branches. It looked like something right out of a Tim Burton movie, creepy as fuck, and it didn’t help that there was this old wooden swing hanging from one of the branches. We’d freak ourselves out, making up stories about it, like how it was cursed or haunted, and we’d dare each other to sit on that fucking swing but then we’d chicken out and go home.
“One day, we were hanging out back there and I decided, today’s the day I’m gonna sit on that fucking swing, and I told Jake he had to, also. But he was such a pussy.” I laughed somberly through my nose, stopped my persistent pacing, and slumped with my shoulder against one of the porch posts. “He told me not to and said some stupid shit about ghosts and whatever the hell else, like something was gonna get me if I sat on the damn thing. He just wanted to go home.”
My voice cracked, and Audrey stood. She walked the three steps toward me, but I took a step back, holding out my hand to stop her from getting any closer. I didn’t want to be coddled. Not now. Not when it came to this. I needed to feel this pain, this shame, and all this fucking guilt.
“I made fun of him,” I said in a low, graveled tone. “I said he was a baby and that if he wanted to go home so badly, he could go. I told him to leave me alone if he was gonna ruin my fun, but he wouldn’t fucking leave. He was so legitimately scared that something was gonna happen to me and he didn’t want me to be alone when shit went down.
“So, to prove how fucking tough I was, I went right over to the thing, sat down, and nothing happened. It felt sturdy, and I was just laughing at Jake ‘cause he made such a big deal out of nothing. So, he says to me, ‘Great, now let’s go home,’ but I couldn’t leave it at that, could I? I had to keep pushing shit. So, I started swinging and acting like a fucking asshole, still laughing at him. But then, Jake starts telling me that the branch looked like it was gonna break …”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, still able to hear his frantic pleas for me to stop, to get off the swing, to knock it off and go home. The tears stung the back of my eyes and I tried to steady my lungs with one deep breath and then another. But what was the point? I lost the battle against my quivering chin and burning eyes, and a tear slipped over my cheek.
“There was this sickening noise, this cracking, and I could feel the branch begin to give and fall. It happened so fucking fast, but I managed to jump off. I had busted my knee open, but I felt like I had dodged a bullet, it was so crazy. Then, I started to make some asshole joke about it really being haunted or something, when I realized Jake wasn’t saying anything. At first, I thought he’d high-tailed it out of there when he saw the thing coming down, but I turned around and found him pinned under it.”
“Oh, God, Blake.” Audrey could barely speak, her voice coming in nothing more than a whisper, as she stepped closer and wrapped her hand around my wrist. “I don’t even know what to say. I just …,” her voice splintered and she cleared her throat, “I just feel like nothing I could say right now would be good enough.”
I shook my head and pulled my wrist from her grasp. I expected an expression of hurt, but it didn’t come. She just simply watched me, so patient and accepting of everything I was, and I couldn’t begin to understand how she could do that.
“Don’t say anything,” I told her. “I don’t need you to. Hell, I don’t even want you to. I just needed to get that shit off my chest.”
“Do you feel any better?”
I shook my head. “No. Not really,” I admitted. “I guess it’s sort of nice that someone else knows now. That fucking branch hit him in the head and he almost died. Hell, he should’ve died, all things considered, and that’s because of me. So, yeah, it’s my fault I’ve spent the past ten years of my life doing nothing but whatever I could do to take