Our legs are dangling off the wall, our rubber heels going ‘thunk, thunk’ against the brick. In front of us, there is a small patch of dirt, where the shed once stood, and beyond that just trees.
Today it is sunny and warm, and everything smells like field and lavender.
“I dare you.” He is smiling and looking down, so I know he isn’t serious.
“No, I dare YOU.”
We both look up, into the trees, and sit in silence. I am wondering what would happen, and he is too, of course, squinting through his glasses.
We have done this as often as I have taken breaths. We have sat here forever, wondering, on this brick wall, beyond the old grown garden, where the land slopes down, and we can’t be seen from the house. Staring at the forest line, trying to see it, or feel it. They say you can’t see it until it’s too late, and it gobbles you up whole. Or sometimes, it looks like someone you know, and then when it’s too late, their eyes change. But by then it’s already done.
“Katty.” His voice is like breath, and it scares me. “Look.”
I follow his eyes to the movement in the forest. It’s a fawn, suddenly there, its head bent as it eats, right on the edge of the tree line.
Our legs have stopped kicking, and we sit in silence, amazed at our luck to see this living thing, and the thrill of it is riding through my bones. My eyes are widened and I feel myself grinning, because this is the moment I have waited for, for so long.
“I dare you,” he says again. And when I turn and look at him, he’s still smiling, but his smile isn’t a smile anymore; it is something else. His eyes are still there, but they are dripping off his face like candle wax, just like the candle wax on the birthday cake I made him, with the yellow frosting. And as I look back at the fawn, I see. I see why we aren’t allowed past the wall.
“Katty,” he says again, but this time there is neither breath nor voice. I turn and look at him. And then I slide off the wall, and walk toward the trees.