Happy Days

You know that game, Fallout 3? Well, we ended up dressing up as Vault Dwellers this week. It was the first time we had... I suppose the word is "performed" for him since April Fools. He had left us alone, but then he came back and... Everything hurts.

So we did something stupid, I believe it is not a first there. We have done so many stupid things. Back when I was having dreams of the Slenderman, he made up so many crackpot ideas for "cures." We tried the ones short of surgery, hypnotism, electroshock therapy... The only one that worked was dancing around in rediculous looking outfits.

I suppose we are like cancer patients, we will keep fighting it, but we know that eventually we are going to give in, we are going to fail to confuse this thing and it will make us something we never wish to become.

But until then, we have memories, we have happiness. Isn't that the American dream? Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness?

Anyway, Autumn and I stayed pretty good friends since we met.

We went to the same Elementary School, then got separated when Dad sent me to this crappy Catholic School. The girls there were horrible and I don't mind saying that. I hated the time I spent there. Girls are harsh bullies...

He would have sent me elsewhere but I managed to convince him that High School was where I needed to be I really did not need to be some private schooled kid with no social skills. Anyway, we were somehow in the same homeroom. One of the few people who knew each other in there.

I can't remember which one of us decided that we should just let them believe that we were siblings, despite the different surnames. The great deception. We'd joke about it, how funny it was. How people just assumed. He'd be the older brother who'd make sure I was safe... I am pretty sure he did the whole "you break her heart, I shove your head so far up your ass that you'll be speaking through your bellybutton" thing on the guy who took me to Junior Prom. (Much to my chagrin.) Only a couple of friends knew about it, said they thought he liked me.

When his parents moved in next door, they thought it was a happy coincidence. Summer and Autumn. Sometimes I even wonder if it was fate.

I was seventeen, throwing stones into that lake that held such fond memories instead of working on that project that had a couple of days to go and we hadn't started. I remember the spring air. The smell of trees and flowers, the way the sun glittered on the water. It was a day unlike any other.

There was a smile on his face as he spoke up finally. There had been a lull in conversation "Let's run away."
"What?"
"Into the forest. You and me. We can survive off of fish and wild berries and when we fail we can go to that grocery store and steal from them."
I laughed at him. "You really think we could do that?"
"Of course. I also think that if you get a big enough slingshot and were on the moon, you could send a golf ball into orbit. Although only one of those might happen for me." He grinned.
"Make that none of those, there's not a chance I'm going to do that." I was still chuckling.

"You just don't want to leave your warm bed, don't you?"

I huffed and walked back toward the car, an old rusting, dark red, 80's Ford pick up. August loved it so much, I think he'd have driven it until either the axel broke or it would have killed us.

He put his hand on my shoulder. "Summer, wait."

I turned around. And he kissed me and I kissed him back and all those feelings welled up inside me and they felt real, physical for the first time. Those butterflies in my chest were flapping around like headless chickens! I read about it, Love.

I was jaded enough to think it would never happen to me.

We drove home in silence, a pleasant one, the sun was setting. We said our goodbyes.

The next morning, at school. I had stayed up all night, trying to work out some speech or other to tell him that what happened... That I wanted us to be friends. But he acted like it had never happened, he cracked a couple of jokes and I just forgot about what I was supposed to say.

I suppose I was too selfish realise that I'd hurt him, but I guess that's a different story, isn't it?
I never forgot about the kiss though. It was just that I was happy, and that this was something I have never regretted.

Apologies For Autumn...

Autumn was in a bad way last week... It feels like it's been less than a week but it's actually been more. Either way, I'm sorry you all had to see that. Slenderman came along, decided that our April Fools joke wasn't funny, and... Well, it hurt him more than it did me. He decided he needed to be drinking way too much for what is good for him. When he... He had me, Autumn decided to grab a hold of him, to try and stop him...

His hands  were badly blistered, so were his arms and my neck. It hurt, but I was worried for him. He took a few sick days from bar work. I mean, he never takes days off. Without the money I could probably keep us afloat, but

On the couple of days he had free, he read Wuthering Heights to me. I tried to tell him not to, but he insisted... Autumn is stubborn as a mule sometimes, it hurt when he read. You could hear the pointedness of his words, the pain.

The tale of a ghost story, he decided it would help... When you see things at night, with Autumn's arms around you, the scrawlings in your mind like on the walls of Catherine's chamber. And you see a ghost at the window, trying to get in... It is not difficult to see the similarities...

I ended up burning the book.

It only succeeded in scaring me more.

It was only when he came home and saw me there, that he held me tight and just said. "We are nothing like any of them..." That I understood. He was telling me that we were lucky, we may have the thin man, but as long as we dance we will be okay...

As long as autumn's here, we'll be okay.

Summer

Well meeting is the most interesting part

When I first met Autumn, I was maybe five or six. We were the same age and his family moved in next door to me, and we would play games together. Cops and Robbers, Dodgeball, ( I will never forget that incident with the basketball, no matter how many times you apologize, Autumn.) Imaginary games in my back garden, like there was this one he invented that was like a magic kite and it took us to wherever we wanted and we more often than not had to survive on an island. I was a little bossy and made us drink water from a bottle rather than the lake (like he wanted.)

Sometimes my dad would let him stay over and we would just talk about nothing in particular. His parents were business people, their lives were with their work mostly... They traveled a lot. We were as good as family to him really. They would just dump him on us and say they'd be back in a week. It made me sad for him, but he never complained to us. He said that they were always busy and that he didn't miss them much. It's funny now I think of it, I remember the shy, infinitely creative boy with the tawny hair and green eyes, and me, oozing self confidence and being far too book smart for my own good.

We were eleven when we first saw him... This Slenderman... It was on Halloween, my parents are gravely against it but, well, Autumn decided to look out for me. He successfully got me to change into a fairy costume, jumping out of my bedroom window and we were off. Exploring the suburbs with candy galore. I remember his face as he told me. "Come on Summer, they'll never know..."

We were walking down another street when we saw it. Or rather him. He was tall, taller than I had ever seen, his limbs were out of proportion with his body and wearing a suit that fitted him. He had no face.

It was a beautiful costume. I walked toward him, looking up. I smiled at him, told him that his costume was scary.

He said nothing. He just turned and walked away. He smelled odd, like... I don't know. Like old people, like pipe smoke the kind my Uncle smoked.

Autumn came after me, a little confused. "Who was he?"

I smirked at him. "A stranger."

"You shouldn't talk to strangers Summer, it's bad." He frowned at me, matter of factly.

Of course I knew he was right. But I was an obnoxious ten year old.

When we got back, my parents grounded me for two weeks, they forbade us from seeing each other.

As you can tell, that worked out incredibly well for us.

Summer