Then, full of energy, she would dance her way down from the jungle-jim and make a dash for the swings. She always went higher than he did and yet she never pumped her legs the way children are taught in elementary school. Instead, she propelled her body forward using the strength in her torso. No matter how many times he watched her, he could never copy her technique. But it was perhaps because his heart was not in it. If he had swung higher than her, he never would have been able to watch her face as it was lighted by the sunset at one moment, and then covered in the shadows of the trees as she fell back from the sky. He wouldn't have been able to see her wide smile. It was the only time she ever parted her lips when she smiled, the only time she ever let her guard down enough to really laugh. She would laugh without reservation, joking cheekily with him; and so thoroughly amazing him with her quick-witted comments as to leave him in a state of complete wonderment, dumbfounded and blundering by the time her joking stopped and she became more serious.
She always stopped swinging when her tone became more serious. She would slump in the swing and lean her head to the side, resting it against the chain from which the swing hung. Her feet would burrow or carve nondescript designs into the sand. He would still his swing to her side and watch her expression turn in the twilight: brow troubled, gaze disturbed and focused on the ground, mouth down-turned. This was when she had expressed to him her college concerns, when she had told him about her troubles at home, when she had confessed to him that she had feelings for someone she pained herself would never feel back. Sometimes he would offer advice, other times he would extend sympathy and comfort. Most often, however, he would simply listen, not because he didn't have anything to say, but because he felt so strongly the pain through her words that the lump in his throat held any response prisoner in his chest. The grief in her voice always seemed too much for tears and as the last shafts of light were finally swallowed by the earth, her voice would turn hollow with anger and then it would stop altogether.
In the dark she'd get up from the swing and lie in the grass, putting her arms behind her and resting her head in her hands, gazing at the stars between the leaves of the trees, attempting to make out constellations by turning her head at multiple angles. He would stare at the spot where he knew she lied, even though he couldn't see her, just knowing that she was there and imagining what she looked like put enough of a picture in his mind. Minutes would pass before his eyes made out her shadow distinguishable from the grass. Then he'd rise and walk over to her, standing next to her and looking down at her face framed by the soft tendrils of her hair and haloed by her arms, her eyes now closed. He'd lie down next to her, mimicking her position by putting his arms behind his head and leaving enough space between the two of them so that his elbow only seemed to brush hers. He tried to guess which stars she'd seen, which ones had seemed brightest to her, which constellations she had made out. By the time he'd get around to guessing at her thoughts, her sighs of misery had turned into the slow, shallow breaths that accompany sleep.
He played the whole scene over in his mind as he stood looking at the playground in the waning daylight, like a ghost observing an event from his own life. He walked to the jungle-jim and climbed up to where she had always stood, sitting on the wall where she had braced herself, his legs hanging over the side. So this is what she saw. He'd never taken the time to join her, always content with the view from where he stood. But now... now he saw the sunset he'd watched her inhale, felt the light that had illuminated her face with gold. The sun was bleeding its passionate colors into the cool blue of the sky over the lake and pastelling the clouds over the crest of the island. No wonder this vision had inspired in her such euphoric expression: He'd never seen the sunset in such splendor, he'd always been to busy gazing at the splendor that was his best friend and taking his joy, or pain, from her own, that he'd never seen things from her perspective.
He jumped down from the wall of the playground and strode towards the swings, taking his usual place. He curled his hands around the chains to either side of him and felt the piece of paper in his hand, trapped between the chain and his palm. It was this piece of paper that had brought him here. Her neat, slender handwriting was difficult to decipher among the many creases he'd made to it, balled up in his fist; but he tried, yearning, to make out its words.
You've been my most patient and invaluable friend... I cannot expect you to understand nor do I want you to try... Please forgive me.
The swing left of him, the one that should have been occupied by her, moved and creaked softly in the wind, as if nervous of her absence. The light gave up trying to fight against the darkness and he could no longer see her words. The swing stopped creaking as if she had gotten up to go lie on the grass. He imagined her getting up once more, thought he could hear the bareness of her feet upon the soft grass. He knew that she was there, and just like always he couldn't see her. The darkness had taken her from his view. Like always, he pretended to gaze at her figure on the grass. Minutes passed and he could not make out her shadow; so, worried, he rose to join her, to see her face and lie next to her. He looked down at her face, confused by the shape it had taken of the grass. He sat down next to her before falling on his back, resting his head in his arms, his elbow brushing hers.
Almost.
The leaves in the wind echoed the shallow breaths she did not breathe, although she slept.
