the liminal space of children’s parks at night | Madison Cox
The park is quiet with a new energy, one she didn’t know even existed before now. Different from the usual sound of little kids with their playthings as leaves rustled in the trees. She remembers sitting on the green plastic tire swing with her friends, back when they were all small enough to fit together. Things change so easily, she thinks. Everyone’s a little bit taller, a little bit wider, a little bit older. They leave the tire swings and bloodied knees behind. Adults don’t cry when they scrape their knees—they hardly even scrape them at all. Everything feels different when illuminated by street lights rather than sunlight. Like the lights are ready to hold every secret known to man. Not a single word spoken here would ever see the light of day. The thought comforts her, and she lets her shoulders sink a little with loosened breath. She doesn’t want to see the look on his face, so she keeps her eyes down. “It’s weird, thinking about all the different people I’ve been.” She kicks her legs idly as she sits on the swing set, letting the toes of her shoes catch on the pebbles beneath her. “I’m not the same person I was six months ago, but six-months-ago me is still inside right-now me, making right-now me complicated in her own ways. I become complicated,” she watches her own feet on the ground. “People become complicated.” “People are always complicated,” he says. “And I always wonder what makes them,” she explains. Her toes are swallowed as she stills. “Lots of things,” he begins, “but you don’t have to know all of it.” “I like understanding other people.” “No one owes you explanations for who they are. People are just people.” “Yeah,” she sighs, “I know they don’t.” Silence swallows them whole, surrounded by cricket chirps and rustles of leaves. Neither of them really know what they’re talking about anymore. A little bit of nothing and everything all at once. She keeps her eyes down for fear that she’ll meet his if she looks up. It was much easier to admit things to people when she couldn’t see how they looked at her—when she couldn’t see how their faces changed after. His car is parked in front of them, a reminder that he still has to take her home. She wonders what time it is and checks her phone—nearly one in the morning now. Neither of them had meant to stay out this long, but it was easy to get carried away in each other’s words. “We can leave, if you want,” she says to the silence, an almost ashamed mumble. He stands and walks away wordlessly in the direction of his car, and she knows to follow. She watches his feet as they leave and return to the ground. Soon, she will be at home, sitting alone in her room and regretting every word she said tonight.
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