Crooked Hearts

9. Tree Houses

A tree house. Aria Wilde, a girl whom I have not seen for five years was taking me to eat fruit in a tree house. One might marvel at the awkwardness of my situation, but to be fair and honest, I didn't find it awkward at all. And admittedly, I rather liked it. It had been awhile since I had toured around a new place by myself, without security guards watching every piece of movement around me. I liked the feeling of being able to go places and explore them.

In this case, Aria Wilde was taking me to a tree house. The tree house itself was quite large. It seemed to be designed to hold at least fifteen to twenty children at the same time. But right now, it looked old, abandoned, and downright creepy.

"We're going in there?" I ask, nervousness creeping into my voice.

"Yup!" Ari says.

"Looks like it won't hold much longer." I observe, staring at the old-looking wood.

"You're such a wuss puss," Aria says sarcastically, "I go here all the damn time."

Aria leads me to the tree house. It's basically just a large box-shaped thing sitting between two exceedingly thick branches. A hanging ladder dangles from the entrance, which was about eight feet from the ground.

"There is absolutely no possible way you're getting mw to climb that." I say, pointing to the ladder that looked it would give way to the slightest sign of weight put upon it.

"Yeah, well you don't have to." Aria says, "There is another way on the other side."

I go around to the other side, and sure enough there's another entrance. This time a wooden stairway leads to the top. This stairway is practically carved right into the tree, which is probably one of the coolest things I'd ever seen.

"Race you to the top!" Aria shouts from the other side, I begin climbing up the stairs, the steps groan under my weight. I decide to ignore it, like any man should, and climb all the way to the top. When I get to the top Aria is already there smiling at me. Inside is just like an ordinary tree house.The floor, wall, and roof are all made from solid wood planks, a rectangular window is cut right into one side of the wall, letting moonlight stream in. It's pretty bright in here due to the moonlight, and I can see Aria's face pretty clearly.

"I like to stay here a lot." She explains, "This place is actually pretty filled with kids in the mornings, but I take the liberty to hide some of my stuff here."

With that, she opens one of the floor boards, and produces a backpack.

"What the hell?" I say.

She grins at me then and says, "I usually come here to read poetry by moonlight, smoke cigarettes, and drink vodka." She unzips the bag and spills out the contents in front of me. Out comes, two bottles of vodka, three packs of Marlboro Lights, a lighter, two thin paper-back books, and a small bottle of something I can't comprehend.

"What are we going to do with all this?" I ask, wide-eyed

"Well first of, I'm going to light a cigarette." She takes a cigarette from one of the packs, and uses the lighter to light them. She puffs on the cigarette for awhile before twisting open one of the bottles of vodka and taking a sip from it. After she sips, she hands it to me.

"I thought we were only going to eat fruit up here?" I ask. But I take the bottle nonetheless and take a gulp from it. The strong liquid singes its way down my throat. Its apple flavored vodka and I cringe slightly.

Aria laughs and hands me an orange. "Obviously you know how to peel an orange."

"Obviously."

We peel oranges and take sips from the vodka, and Aria huffs and puffs on her cigarette. We're both lying in a sideways position now, facing each other.