This is not something I remember well, and it will never happen again, but it goes like this:
We meet midway between our houses on the bench right in front of the school. I don't remember who brought the macarons, and I don't remember if we ended up finishing them. Colored brightly and tasting of little more than sugar and cream, they're not the greatest. You tell me about the time you tried to make them and failed miserably. I shove more sweetness into my mouth.
In hindsight, this sort of nickel- and silver-acquiring activity seems to be pretty common when deciding how many 5-cent-coin events to undergo to make oneself rich. But, also, considering the silver I'd managed to embroil both of us in for the past couple months, a time like this was rare. Us, sitting next to each other on that blasted bench, swinging our feet at the dust that rolled around the corners of the brick walls.
I watched you smile. I asked you another question. It was something, mostly, I think, about the type of food you liked. Or the type of candy. Or dessert. Or something like that. You seemed happy.
Of course, again. This wasn't frequent. Usually I just gave you poison. But it was nice, for one day out of a couple hundred, to see you laugh freely like that.
I genuinely thought you were beautiful. I don't remember when it was, but eventually, somehow, you ended up holding my hand.
Time passes. We keep talking. We keep talking for a while until the wind picks up and the lights flicker.
You look up when they blink again. The branches on the evergreen trees begin to shift, sway. Metal clinks noisily against the flagpole. What time is it? You've been holding my hand for a while and I've been very aware of it this entire time.
I check my phone. No texts from home. It gets a little darker. Isn't it getting dark too fast?
But eventually the lights go out. Daylight still appears in slivers, but the trees' branches move to hide them. The school's lights disappear, the streetlights vanish. Something about the wind, more than just a light wind, is making cracking noises somewhere.
"Hey, let me walk you home."
It turns into more of a run. No rain, but the wind is whipping our hair up. You're the one wearing a thicker jacket--you're always wearing a thicker jacket--but I still give you mine for reasons I couldn't explain at the time. I let go of your hand, gather you close to me, keep moving. I need to get you home before branches, power lines, the sky fall down, because I'm good at assuming the sky is going to fall down.
Haven't I walked this path before?
But something seems dark and distant the usual way, so we go up the longer hill. I'm able to see less and less as we get closer to your house. You stop me before we get there, because now I have a longer way to go.
I ask you to get home safe. I hug you tightly. It's funny that I only try to be responsible when someone I ("love"?) care about could be in danger. I knew that I loved you then, I'm sure, if I remember correctly (which goes against the sureness, doesn't it?). I don't remember how many days this was before I once again exploded the things made of indigo and silver and replaced them with things made of more indigo and silver.
But that's not really relevant. None of this is relevant anymore, not even how I sprinted back home, down the hill, in near darkness, back to a dark house, thinking of you all the way. None of this is really relevant anymore, not even the look you gave me, not even the way I hugged you. None of this is really relevant anymore, not even the streetlights that lined a couple thousand of these memories.