“I wish I never grew up.”

It was the softest, most sincere sentence I had ever heard spoken. Almost like a secret whispered into the wind so long ago, finally returned to be laid to rest.

“What was that?”

It could have just been my imagination, a rustle of grass or leaves mistaken for a voice. Her voice.

“Nothing. Thinking out loud is all.”

And in an instant it was back. The hair rose on my neck, my ears pricked as her breath touched my skin.

“Oh.”

She was to my left, sitting next to me beneath the tree we had carved our initials into an eternity in the past. The small blocky characters, one of the few proofs that remained of our childhood: the innocence we had lost before even realizing it was gone. Those bits of sand sifted through our fingers as we grew older and experienced new things, some of which there were no return.

The evening was creeping towards dusk. Shadows stretched longer and longer with the setting sun, subtly dissolving into the darkness of night. An icy gust blew right through my clothes straight to the bone. She leaned against my shoulder, a small shift but I knew she was relying on me to keep her upright. The warmth of her body against mine spread through me like wildfire.

It was just the two of us alone in those woods which had become so much smaller than it was when we were kids. In our imaginations those woods stretched on for miles, forever into a wilderness of limitless possibilities and unknown dangers. It was a haven in which we could be ourselves, a place to be children. Those woods were our playground, our secret hideout, our escape to a whole other world bound only by our imaginations. But now, only a piece remained of that world that once was; taken over by the cancer of suburban crawl and the unsatisfiable want for more, more, more. Roofs peaked through the now thinning tree trunks of our forest. The sounds of birdsong and creaking branches were replaced by the distant clamor of younger versions of ourselves playing and riding bicycles in wait for Mom to call for dinner. The place where our childhood had flourished was so different from what we had remembered, and much like the two of us, it had changed in ways both visible and hidden.

Small fingertips tested the waters as they traced from my own, lightly over my palm, before resting on my bandaged wrist. Her hand stayed there, soft and gentle as the silence between us grew unsteady.

“Charlie, you might not be ready to talk and that’s okay”. Her fingers moved from my wrist back to my hand which she took in her own. A sputter of heartbeat raced through my veins. “But promise me that someday you will tell me everything. It doesn’t have to be today, tomorrow, or even this year. Whenever you’re ready I’ll be here alright?”

In that moment I wanted to fall apart. Duct tape and glue could only hold together so many pieces of myself. One day the seams might burst again and maybe I wouldn’t be lucky enough that time to have someone put me back together.

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“Gwen,” I looked up at her but she was already staring at me. Her green eyes were bloodshot, the gleam of tears reflected the golden evening sunset. “I-”, I wanted to tell her everything. To tell her how broken I was, the fears of even the smallest of waves sinking me. Everything from the moment we said goodbye before college, those few years away from each other, the holidays when I knew and she knew that we were both across the street from each other but wouldn’t dare say one word to each-other, and how I came to be the way that I was.

“One day, I promise.”

But I couldn’t. Either the words wouldn’t come or I was still too scared of what might happen if they did. So the best I could do at that moment was bite my tongue, wait for another time. A time when I was better. A time when the dominos wouldn’t fall at even the lightest touch of a feather. A time when I was better, better for her.

“Okay Charlie.” Those two words were sad, aired with the voice of disappointed resignation. But the next four, although still sad and tainted with pain, spoken with hope for a better time; “I’ll wait for you.”

And at that moment, I cried. Not the downpour I was expecting and rather desperately needed, though I would never admit to myself. A single tear pooled at the corner of my eye, holding there for a second before falling down my cheek. It was both burning hot and freezing cold at the same time. A tear of anger, of sadness, of the hope Gwen had for myself that I wish I could replicate.

In one of the houses not too far off, the familiar crackle of radio static rose in volume. Blurts of songs and newsreels played as the owner seemed to be searching for a station. It finally settled on a song, Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now, her song. The one she used to sing to me as we drove through town with the windows down, hands out to grab the wind.

Rows and flows of angel hair and ice cream castles in the air

Gwen would then do something that no other person could ever replicate. It was a simple gesture, one that anyone else would simply overlook and forget in the blink of an eye. And yet, it was the most thoughtful act somebody had ever done for me. She raised my arm and bent her head ever so slightly, placing a light kiss on the bandages wrapped around my wrist. In the same movement, she rose back up and looked me in the eye.

And feather canyons everywhere looked at clouds that way

Time must have stopped. The planet had for certain stopped spinning. Life could have ceased to progress and I would have been okay.

But now they only block the sun, they rain and snow on everyone

I don’t know if it was just the evening light, or the short distance between us, or how different ourselves and the world had become. But sitting next to her, my nose tickled by her breath, those eyes never looked prettier.

So many things I would have done, but clouds got in my way

She kissed me. With the same light touch as in my wrist, her lips touched just below my eye, along my cheekbone directly where the tear had fallen.

I've looked at clouds from both sides now, from up and down and still somehow

I could never forget it. The way she looked, how the dim sunlight illuminated the green oceans in her eyes, the warm touch of lips upon tear stained skin.

She rested her head on my shoulder, closed her eyes and began humming along. Underneath that tree, beneath the infinitely starry sky Gwen and I talked for hours. Not about what she or I wanted, no, needed to say. But about our childhoods, old memories and friends we had long since forgotten about. And just for that short time, our innocence returned for a final goodbye.

It's cloud illusions I recall, I really don't know clouds at all.