the night we met | h.s

five

His car was quiet when we weren't talking. Which was often considering I'm pretty sure we're both still weary of the other one. He didn't have any music playing and the car seemed to be almost soundproof as you couldn't hear anything happening outside of it.

Directing him around the city was troubling seeing that I regularly forgot to tell him to turn at certain stop signs just because I expected him to know where to go.

When my mom first taught me how to drive she told me to continuously go straight. She wouldn't let me turn at any point and I didn't understand why for the longest time. It turns out she was both afraid of me turning and crashing her car and because she didn't want me getting lost.

So when she finally did let me turn, she would tell me to turn at the very last second, which led to some angry drivers behind us. It felt like that's what I was doing to Harry.

There were times where I thought he was getting aggravated with my useless directions but then we would just laugh at the blares of honking behind us.

The black leather seats in his car made me feel as if I wasn't supposed to sit in them and the multiple controls on the panel confused me. I still enjoyed watching the scene flash by through the window and listening to Harry's quiet hums of songs I didn't know.

There was at one point where he started humming "Tomorrow" from Annie and I couldn't help but hum along with him. He seemed surprised when he heard my lightweight voice erupt but I noticed a fond smile spread across his lips.

"Aren't you a little too old to be signing Annie?" I questioned, amusement laced in my voice.

"No one is ever too old to sing Annie." He determined, keeping his eyes on the road. He continued to tap his fingers against the steering wheel and I only chuckled at him.

I told him to take two more rights and when we pulled into a park he only looked more confused. He put the car in park and slowly turned off the ignition before he unbuckled his seat belt. I did the same and turned to face him, waiting for him to question our location.

As he looked around the now empty park his eyes met mine but he didn't say anything like I had expected. He only opened his car door and hopped outside. I followed his actions and led him towards the play equipment and jumped onto a swing while he climbed the stairs towards the slide.

"I'm assuming there's a reason we're here?" He asked reaching the top of the stairs. He sat down at the start of the slide and poked his head through the orange metal rails.

"I felt like being a five year old again." I explained for what felt like the hundredth time.

He pushed himself away from the ground and started slowly making his way down the slide. I watched him move painstakingly slow until he ended up having to scoot his way down. When he finally reached the end of the slide he shot me a goofy smile as he stood up.

"It seemed my life was much more enjoyable at the age of five." He marveled walking through the potentially fake mulch on the ground over to the monkey bars that he was almost as tall as.

"And the goal was to bring us back to that time."

He started climbing the three steps and hoisted himself so he ended up sitting on top of the monkey bars. "I don't know if a park was the way to achieve that."

I cocked my eyebrow in confusion, wondering what other way we could have achieved the five year old life. I pushed my feet off the ground and started swinging back and forth, feeling the wind blow through my hair.

"Maybe a water park." He suggested, letting parts of his body fall through the dips between the bars.

"That would have been a lot harder to break into." I laughed, knowing not a single water park would be open at this hour.