Chapter Text
You adjust your black metal frames before lifting your daughter up and over the fence. She's heavy, and she tries to adjust herself in your arms so she can balance better, but maybe you're the one who's just weak.
Crawling across the border, her movements are clumsy, and she shakes like a newborn animal, rattling the fence. You steady her as best as you can, but she slips. With a gasp, you try to catch her by her coat, but she saves herself with a white-colored grip, stark against the black bars.
She adjusts herself, and she cautiously drops, her feet hitting the cement below. You let your daughter catch her breath before you pick up the busted shoebox beside you and throw it over the fence. She wobbles backwards to catch it, and the box hits her chin before landing in her arms. You laugh, but she doesn't pout, so your smile drains.
Resetting yourself with a deep breath, you roll your jacket sleeves and grab the bars, the cold of the rust sinking into the memories of your childhood.
You're out of practice, but you manage to lift yourself over the fence, and you drop to the ground with a thud, stumbling and nearly falling. Usually, your daughter would smile, but lately she hasn't seemed too amused by the things you do.
You know why, but it's fine. This is the only way to be.
You take out your phone, turn on the flashlight, and then grab your daughters hand, and the numbness of your fingers disappears with the warmth of hers.
It's been almost twenty years since you last stepped foot in this park. Good place, you think. You almost miss it. It's quiet, and the people that come like to pretend that nobody else exists, just how you like it.
With dull shuffling footsteps, you look at your daughter. Just like you, she's been here before. You always took her to the jungle gym—the same one that you played on as a kid. It's a happy thought. Showing someone your world.
The light of distant lamp posts fade, and with her hand in yours you pull her into a dark, twig-littered corner.
You gather little branches, and your daughter helps you without a word. She always helps you, and even though she doesn't love you as much anymore, she never complains.
Placing them in a pile beneath the box, the both of you crouch low under the tree, hiding in the shadows behind the public bathroom. You pull at the folded flaps of the box and take out the matches and the water bottle filled with gasoline you manage to siphon out of your car, placing them on the ground beside you.
The both of you look inside the box. It's dark, but staring back are all memories and each item with its own baggage. You don't need them anymore, because you have her.
Once all of these memories are gone, burnt into dirt, blown into the wind, mixed into mud somewhere else, you have a feeling you can throw your old life away and have room for something better—especially now that you share it with your daughter, marked by the pinkie promise you made together.
Because neither of you will forget that night.
It was special.
And it was stronger than any kiss.
Your forever ever after.
Her eyes don't look up at you. Just down. Down, at all of your things. Her heavy lashes make her look tired, or maybe she just doesn't care.
You want her to understand, so that's why you brought her.
You return your gaze back down into the box and inside are four things:
A tooth you lost.
A Valentine's Day card.
A laminated leaf.
A photo of your mom.