Tree.

Sweat slowly runs down my head, slightly tickling my skin. My lungs are grasping for the air they can't reach. I look into his worried eyes and force a smile. A small tear escapes one of his dark blue eyes and breaks our stare. He leaves the room quickly and I squeeze my eyes shut. A memory is planted in my head and as much as I want it to wash away, it does the opposite and grows frantically, taking over my thoughts in the process...

It was a tedious Autumn day. I can still feel my hair being waved in my face as the wind sang a beautiful melody only the birds could recite. We were walking towards the tree that brought us friendship as children.

Our smiles grew as it came in to view and we did our normal routine and raced towards the magical tree. I was the slowest runner; he would always beat me but I didn't mind. Stopping under the tree, I could hear his laughter. Rich, almost golden. He looked at me with those amused dark blue eyes and I gave him a smile. Like always, we climbed the tree and dangled off one of the arms.

We talked. We talked about his crazy grandma, my big-nosed dog Max, the grumpy mailman.... We talked about everything.

I remember when the sun was slowly making its way down and we talked about how the sky becomes so colorful before it goes to sleep. He concluded that the sky was its own cycle of art.

He said there were crayons hidden in the sky, and throughout the day they slowly melt. By the time the sky is about to sleep all of the colors would have melted, giving us a beautiful piece of art.

My thoughts weren't as creative as his but when I told him my reason, he couldn't hold back his grin. I concluded that before the sun goes down, he gives us these beautiful colors so we will be so trapped in its beauty we won't forget about him as he sleeps.

We ended up combining our thoughts together to share the same answer, our answer.

When the sun fell asleep, we got off the arm of the tree and lied down in the grass. We shared gold fish and stared at the dark sky in a comfortable silence. Our hands interlocked and we lied there for what felt like forever but it was okay... we lied there together.

My eyes popped open and my lungs choked on my air. I took a deep breath and tried to calm my breathing down but my oxygen in-take was decreasing by the second. I grabbed onto my throat, hoping it would accept any air but it declined. The door to my room opened and when those dark blue eyes met mine he immediately came towards me and knelt down to my bed. I took his hand in mine and interlocked our fingers slowly. His eyes burned tears and the last thing I saw when my eyes closed was the sun preparing to sleep outside my window.

My body became limp. Everything was shutting down slowly. My grip on his hand was getting weaker. I could feel my cheek hit a soft surface and the faint sound of my heart monitor went solid.

That last second was when I realized that long night of looking at the sky was the night I fell in love with that dark blue eyed boy. The tree brought us friendship as children, and little did we know, the friendship bloomed in to something stronger...