Dear Diary

t h i r t y - t w o

I was in the park, sitting beneath a willow tree. There was a light breeze, but it was mostly warm, since it was June.

A month and a little bit had passed since I moved. It was a good month, since nothing happened.

The only other people in the park was a little boy and his sister. The little boy was on the swing, and his sister was pushing him on the swing. They both looked slightly familiar...

With a jolt, I realized that the girl was Ari. It was Carson she was pushing on the swing.

Ari kept glancing around the park, and her eyes landed on me after a while.

She stopped pushing Carson, and when it looked like he began to complain, she simply ignored him.

I slowly stood up, smiling. I hadn't seen her in a while; I wasn't even sure if she was still in Mullingar. She was, as I could see now, and I relieved.

We began walking towards each other, but when I drew closet to her, I noticed something was different. Her hair was still the same colour; it was a little different, but that's not what caught my attention. Her eyes were dark brown, but they were very unfocused, almost as if she were somewhere else completely.

"Niall," she said slowly.

"Ari," I answered, smiling.

She smiled, too. "I wasn't sure if you were real."

"What else would I be?"

"I had hallucinations, and you kept appearing."

"How do you know I'm not just another hallucination?"

"You never talked when I was hallucinating you."

I hugged her, and she hugged me back.

"Why did you keep hallucinating?" I asked, though I was pretty sure I knew the answer.

Ari opened her mouth to speak, but then her eyes glazed over, and she closed her mouth again. She didn't answer, and I wasn't sure if she forgot or if she wasn't sure.

Suddenly, she grabbed the sleeve of my sweater and yanked it up. Instinctively, I grabbed it and pulled it back down, but it was a little late. Ari had already seen my scars.

"I figured that you cut," she said softly, pulling up her own sleeves and revealing her own scars, ones I had seen the first day I ever saw her in person. "I've never met anyone who went through a bad time who didn't cut."

I was quiet, remembering how, a week after the accident, I dragged the blade across my skin, watched the blood surface, felt numbness and relief.

Carson ran over, pulling at Ari's sweater. I recalled Ari saying he was seven, so I guess he wasn't too little.

"Ari," he whined. "Mom said you had to push me on the swing." He glanced up at me, but looked away quickly.

Ari's phone buzzed, and she pulled it out and looked at it. "We have to go home now."

Carson pouted. "Can we come back soon?"

"Of course." Ari ruffled his hair.

She seemed very unfocused, and she forgot to say goodbye to me. I was a little hurt, but I figured I'd see her soon, so I went home. The next day, I came to the park and waited.

She didn't show up.

I came back day after day. Ari never visited the park after that day, making me the only person in the park every day.

One day, I decided to walk around the park instead of just sitting under the same tree day after day. When I passed a bench near the swing set, I nearly choked on my own saliva.

Laying innocently on the wooden bench was the tattered purple diary. Ari's diary.