35

5. Trash

   They gazed at the scenery for a little while, reminding themselves of what they were seeing, and what they had right now. 

   There wasn't a lot of that here, not in Redsbouro. They just sat, Brandon's feet resting on the paddles under the seat, and Cindy's knees only a few inches from her face, as usual. They both watched the rain pour into the river nearby, creating millions of small, calming ripples. The shine of the traffic lights made it appear quite pleasant. Quite peaceful.

   "I figured you'd like it," Brandon continued his gaze. He didn't know what he was doing anymore. It was almost as if he'd felt somehow similar to Cynthia right then. Lost, unsure, unknown.

   "It is nice," she replied to him in another one of her signature mumbles. "Is this why you brought me here? To look at a tree?"

   "No, not really," he added on. "I honestly kind of needed this myself. I don't know, maybe you would've liked it."

   Cindy lost track of the time again. It was approaching 10 pm, though his car lagged on the clock by an hour. She remembered that.

   "You know, we can do it at my house," she said, continuing to glance at the window, watching the cars as they passed by.

No eye contact.

   "You seem eager. Don't even wanna know my last name? Any questions for me?" He questioned with a short laugh, gazing out of the same window as her, noticing the passing traffic as well.

"How big are you?" She asked.

   "What?" Brandon's body shifted a bit at the personal question, unsure of how he could even respond. He wanted to make sure he heard her right the first time.

"How big are you? I'd like to know, at least."

   "Uh," his voice croaked a bit, glancing back at the front window of his car, as Nirvana began to softly play from the speaker now. It was a softer song, 'Polly'. It eased some of the odd tension, but only by a little.

"Five inches. Does that matter?"

She looked up at the black clouds in the sky. Pitch black. She saw nothing.

"Not really, no."

   Once again, silence krept up between the two for a while. The music chimed and kept the night awake for them. It helped to ease any of the tension Cindy had caused.

That silence, though, was soon broken by Cindy herself.

   "You know, it's been a really long time since I got to enjoy a night like this before. I guess sometimes it really does relieve the stress," she thought for a moment. "Brandon?"

"Yeah?"

   "Can I tell you a story?" Her brain was on autopilot again. You could tell by the eyes; she had rehearsed what she was going to say next already, but for how long, he didn't know.

His head nodded to her. He was willing to listen.

   "When I was a little girl, I used to have a best friend who brought me to a park like this one. We were little, probably about 8 or 9, I think," she began. "She was great. We used to play around with sticks and pretended they were swords a lot. We used to go to the swings and act like we were on a rollercoaster. We named it, 'The Scary Beast,'" she smiled again, with a laugh that was almost barely audible. "We weren't very original. That's just what we called it."

"Sounds like you had an eventful childhood," he listened to the story with great intrigue as he lowered the volume of the radio.

   "You could say that," she continued on. "When we got older, she started hanging out with the wrong crowd of people. As you would, growing up here I guess. She started drinking alcohol at the age of 13. There were these punks she'd started hanging out with and they let her join them."