[ - ]
Table of Contents [Report This]
Printer Chapter or Story Microsoft Word Chapter or Story
- Text Size +
Chapter Twenty-Two


Jaymie

After we’d finished eating, Nick and I went outside. It was still raining a little, but I didn’t care anymore if I got rained on. My hair was already a mess from my under-the-table adventure. Nick swung his arms as he walked, humming a tune I didn’t recognized that seemed to wander a bit as he led the way down the street. He seemed to know where he was going, which wasn’t all that weird with all the times he’d been to Berlin with the Boys over the years. The city was beautiful in the way that cities are to people who have never been there - cobblestoned road with string lights crisscrossing over head, creating a web of electric stars to replace the ones that were obscured by city glow and clouds.

“C’mon,” Nick said, a grin creeping across his face, “I know where I’ll take you.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me along, splashing through puddles that had settled in the sidewalk. He led me through a city square dominated by a roundabout, lined with little shops and cafes and pubs, down another side road, and we came out to a stone archway announcing our entry into a public garden. Nick’s smile only widened as we came to a stop just outside of it, and his eyes were alight like a little kids. He tore forward, laughing as he rushed into the park, excitement palpable in the air around us. “C’mon, c’mon,” he called excitedly over his shoulder, “C’mon!” He waved for me to keep up.

It was harder to run in my shoes and it didn’t take me long to kick them off and carry them, running barefoot through wet grass, just praying I didn’t step on anything that would cut my foot open, half wondering if Nick would stop running to come back for me if I did or if he was hopelessly beyond the point of no return.

When I caught up to him, he was standing at the edge of a playground, waiting for me. I came to a breathless stop beside him, holding my shoes by the ankle straps. I looked up at him. “Playground?” I asked.

He pointed across the playground equipment at a small fenced-in basket ball court. “Brian and I used to come here to shoot hoops, back when we first started,” he stared off at it nostalgically. “Lou used to get so pissed, he’d come ripping down here ready to tear us a new one ‘cos we weren’t working 25-8, you know?”

“25-8?”

“Like more than 24-7? You know?” Nick laughed.

It suddenly occurred to me that this was Nick’s way of inviting me into a world of his that I’d never really been in much. Like I had a little, obviously, but mostly from the same perspective that fans had been in that world. Onlookers from a distant vantage point. I just happened to have an in is all. But this… this was Nick’s life from his point of view, the personal side of things.

I was still processing this and exactly what it meant, when Nick grinned and said, “C’mon,” again and rushed forward onto the playground, launching himself onto a colorful jungle gym shaped like a lady bug. He grabbed hold of the bars and pulled himself along to the top, looking way too big for equipment built for little kids. It took him like a nano second to climb to the pinnacle of the dome and set himself down with a self-satisfied grin. “Jaymie, seriously, c’mon.” He held out his hand.

I dropped my shoes at the base of the gym and reached for his extended palm, his fingers closed around mine and held me steady as I wobbled my way up to join him at the top. It wasn’t that high off the ground - I mean, it was built for, like, seven year olds - but it was enough to make me cautious of how much it would hurt like hell if I fell and tumbled to the ground. When he got me up to the top, he laid back across the dome, staring up at the sky and I leaned back against his chest. He wrapped his arm around me. I felt the wet rungs of the gym on my back.

“I miss the feeling this place used to give me,” he said, eyes closed.

I closed my eyes too.

“Freedom,” he mumbled. “It felt like freedom out on that ball court.”

“When it came to playgrounds, I always liked the swings better,” I answered.

He chuckled. “Nawh, man. Slides are where it’s at.”

“Sesaws,” I said.

“Merry-go-rounds.”

I laughed, “Monkey bars.”

“Aw, fuck yes,” Nick groaned, “Monkey bars were bad ass as hell.”





Nick

I dunno what made me bring Jaymie to that old park, really. I’d been walking along with her and it suddenly had occurred to me that the park was there just a couple blocks away and this rush of wanting to see it one last time took me over. I laid there on top of the jungle gym, my eyes closed, feeling the droplets of rain on my face and the quiet of the playground at night, and Jaymie’s warm weight against my chest. Everything had a one last time sort of feeling to it.

I wrapped my arm around Jaymie, holding her close, glad she was there, wishing I knew how to tell her about all the shit that was stirring inside of me, all the emotions that were kind of mixing up and confusing me. I could’ve stayed like that all night. And maybe if I did, I thought, the feelings would kinda melt through me into her and she’d know without me figuring out what words to wrap around it.

“You wanna go play on some swings?” I asked quietly.

“Are there some?”

“What’s a playground without swings?” I asked, sitting up. I pulled Jaymie close and we slid down the side of the jungle gym. She laughed and squealed as we went until I’d put her firmly down on solid ground. She grasped my forearm to balance and I felt like all my body cells were pushing and shoving to be the lucky ones that she was touching. Like she’d never touched me before, my skin seemed to light on fire under her fingers. “Over here,” I said, directing her, feeling my mouth go dry.

The swings were wet, too, but she didn’t seem to care, she just plunked down in the nearest one and pushed herself back and lifted her feet to begin the process of pumping herself higher. I got on the swing next to her as she swept backward and forward, a pendulum. “Oh my God, I haven’t done this in forever,” she giggled. I swung myself lightly, slowly compared to her as she went backward and forward happily, her hair fluttering around her head like streamers. Her swing seemed much less grumpy about her presence than mine was - every move I made was accented by a groaning creak in the crossbar over my head. Besides, I was perfectly happy just watching her as she swung. I didn’t need to swing, too, when I could just watch. “Bet I can jump further than you,” she teased.

I laughed, “I know you can ‘cos hell will have frozen over if I jump from one of these things,” I answered.

“Really? You don’t jump?”

“Fuck no,” I laughed. “I’m accident prone. I might as well beg fate to break my leg as do that.” I shook my head, “BJ used to try to get me to do it, but I never would. I jumped out of a second story window with a sheet for a parachute, but I’d never jump off a swing set. Go figure.”

Jaymie laughed, “You didn’t. Did you really?”

“I did,” I replied. “I thought I was GI Joe or something.”

“Did you get hurt?”

“Had a lime green cast for like a month on my wrist,” I replied.

“I broke my wrist once, too,” she said, “My cast was purple.”

“How’d you break it?”

“Jumping from a swing set,” Jaymie smirked as she flew by.

“Nice,” I said.

“It was easier, being a kid,” I said, looking down at the way my legs had to bend in order to even lower myself far enough to reach the damn swing seat, which groaned and creaked beneath me. “Stuff was so much less complicated then,” I said.

“It was still complicated,” Jaymie said, “Just in a different way is all.” She slowed a little, dragging her bare feet across the gravel beneath the swings.

I nodded, “True.” I chewed my lip. I glanced over at her. “Did you have any other siblings besides Daniel?”

“Nawh,” she answered. “We were it.” She let the swing come to a full stop.

“Were you close to your parents? Before, I mean?”

She shrugged, “Mostly. I mean I didn’t know there was anything wrong with my family when I was real little. I was a Daddy’s Girl. I guess that’s partly why Pilates pisses me off so much maybe.” Jaymie twisted the chains of the swing around, then let it unwind, spinning her.

I twisted side to side, imitating her a little, the swing creaking immensely loudly now. “Pilates is a horrible name.”

“She chose it, too,” Jaymie said, rolling her eyes. “She purposely had it legally changed to that.”

I snorted.

I noticed a single tear running across Jaymie’s nose.

“You okay?”

She nodded and swiped the tear away. “Yeah, I’m okay,” she replied.

We sat there a few moments in silence. Then, finally, I said. “Jaymie?”

“Hmm?” she looked over at me.

“About what you said -- on the plane?”

Jaymie raised an eyebrow.

“I just want you to know that I ---”

But before I could get out the words, there was an almighty sort of creak, and I felt the swing give out before me, and I crashed to the gravel below.