Orange lights approach and recede in a wash as the bus takes me from Carlisle. My mind is empty and over encumbered, all in one, as I focus my energy and attention on the illuminated night beyond the window. It's desperation that clings to my thoughts and demands my attention, a desperate mental device to ignore a truth. The truth. And yet the truth sits in my mind in complacency, having already settled with me permanently. I guess I’m trying to distract myself because I know that cheap mental tricks are all that remain. No real solution can cure me of what I know, except for time and the inevitable ability to forget.
The world is full of destinations, adorned in landmarks and prestige and flooded with temporary visitors. Well, all humans are temporary visitors, but this specific breed has embraced that fact. Carlisle is not one of those destinations. No one arrives without a real reason to. Carlisle is the worn tire swing scuffed and proven by use. Carlisle is the river running parallel to her house and mine, where we'd wander together. On either side of the water, we would exchange knowing smiles, fueled by the mutual confusion of youth, until we reached the old tree that fell from one side to the other. By then, the day had begun to decay and the night rose to assume the kingdom. The air was orange and purple and blue, according to which leaf on which tree the sun fed itself through before sitting in the space around us, but all I remember is her face. The curl of her mahogany bangs as they fell to the left. The consistent shine in her eyes, like a fresh diamond under water. Sometimes I think, after enough time, all I'll remember of Carlisle is her. Then after some more time...
The bus rocks forward and brings me back to full consciousness, and I curse under my breath. A mental wall has been broken, and the orange streetlights don't seem as important anymore, more like a device to keep my attention from what’s more important. Sometimes I wonder if another mental wall could break at any moment, and my passions in life would seem trivial to something bigger.
All that used to matter was that I knew what my passions were. It's funny how my heart plays tricks on me when I feel the most secure. I should be completely satisfied, and yet her absence makes everything I do seem trivial, even dangerous because they keep me from her. Then I look back on how satisfied I was before and question how I was ever happy without knowing Eve.
I was eleven years old when I met her. I mean, I saw her in class and caught her eyes in the hallway before, but when you truly get to know someone, those small encounters seem more like wasted opportunities than anything else. I missed the bus, not out of a hectic accident, but a subconscious choice. A choice full of reasoning, but a reasoning I didn’t fully understand yet. Something held me there, feet frozen by the exit, watching all the kids pack onto the buses or discard their backpacks onto the sidewalk and race down the street.
The moment faded and the buses moved on. The race ended where it began and the kids reassumed their backpacks as their parents drove up. Everything concluded in a neat bundle I never noticed before. Sometimes I forget about the system all around me, organized as neatly as a prison cell. I realized then that, for the first time, I was on the outside, looking in. My feet were released from the earth’s firm grip, and I wandered off in no specific direction.
A slight magnetic pull must have taken me to the swing set in the playground behind the school. It was abandoned in such a way I had never seen before. The place was inanimate where it had always been bursting with energy. Colors faded with the sun. The bright yellow slide big enough to be a landmark was nearly gray with the evening. It was as if the vibrant greens and reds along the jungle gym were seen through lenses fogged by time. And yet I never felt more comfortable. I didn’t have to scream and run to match the standard set around me. I sat and swayed back and forth on the aged green swing, content with my placement on the planet.
I lost track of time as I swayed. For a while, I allowed gravity to assume all of the responsibilities I usually reserve for myself. Move me and let me let go. I only remember the sun falling in a swift moment, as if no time passed. Two notable moments on either side of hours occurred. I sat down, then Eve did.
She was several swings away, but I noticed instantly. The playground embraced a new emotion. It wasn’t abandoned and considerate anymore, but held an even greater comfort. Maybe it’s because I’ll always think of her when I think of that swing set on that playground, but I’m nearly certain that at that moment, in the slightest way, something changed.
I was frozen again, just as I was by the exit to the buses. I was separated from the moment, watching events that have already been defined without me. Time moved until the sun hit the back of our necks and sent a dark shadow across the wood chips. That was me. My physical being was empty and uninspired to Eve, but our shadows swung together, painted onto the chips in the way any other painting outlives and outshines the creator.
By then, I knew everything I needed to know about her. I understood that she wouldn’t leave because there was nothing pulling her home. I understood that my presence was a soothing amnesia, and as long as we stayed in that constant sway, nothing would change.
As the shadows expanded with every minute until they overwhelmed the daylight completely, I accepted that time was, in fact, moving. Or maybe it began moving again, after freezing with us. Or maybe I connected with it again after dislocating myself from time for a little while. All that I knew for certain was that we were reconnected and reapplied to paths that don’t interweave. She stood and I stood at what must have been the same moment, as we held the same understanding. Time moves alone, and we follow.
I tend to hold regrets. It’s often easier than convincing myself that I’ve made the right choices. But I don’t regret leaving Eve behind. We traced Carlisle a dozen times over a series of summers, but it was always a faded replication. We spoke and we laughed in fatigue, always fading with a sigh, never satisfied with the other’s company. I know now, staring off into the eternal darkness of my bus window, that leaving Carlise was necessary. If I had stayed, I would have only searched forever, looking for what doesn’t exist. Well, it does exist, or has existed, but only at one point, disconnected from time, painted onto wood chips.
