The Red Rose

Playgrounds are for Eight-Year-Olds

~
 May a guardian, whoever it may be, be in your space and guide you amongst the stars. Though those we have lost, are forever in our hearts, are never forgotten and never ought to be gone from the home we call.

***

There she was, the familiar red headed girl with the same maddening temper stood before me, about not even twenty foot steps away. She looked at me, her eyes widening and suddenly it was like I was being stared down with piercing devil eyes. "Minerva what are you doing here?" It looked like, maybe she lost in a fight. Her clothes were muddy, her hair was extremely messy and the clothes she wore was quite torn up. "I could say the same for you," She remarked, mumbling. Her expression was, how could I explain it? Her expression was something that I still couldn't quite describe. Something was clearly off, it was something about her face. Her face was clearly messed up with an array of bruises, she looked exhausted from the eyebags she had, and her lip was bleeding.

"Obviously, it's a playground-" I replied, gripping onto the metal chains hooked up into the seat. Minerva was holding onto her dark jacket tightly, and her shoulders were scrunched up. "For kids, only eight-year-old's come here." I chuckled, lightly. She saw me chuckling, cocked her head a little to the left and obviously looked quite disgruntled. "What?" 
"Oh, well..." I started hesitantly.
"I mean, you came here. So you're an eight-year-old, right?" I laughed, of course it was all in jokes, but I think she mistook it as literal and came walking towards me. "I'm not an eight-year-old, Clementine. How much of a fool do you think I am!? I only came here because I lost something..." She grumbled, pointing to my chest. "Whoa, Minerva"
She puffed, and went behind me. "My name is not Minerva," All of a sudden she places her hands on my back, pushed me and I am thrown head-first into the wood chippings on the ground.

 "It's Minnie." She said, grinning profusely.

I tried gathering myself, I pushed myself up from the ground and sat there. I felt my brain becoming alarmed—extremely alarmed. It felt like I was stuck, stuck somewhere I had been to before. I looked up to where Minerva stood and she came walking towards me. 

She looked like her.

My brain scrambles and I couldn't do anything, I was stuck, frozen, whatever you could call it. There's a difference between living and the past: the past is what occurred before, a "went, was, happened," but in this case you could always just say I am quite fearful of the past that it went through the present. No "was" here, anymore, thinking of my past actions and shit. Present like I said, instead of "went, was, happened," present has things like; "am, is, are, being," never even left in the first place. It's how my brain works.

To sum it up, I can no longer live in the present commonly if my past and present are both intertwined.

Minerva walked towards me, her muddy boots and disgusting attire, made my nose scrunch up. She didn't look that great, and didn't smell that great either. She bent down to me, and she gently placed her dirty hand on my chin with her thumb and forefinger. "Repeat it again?" I was silent but not for long.
"Minerva or Minnie?"
"Minnie, Clementine." Her eyes flared at me.
"Alright... Hey Minerva." I smirked like an idiot.

In anime, television shows, or whatever else... This is probably where the protagonist and helping character kiss, right? But me, a girl? Kissing another girl? Hah... No way, not in a billion years...

Minerva stared at me, and then forcibly shoved my face the other direction and stopped leaning down to me. "Whatever, fine... If you keep referring to me as "Minerva", we're going to have issues." I was so focused on Minerva that I wasn't one-hundred percent thinking about the past. Weird, if I don't say so myself. "And? If I don't? Are you going to hurt me?" My lip dropped like I was pouting, I realized I forgot about the hat I never put back on, my head's totally bare, no wonder I'm so cold. "Yes, I just might." 
"Ooh, scary." I said sarcastically, I really couldn't keep this without making it funny in a way.