I Love You, Sleepyhead We sat close to the edge, swinging our feet over the end. I dug my nail into the sodden wood of the floorboards, leaning over the edge. Often times, I wondered about falling. About all the life I would leave behind. I wondered if it would hurt when I landed on the forest floor, if earth would catch me on my way down or whether I would crunch to the ground like burnt leaves. The first time I proposed the idea to Max his face had gotten all placid and controlled, and he had crawled over to my side of the treehouse, grabbing my arms. Max didn’t touch me very often and when he did, it meant things were serious. No, he’d say. No. It was strange how one little word has saved my life so many times. “I think winter is in love with summer,” Max said. I looked up, rescued from my suicidal reverie. He stared at me with huge green eyes. It was a struggle to not look away. He was a very contemplating boy, Max. A very true boy. It was all in his eyes, painted like fields of letters, all mixed and jumbled, spelling out the secrets to Max. “How so?” I asked, pulling my skinny legs from over the side and standing up. I felt the comfort of the Crown on my head. Reaching up to adjust the delicate molding yellow paper, Max rustled slightly as he rose. “I think that winter fell in love with summer. And she is… allergic? No. She’s caught up in her own beauty. Summer is in love with the sun, and the hot air, and the tiny bodies who exist in her time and run in huge pools. Winter doesn’t have that. And when Winter comes, Summer runs away. It hides on the other side of the world, afraid of snow and pink cheeks. So every year, Winter is sad. Winter wishes Summer back, but she won’t come until Winter retreats… so it’s a cycle. Kinda like the sun and the moon,” he finished rather lamely. I leaned on the sill of the back of the treehouse, gazing out our handcrafted window, watching leaves starting to fall. Thin, dirty blond hair dripped over my shoulders and hung slightly above my collar. I felt eyes on me, and a warm body behind mine. “I love Winter,” I said thoughtfully. It stirred, approaching the window and leaning it’s elbows next to mine. I looked up at Max. He was watching me carefully. He opened his mouth and spoke words that changed everything. “Winter loves you too.”
It had all led up to December 18th, of 1998.
I closed my eyes. This was the end of it, I was sick. I stood and the room began to spin around me. My grandmother’s rocker in the corner became my tempo, my beat. The creaking, grinding ever-present angry crunch of dirt beneath a bulldozer. My mother and father’s screams became chorus. I felt it building all I around me. I waited for the climax, slipping on my shoes. I passed as if in a dream by the kitchen, my head narrowly missed my a flying pot. Neither of them saw me. The front door stood erect, glowing from porch lights. I heard the drumming of my brother’s feet upstairs. I felt the wind singing in my ears. My nerves were on end. I grabbed my paper Crown. The final touch, before I tore from my claustrophobic home. Night air whipped my face and I felt the adrenaline course through my veins. This was something new. This was freedom. I chased out my front lawn to the sidewalk, every footfall echoing in tempo with my grandmother’s chair. I began to shout, I began to holler. I sang into the cold night air, the street-lamps my race markers, the flash of lights of the houses I passed a competitor. I raced up to Max’s corner. I yelled louder when I got there but didn’t slow down. Somehow I knew he would follow. A crash of green burst from a rickety screen door and I saw a familiar streak of brown hair, an old wooden sword in hand. I kept running, panting, yelling to the stars, announcing to the planets Max and I were free. I heard screaming of his mother from the open door but didn’t care. We didn’t pause for anything. Stars blinking their welcome to our new home were all that meant anything in the world as a soft hand slipped into mine. I glanced sideways, green eyes and a toothy grin meeting my own I didn’t know was there. Max and I together cawed into the night with elation. Finally. We ran into the night. We were wild.
I would like to tell you the story of in-between. The story of two children, caught in the whirlwind of adult discordance and bad parenting. Coincidences and collisions. A bloody nose and a very cold, very sad, one-eyed Bear. A death and a rebirth. Naïve love and cold-blooded hatred. The blood oath of two so tightly wound not even the sharpest sword can severe their bond. This is the story of Addison Wilder and Max Fischer.
We sat close to the edge, swinging our feet over the end. I dug my nail into the sodden wood of the floorboards, leaning over the edge. Often times, I wondered about falling. About all the life I would leave behind. I wondered if it would hurt when I landed on the forest floor, if earth would catch me on my way down or whether I would crunch to the ground like burnt leaves. The first time I proposed the idea to Max his face had gotten all placid and controlled, and he had crawled over to my side of the treehouse, grabbing my arms. Max didn’t touch me very often and when he did, it meant things were serious. No, he’d say. No. It was strange how one little word has saved my life so many times.
“I think winter is in love with summer,” Max said. I looked up, rescued from my suicidal reverie. He stared at me with huge green eyes. It was a struggle to not look away. He was a very contemplating boy, Max. A very true boy. It was all in his eyes, painted like fields of letters, all mixed and jumbled, spelling out the secrets to Max.
“How so?” I asked, pulling my skinny legs from over the side and standing up. I felt the comfort of the Crown on my head. Reaching up to adjust the delicate molding yellow paper, Max rustled slightly as he rose.
“I think that winter fell in love with summer. And she is… allergic? No. She’s caught up in her own beauty. Summer is in love with the sun, and the hot air, and the tiny bodies who exist in her time and run in huge pools. Winter doesn’t have that. And when Winter comes, Summer runs away. It hides on the other side of the world, afraid of snow and pink cheeks. So every year, Winter is sad. Winter wishes Summer back, but she won’t come until Winter retreats… so it’s a cycle. Kinda like the sun and the moon,” he finished rather lamely.
I leaned on the sill of the back of the treehouse, gazing out our handcrafted window, watching leaves starting to fall. Thin, dirty blond hair dripped over my shoulders and hung slightly above my collar.
I felt eyes on me, and a warm body behind mine.
“I love Winter,” I said thoughtfully.
It stirred, approaching the window and leaning it’s elbows next to mine.
I looked up at Max. He was watching me carefully. He opened his mouth and spoke words that changed everything.
“Winter loves you too.”
It had all led up to December 18th, of 1998.
I closed my eyes. This was the end of it, I was sick. I stood and the room began to spin around me. My grandmother’s rocker in the corner became my tempo, my beat. The creaking, grinding ever-present angry crunch of dirt beneath a bulldozer. My mother and father’s screams became chorus. I felt it building all I around me. I waited for the climax, slipping on my shoes. I passed as if in a dream by the kitchen, my head narrowly missed my a flying pot. Neither of them saw me. The front door stood erect, glowing from porch lights. I heard the drumming of my brother’s feet upstairs. I felt the wind singing in my ears. My nerves were on end. I grabbed my paper Crown. The final touch, before I tore from my claustrophobic home. Night air whipped my face and I felt the adrenaline course through my veins. This was something new. This was freedom.
I chased out my front lawn to the sidewalk, every footfall echoing in tempo with my grandmother’s chair. I began to shout, I began to holler. I sang into the cold night air, the street-lamps my race markers, the flash of lights of the houses I passed a competitor. I raced up to Max’s corner. I yelled louder when I got there but didn’t slow down. Somehow I knew he would follow. A crash of green burst from a rickety screen door and I saw a familiar streak of brown hair, an old wooden sword in hand. I kept running, panting, yelling to the stars, announcing to the planets Max and I were free. I heard screaming of his mother from the open door but didn’t care. We didn’t pause for anything. Stars blinking their welcome to our new home were all that meant anything in the world as a soft hand slipped into mine. I glanced sideways, green eyes and a toothy grin meeting my own I didn’t know was there. Max and I together cawed into the night with elation. Finally. We ran into the night. We were wild.
I would like to tell you the story of in-between. The story of two children, caught in the whirlwind of adult discordance and bad parenting. Coincidences and collisions. A bloody nose and a very cold, very sad, one-eyed Bear. A death and a rebirth. Naïve love and cold-blooded hatred. The blood oath of two so tightly wound not even the sharpest sword can severe their bond.
This is the story of Addison Wilder and Max Fischer.