laughing at her. Never before had I met someone so confident that they could swing like a maniac in front of someone they hardly knew, the couple kissing by the pond, and the little blond girl who had stopped her lonely trek to watch.

Then all the sudden, Erin was gone.

The abruptly empty swing was still flying madly through the air and I could still hear her laugh but, Erin herself was gone. My mind took a moment to register the empty swing and then I flipped around in my own swing, nearly getting decapitated by her swing and saw Erin.

Lying on the ground, spread eagle, her hair all over the place.

I flung myself off the swing and fell to my knees next to her.

"Erin, ERIN! OhmyGod! Are you alright?" I was yelling, panicky.
My yells had somehow reached the couple (really, this came as a surprise, they had looked so very busy) and the man was now standing awkwardly by the bench looking towards us.
"Erin!" I said again.
She rolled her head to look at me and pierced me with a gaze that suggested I had lost my mind.

"Dorian! I'm alright! I just jumped off." she said.
I looked back at her swing which was now regaining its composure, softly screeching into the silence of the park.
"Jumped?" I asked.
She sat up, leaves entangled in her hair and a bemused expression on her face. She looked like a something out of mythology. A Diana, or a wood nymph. My fingers fairly twitched with the prospect of sketching the goddess that had just dropped in my lap. She was so beautiful. So...wild. And alive.
"You've never jumped off a swing?" she asked quietly. Almost like it was something to be ashamed of.
I looked away from her towards the couple that was now strolling, nonchalantly towards us, passing the girl that was now humming her way home.
"Never?" she asked again, this time her voice was filled with something close to a giggle.
I looked back at her and stood.
"It wasn't something I ever thought of." I said. I could feel my voice tight. Why was this upsetting me? It made no sense. It was a damn swing. So what if I had never jumped? It was dangerous, pointless, silly.
Erin stood too and a leaf floated down to rest on her feet. She grabbed at my hands and I looked at her. I was surprised to see her smiling at me, no LAUGHING at me.

If there is anything I hate more in this world, it is being laughed at.

I pulled my hands out of her grasp and I looked away, up at the cold sky.
"Why would anyone jump out of a swing?" I said stiffly.
She rushed in front of me, all laughs gone.
"Are you kidding me?" she asked. Straight faced, asked me if I was fucking serious.
"Because it's SO much fun!" she said.
I looked down at her and raised an eyebrow.
"WHAT, is so fun about jumping out of a swing?" I asked. And for some reason I had the feeling I was not going to like the answer.
The next thing I knew I back in my swing and Erin was pushing me into the air.
"Why do you need a reason for it to BE fun, it just IS fun!" she was yelling now. The wind had picked up and it was tossing her words across the park so that it echoed all around us.
"IS FUN!" she shouted and her voice traveled back to us and she laughed again. "PUMP HARDER! she cried out, and for some reason...

I did.

I began pumping harder then I think I ever did as a child. Faster and faster until I could see over the bar and across the park. The air was rushing all around and as I swooped to the ground, I could see Erin laughing at me.
No, not AT me, FOR me.
She was clapping like a child and I couldn't help but laugh. The air felt so good. All around me with nothing in my ears but the sound of it and the sound of the laugh that I had come to prize so dearly.
"NOW JUMP!" she yelled as loud as she possibly could.

And without thinking, without worrying, without even looking I did. I was soaring through the air, as high as the bar of the swing, I was flying, I was yelling. YELLING, for JOY. This was incredible. It was the simplest thing to ever do, and yet, for some reason I had never done it. And then I was hitting the ground, feet first. My knees buckled and i fell on my stomach, the air in my lungs whooshed out and I was trying to laugh, trying to breathe.
Erin was next to me, lying on the ground throwing leaves at me and I was laughing harder then I ever had before in my life.
And then I realized something. All this time, all my LIFE, I had been thinking. Thinking much to much. And now, now I was LIVING. So what if it was jumping off of swings like a complete moron. I was finally alive.
And Erin was so beautiful...there in the bleak sunshine she was more beautiful then I think a statue made of gold...

I leaned forward and without thinking...I kissed her.