Fairytale?

Chapter 30- Slipped Off The Swings

Some have won a wild delight,
By daring wilder sorrow;
Could I gain thy love to-night,
I'd hazard death to-morrow.
-

The conversation, dreaded by both Sanya and Edmund- even though the former had been the one to propose the idea of it- happened eleven days later.

And when the talk ended, Edmund told himself that he had been right in avoiding it, while Sanya berated herself for suggesting it in the first place.

Sanya had done her very best to not leave her house- in fact, her room.
She tried her best to limit human interaction- yes, even with Lucy- and spent all her time writing almost obsessively into her diary. She wrote stories, but also wrote about her life- accounts of her old life more than her current life, because the only thing that was there in her current life was heartbreak and misery and a surprising amount of mango juice.

In essence, the trip to America had not changed her life in the least.

Except that she kept hoping that there would be burgers. She had had burgers in Boston, and they were phenomenal. They were vying with fish and chips as her favourite this-world food.
Not much competition there, though- most of the food here was terribly bland. She didn't understand it- the British had started invading most of the rest of the world for spices and other rich items, but their food stayed like this!?

At a point, 'because of the war' wasn't good enough reason to justify the state of their food.

She did, however, leave her room occasionally- one of those occasions being Seraphina's birthday, and the others being outings with her 'grandmother' she had been forced into or stupid things like bathing and eating- which meant her room was not exactly a Yellow Wallpaper-like environment.

And it was on one such occasion that she ran into Edmund.
Not in front of his house- not at the corner-shop of the neighbourhood- no, it was in the park.

The bloody park!
In front of the swings, too- her happy place!

"Fancy seeing you here." Sanya said, preparing herself to get off the haven of the swings. "Come to revisit your lost childhood?"

"No, but that's actually not a bad idea." Edmund huffed out a laugh, staring around at the park. Then he looked at her, as she slipped off the swings and pushed herself into an upright position- and then she walked towards him.
The glow that had been in her face disappeared as she came nearer and nearer.
"No, I left my hat here a few days ago- on the twentieth-"

"Twentieth?" She asked, in an odd tone of voice. "You were at the park?"

He nodded, looking caught out.
"I- I know you bury- you bury flowers for our children- and I wanted to bury something, too."
He'd buried a poem he'd taken out from a school book- he remembered that Sanya had said that Seraphina had loved poetry.

"How did you know where I'd-"

He turned and pointed to the three trees.
"Tallest tree for Jem, the one with the shortest branches for Sel, and the one that gets flowers in the spring for Seraphina. Am I wrong?"

"No." Sanya felt her nose start to burn. "No, you're not wrong. I just- I never told you about it, so I'm surprised."
Fifteen seconds of conversation, and it had already turned heavy. What was wrong with them?

"I've known you for a long time, M- Sanya." Even if she hid herself from everyone, he still saw her. "You shouldn't really be surprised."

"True." She fidgeted nervously, cracking the joints of her fingers- as though doing that would help tear out the anxiety from her bones. Still, it was oddly satisfying. "Today's the day we met, you know."