folklore: the novel

6. seven

Betty finds it all too fitting that the first time she ever skips school, it's because of James.

Well, not wholly because of him. She knows he didn't force her hand, nor did he force her emotions. No, she felt those all on her own and, for the past sixteen years, she's never been ashamed of wearing her heart on her sleeve, but... Hearing that what feels like the entirety of the student body somehow knows exactly why she cried straight through all her morning classes was too hard to handle today.

On a slightly less melodramatic note, she knows with certainty that her homeroom, at the least, is well aware of the status of her relationship—or, rather, lack thereof. She picked up on the whispers of hers and James' names the first time she started sniffling, a solid ten minutes after the attendance bell rang. Already, she's been debating the easiest way to get switched to a new homeroom.

And there was simply no way she was going to risk the torture that would've been the cafeteria, but her safe space is no longer her own. James knows her first hideaway is the library, and Betty knows that her resolve would crumble if he tried to approach her. She was barely able to endure watching him leave her house the day she broke things off. And, despite not hearing from him the remainder of the weekend, she somehow knows that he would seek her out.

But, like she told him, it's too much. All of it. She can't see him today or hear everyone else casually discussing it, not when it feels like her tears are at a constant risk of overflowing.

So she left to go to the one place where no one would think to find her, no one except...

"Betty?"

Sitting near the bank of the shallow creek that borders the long-forgotten playground is Inez. Betty offers a hesitant wave, unsure if she's still welcome here after so long, but Inez widely smiles and motions her closer. She gingerly takes a seat on one of the swings and it creaks under her weight, the metal chains rusted from both years of unuse and the elements.

"I didn't know you still visited this place."

"I... I don't, really," Betty says, for some reason feeling the need to exclude that she hasn't been since they were friends in elementary school. "I didn't actually plan to come here today either. It... sort of just happened." Inez nods like that's completely rational. And maybe, to her, it is. It prompts Betty to ask, "Do you visit here a lot?"

"Okay, don't judge me but... Yeah. I come here at least a couple times a week."

Betty looks over the deteriorating swingset and slide, then to the tall trees gently swaying in the breeze. The trickle of the running water is nice, she reasons, but she still blurts, "Why?"

Inez's braids brush the grass as she tips her head back and laughs. Betty's cheeks flush at her own lack of finesse, but Inez is in no way offended or ashamed. "I don't know. I guess it's the memories that I have here. They're... good. This is a happy place, even if it is looking a little worse for wear."

Though she hadn't considered them in a long time, Betty has to agree; some of her best childhood memories were made right here.

"Do you remember when we used to bet who could swing the highest?"

Inez solemnly nods, though there's still a smile fighting to pull her lips up. "I think you hit your peak at about seven feet."

"Maybe but I never was able to finish the competition. I was always too scared to jump off into the water."

"Probably for the best. I still have a scar from the time that I was crazy enough to do it. I actually got a star tattooed around it because..." Inez shakes her head, shrugging. "Just because."

Betty had somehow forgotten that too, that a rock had cut the bottom of Inez's foot and it bled so much that both girls were convinced Inez was going to die. She didn't, of course, but the only thing able to console her back then was the promise of her mother's sweet tea. It was what fueled most of their summer days, actually.

Their days were long and fun and... "Do you also remember how we would just... scream? Sometimes for no reason at all?"

Inez nods again, plucking at the small clovers and dandelions surrounding her. "Yours was... very ferocious."

Betty laughs, thinking of how much of a handful they were, but just as quickly, her smile fades. How she so desperately wishes her life were still that simple, still so easy and untroubled that something as innocuous as yelling to the sky for no reason other than her wanting to made her happy.

"You can still do it."

Betty's frown morphs into one of confusion. "Do what?"

"Scream. Just... let it out. Get it off your chest. Cross my heart, I won't tell anyone."

And, in that moment, she knows. She knows that Inez is aware of why Betty is here, at a playground that was never quite popular enough to be a park, instead of at school. Of course she knows; she was the one who told Betty about James in the first place and even if she's the reason everyone else knows too, she appreciates that Inez was brave enough to bring it to her attention at all.

So, taking a piece of her seven year old self's mindset, Betty pulls in a full breath and lets it out on a scream. It's loud and long and a little painful, but it's also... cathartic. Like she's releasing something she didn't even know she was holding onto. It makes the urge to cry lessen and lessen and... It doesn't completely disappear, but it's no longer at the forefront of her mind. Betty screams until she can't and when the creek is once again all she hears, she opens her eyes. She didn't even realize she'd closed them.

Inez is grinning, tying together the last stem on a dandelion crown from the summer-green grass beneath her legs. She stands, walks over to Betty, and gently lays the flowers on top of her head. It's because of that smile that Betty doesn't expect the infinitely more solemn words that follow it.

"All I'm going to say is this: people assume that when you're young you know nothing, but I know that he's going to regret losing you, Betty. You're... a once in twenty lifetimes, and I hope the memory of you lingers forever. Glad you're back, Saturn."