Daydream Believer

l. feeling lonely and playing on the swings

l. feeling lonely and playing on the swings

I was alone. Well, not really. Noah and I had walked to the school and we were playing on the swings and the slides, even though nobody was there to supervise us. It was really more of a way to pass the time than anything.

"McKenna?" Noah said. He was waving at me from the top of the slide.

"Yes?" I said. "What is it?" Honestly, I didn't want to be here. What I needed was a time machine. Maybe I would go back to when we all went camping together. Things were happy then. Maybe I would go to the distant future out of sheer curiosity. Anywhere was better than here and now.

Noah seemed happy. He was running around on the play set. I think he was just happy that he could play on the school playground without all of those other people. I kind of liked that too. It was like we owned the playground and nobody could take it from us. "Why can't we just go home?"

"Because Mom and Dad might be fighting," I said.

"But McKenna!" he whined. Noah could get really annoying sometimes. "I want to go home!"

I ignored him and looked up at the sky. It was a light, clear blue, so it really wasn't that interesting. I looked down at the ground. It wasn't that interesting either, just grass. I swung my legs back and forth and started flying up to the sky. There was something sort of relaxing about being on the swings. The constant back and forth and back and forth took my mind off of life. At that moment, that was what I needed. A distraction.

"McKenna?" Noah shouted again.

"WHAT?" I yelled back at him.

"It's getting late," he said.

He was right. It was getting a little dark. Mom and Dad would wonder where we were. I hopped off of the swings and exited the park. It had been a long day.

I never enjoyed myself anymore. Everything was just passing time. I was waiting, but I didn't really know what I was waiting for. I guess I was waiting for things to sort themselves out at home, but at this rate, it wasn't going to happen. Oh well. I was still alive, wasn't I?