the playground

I am 16 years old, desperately clinging on to the last few weeks of summer before my junior year of high school. The days are long and sticky with humidity, and I mostly spend them sequestered in my room, lulled into midday naps by the hum of air conditioning. In the past few years, I’ve sunk deep into the comforts of my room, only emerging to run and catch the bus each morning. There I am alone, and maybe that’s preferable to being with you.

I don’t go out with you and your friends anymore. Not to eat ice cream from the shop in town or sit in someone’s basement and drink. Each time you do see me you urge me to come out sometime. You say I would be less depressed if I did. I want so badly for you to be right. 

My phone lights up, and I flinch when I see your name. When I was younger (much younger), the sight might have been a welcome one, but not anymore. By this point I know what you are capable of. This night’s incident would not be the first, nor the last. 

You want to meet for dinner. I stare blankly at the time. It’s 10:00 pm. I ate hours ago, and I tell you so, but you just got off work and you’re hungry. I type out a resounding no thanks, see you when school starts, but I hesitate. Maybe you’re right. Maybe if I go out I’ll be happier. I’m so desperate to lessen the heavy weight that sits on my chest each day that it outweighs the trepidation I feel towards you. So I tell you I’m not hungry, but I’ll keep you company. You say we can go to the pizza place around the corner. 

I scurry out of my house, meeting you halfway up the street. I don’t want you coming to my house, even just to stand on the porch. Something about your presence on my doorstep would feel like a stain, a contamination. I don’t want my parents seeing you either. Irrationally, I worry they could look in your eyes and see what you’ve done. 

As we begin to walk you tell me you have no money. That strikes me as strange, seeing as you’re the one who wanted dinner. But I say nothing. My ability to question, to protest, has mysteriously evaporated. As we near the pizza place, I see the windows are dark, the chairs placed upside down on the tables. They’re closed, and they have been for a while. That seems odd, too, seeing as you must have walked by on your way to meet me. You barely even spare it a glance, walking straight past. You suggest we go to the park. My legs betray the dread that’s made a home in my body and I follow dutifully. That's what we’re supposed to do, right? Be compliant? But the tiny grains of unease prick at the nape of my neck, urging me to turn around. I suppose those were my instincts, which I excel at ignoring. So I agree, because that’s what I’m good at. 

Our town is dark and deserted, so I shouldn’t be surprised when the park is too. The sole inhabitant is a man crouched low on a bench, fumbling with a cigarette. He asks you for a light but you have none, so you apologize as we descend into the playground. I haven’t been here since I was a little kid. It’s different now. They’ve updated the equipment, the plastic slides bright and shiny, even in the darkness. You take off your apron and fold it neatly on a swing. You’ve been washing dishes all day. You start to tell me a story as I stand there, my feet shuffling in the wood chips. 

You were texting your friend at work all day talking about how horny you were. How all you wanted was a blowjob. He said he could hook you up with someone but you said no. I don’t know how I’m supposed to respond to this, but a cool girl wouldn’t bat an eye at this kind of talk, so I say nothing, the ghostly light of the street lamps illuminating your face. You keep peeking at me, gauging my expression. This feels like a test so I try to look as nonchalant as possible. I don’t think it works, and you look away again. Then you’re fumbling with your belt, and the metal of the buckle is like wind chimes but also fills me with dread. You apologize, that same genuinely sorry tone you used when you didn’t have a lighter for that man, but you just have to take a piss. I stare anywhere but at you as you piss against some poor tree. Then I go and sit at the top of the slide, wondering why you would do that. Now I know you wanted an excuse to take your dick out. 

You clamber up the slide to sit near me, our legs touching. I feel a sense of real revulsion. And then I see you didn’t put it away, and that image burns into my brain like hot metal on flesh. You’re still talking because that’s what you know how to do best, and the seal on my mouth breaks open, the words tumbling out like water: my dad wants me home i need to go home he’s texting me i have to leave i’m sorry—

But you’re calm, like you expected this resistance, and you insist that we have plenty of time. There’s enough time (for what?) before I have to leave. You lay across my lap, and my back reflexively presses against the bars until it’s painful. I’m a statue made of stone and you are the bird shit that covers it. You tell me to guide my hand towards it but I don’t want to and I don’t know how to and even if I wanted to say that I couldn’t anyway. A list of excuses tumbles out of my mouth and you deflect each one deftly like a star athlete. My heart is pounding so hard I feel like you must be able to hear it, you’re so close to me. I stare down at you, trying to focus on your face instead of everything else, and childishly, I wonder if you will kiss me. Not because I want you to, but because some part of me wants to be the object of someone’s boyhood crush. I wanted a single rose because a dozen was too expensive and cheap chocolates from the grocery store and a tacky heart shaped necklace from the mall. This is not how high school relationships are supposed to happen. I don’t even like you in that way, but you seem to want me and I wish someone would but not like this. 

I make a final plea, I need to leave, and you press your full body weight into my lap, murmuring, you can’t leave if I do this. Fruitlessly, I try to stand up, but your weight impedes me completely. I can’t get up, as much as I try, struggling with the effort. I resign myself to my fate, the task ahead of me that you’ve assigned, but I’m paralyzed. I stare back blankly as you look up at me, expectation clear in your eyes. Finally you sigh, annoyed, buckling your pants back up and standing. I scramble up, murmuring apologies (for what?) and jumping back down into the wood chips, my knees smarting in pain at the rough landing. You say you’ll walk me home because it’s late, which I find ironic, because who do I need to be protected from but you? 

Of course, I acquiesce, and we walk together, the silence heavy. My mind is blank. I just want to be alone again. Alone can be lonely but it doesn’t hurt me like you do. You pluck a leaf from a nearby plant, your fingers punching holes in its veiny surface like two eyes. As we reach my street you hand it to me wordlessly, telling me you’ll see me at school in a few weeks. You walk away, hands shoved deep in your pockets, and the fluorescent glow of the streetlamps makes the world look like a movie set at nighttime turned artificially into day.

I twist the leaf in my hands and walk the rest of the way home alone. My parents are sitting in the living room like always. I walk straight up the stairs silently, taking out my diary and sitting on my bed. I don’t remember what I wrote, but afterwards I took that leaf and pasted it into the pages. I wonder if it’s brown and crumbling now, or if the scotch tape has kept it intact, green and smooth, chlorophyll staining the pages and the tips of my fingers. 

Lily is a fourth-year student at Northeastern University studying Biology and English. Her writing has been published in Spectrum Literary Arts Magazine, Queen City Writers, and The Foundationalist. She hopes to pursue medical school after college and continue writing as much as she can.