Close to Tears

Chapter 2

 The summer days she spent at the park where her happy days. From then the sky was mostly blue until it was almost gold she was either by the tree or in her fantasy forest. She sat and read, or wrote in her journal. She wandered through the forest, smelling every flower and singing with the birds. She observed the boy sitting across the pond, making up his story in her head, or sometimes on paper, and imagining the circumstances that brought him to that moment.Some days, Indie would simply lay on the grass at the top of the hill and watch as the clouds twisted into different shapes. She lived in a fairy tale, walked around in a dream. One of these days, she was going to have to wake up.

But not quite yet.

Indie returned to the park day after day. She began writing more, in a little, mauve journal with bluebirds on the cover. She read a lot, and also explored deeper and deeper into the little wood. Someday, a day when she had more time and nowhere else to be, she would try to reach the end of it, and find what is waiting for her on the other side.

The boy by the pond was there practically every day. He showed up when she was about a chapter in and was gone by the time she emerged from the woods. His hair, the color of light brown sugar, lay messy atop his head. She couldn't tell what color shone in his eyes. He sat pensively, as though the water had something important to tell him if he only he waited long enough, quiet enough, patient enough. Much to Indie's delight, he carried a book with him that he would set right beside himself. Sometimes, when he would pick it up and read, Indie imagined what was going on in the stories that lurked within.

When the sun showed it was high noon, he got up and walked around the pond. Each step he took was slow and cautious, as if moving quickly would destroy everything. He walked around the pond a few times, eyes set on the water as though nothing was more important. At the moment, nothing was.

Indie stepped into the forest. She tried walking as slowly as he did, making sure every step had a gentle purpose. She went back to the small, green pool and walked around it, taking in anything the water had to tell her.

She returned when the sun was travelling down toward its mountainous shelter. The boy was gone, but Indie knew he'd be back.

School would start itself up again in two weeks. Indie would be in eleventh grade, where presumably everything continued to grow more difficult. She would take more advanced classes, and have to start think about what she wanted to do with her future.

She decided that could wait for now. You know, cross that bridge when she gets there.

But for now that bridge seemed blanketed in a vague, misty fog, where everything seemed so unclear and even grew irrelevant. To her nothing more mattered than her imagination, but the Earth wanted to spin at a different pace.

Her mom wanted Indigo to go school shopping. She handed her some crumpled bills and told her to buy everything she needed. For the first day in months she wouldn't be able to go to her beloved park until later in the day. Magic has to fade sometimes when "real life" requests reveal their presence.

She walked over to her neighborhood office store, where she grabbed a few simple but pretty notebooks. She also purchased some folders and some extra paper. Though she didn't have much money to spend, she made sure to get plenty of pencils, colored pens, and highlighters, as these were some of the only things that got her through the school day.

She attended the school near the opening of the neighborhood, opposite her beloved park. It had the usual cliques and rubbish, but Indie successfully avoided all of that. She didn't really have friends at this school though, aside from those in her head and in her stories. She didn't mind, as her fantasy world, she felt, was enough to keep her company.