Strictly Platonic

Six Years Old

At six years old, Cassandra Almer had finally learned what it meant. It was always there, floating from conversation to conversation. A rumor amongst the adults, a monster beneath the bed. Yet, she had no inclination whatsoever to encounter it in such a way as she did on this day.

It was a word, a nasty and vile thing that was spoken in secret. She wasn't sure the exact spelling of the word, but whenever she pictured it in her head, the font was always large and thick. The color was either ink-black or blood-red. It wasn't like cancer or terminal or eviction. These were words she had come into contact with many times before. This one, though, had merely lingered like a fog until now.

"Divorce?" she said. It came out squeaky and frail, a total anomaly to her tongue.

Ryan Wilton nodded his head slowly. His eyes followed her as she swung in erratic patterns on the tire swing her dad built for her almost six years ago. It seemed rather out-of-place now during such a grave time, or maybe he was the one that was out-of-place.

Cassie didn't know Ryan all that well, and on any other given day, he wouldn't have been standing in her backyard. However, his mom—Diane Wilton—had forced him to tag along while she visited Cassie's mom, Amber. Amber and Diane had been best friends for almost three years by this point. Ever since they started working together at the local nursing home they were attached at the hip.

"Divorce," she repeated with more conviction than before. "What does it mean?"

His lips pursed together, forming a firm line across his mouth. He looked up to the clouds as if searching them for an answer that wasn't there, and when he returned his gaze to Cassie, there was darkness in his eyes. "It's like a breakup but for married people. My parents won't sleep in the same bed anymore, they won't even be in the same house. They're completely independent of each other now."

He was only four years older than her, but for some reason, she always felt so much younger in his presence. Any conversation she had ever experienced with Ryan was not so much a social back and forth, but a lecture of personalized wisdom passed from one generation to the next. Not that they had spoken often before, maybe a handful of times at most. Yet, it had happened enough for a pattern to form. A pattern that Cassie despised just as much as she appreciated it.

"Why would they do that?"

Ryan parted his lips but hastily clamped them back together. He kept sniffling and rubbing his nose. His eyes had become heavy and fell to the ground where he dug a trench into the dirt with the toe of his shoe.

"People just drift apart," he eventually croaked. "Even if they love each other, that doesn't mean they love each other. You know?"

Her head may have been nodding, but she had no clue what he meant. The only thing she knew was that she would have to ask her mom later that night if she still loved her dad. Her mom would laugh at the question as she tucked her daughter in, but she would never voice a genuine response before flicking out the lights.

It didn't matter either way. By morning, Cassie would forget any of her concerns and worries about her parents. Instead, she would become distracted with schoolwork and wonder why Tommy Douglas had such a proclivity for picking on her.

Then, one afternoon, she would notice Ryan sauntering through the halls with dead-tired eyes and a slouched back. He never looked up, never acknowledged anyone else, and tended to drift from one place to the next like a zombie.

At least once a day, she would bear witness to the husk that used to be Ryan Wilton. Kids gossiped. Teachers gossiped. Parents gossiped. But no one acted. No one except Cassie, who finally found the courage to hug him one recess whilst he roamed the blacktop by himself. After that, he no longer wandered.