She chews on her lip for a moment while she regards the way I’m petting her cat. “It’s dusk. The zombie hour. The best time to kill.”
It’s an odd, aloof statement, but I’m starting to think Vandy may be both of those things.
“So, uh.” I pull my hand away from Firefly to scratch at the back of my own neck now. The cat looks vaguely put out about it. “Can we talk?”
Vandy eyes the driveway shiftily, peering over her shoulder to check her house. “You make a decision?”
I finally rise, glancing around in much the same way, neck prickling as I shove my fists into my pockets. “Is there somewhere we can go to talk?"
She points to the path between our houses. It leads up a hill and into a wooded area that we spent a lot of time in when we were kids, playing games and exploring. She says, “Meet me back there in fifteen minutes?”
Without further explanation, she lunges for the cat, grabs him, and vanishes back in the house.
Ten minutes pass, taking with it the soft glow of evening sunset as I watch from my kitchen window. Putting on my sneakers, I head out first, not wanting to be seen following her like some fucking creeper. One minute I’m on the well-manicured lawn, and the next I’m in the thicket of trees. I use my phone for a flashlight and wonder exactly where I’m supposed to go. Just then, the beam of my phone’s light illuminates something old, familiar. I take a few steps forward and touch the weathered strips of wood attached to the big oak that straddles the property line. I point the light upward and see the tree house our dads had built when we were in elementary school.
A twig snaps behind me and I spin. Vandy stands a few feet away, the light from her own phone blinding me. I shield my eyes with my hand, glancing back to the tree house. “I can’t believe this is still here.”
She watches me for a long moment before her blue eyes follow my gaze. “I’m pretty sure they forgot about it.”
We stand there for a suspended moment, just looking at the structure, before the sounds of her shuffling steps pass me. I watch as she tests the first rung of the ladder with her toe, eventually putting her weight on it and beginning to ascend.
I jump forward and burst, “Wait, we don’t have to—” But she ignores me. Her steps are slow, deliberate, cautious, and my heart hammers as I track her form with the beam of light. If she falls and breaks something, I’m fucked.
No.
I’m beyond fucked.
I’m still locked in a whirlwind of panicky indecision about dropping the phone—I’ll need both hands to catch her, but I’ll also need to see if she falls—when she reaches the top.
“Come on,” she says, face peering out of the door opening.
I still need to take a moment before my heart stops thundering, allowing some of the tension to bleed from my shoulders. I put my phone in my back pocket, and use her light to guide me. The wooden steps are old, but still perfectly sturdy, thank fucking god. Way to give a guy a heart attack.
Just as I crawl through the narrow door and get to my feet, the bright light of a camping lantern fills the room. I dust off my hands and glance around the space, surprised that even after all this time, it looks and feels exactly the same.
Professionally built, the structure isn’t one of those slapped-together shacks perched precariously in the top of a tree. No, this shit is like the McMansion of tree houses. It was big enough for a whole group of us back then, and now, Vandy and I fit comfortably in the space together. An old hammock hangs catty-cornered against the wall, and a bookshelf filled with faded comics slouches under one window. There’s a dartboard, two bean bag chairs, and the old futon that’s seen better days. It smells a little damp, musty, but it’s obviously still watertight.
“This is surreal,” I say, absorbing it all. “Like a fucking time capsule.” There was happiness here. Laughter. Crude jokes. Boyhood mischief. Long stretches of golden summer afternoons. Bright winter evenings spent huddled in sweaters and avoiding homework. Everything had felt so easy and certain, back then.
Now, everything seems grey and anemic, paltry in the face of recollection.