Chapter Text
The tears aren’t stopping. He doesn’t know why they aren’t stopping. It’s making it hard to see. The sunlight is blurred into streaks of brightness, and the tree’s branches are starting to give way beneath him. But that doesn’t matter. Just holding his breath, letting the tears fall down, down, to the ground that’s far below.
One foot after the other. He’s almost at the top. Can almost feel the sun on his cheeks. Pauses. Wipes at his face, staring out across the treetops. He’s so high up. But the tree is taller yet. He climbs more.
Higher and higher, one branch, then to another. Now the branches are sparse, and the sun’s warmth washes over him. And it feels so good. So good. He almost forgets why he’s there, almost even smiles. Then there’s the crack, so soft he can barely hear it.
It’s louder. The branch is thin, too thin to support his weight. It snaps, and suddenly he has nothing to hold on to. The branch is falling, and he’s falling. And the sun is no longer on his face, and he remembers what he was going to do, but no, this isn’t right. It doesn’t feel right, he wasn’t supposed to just fall .
But maybe. Maybe it’ll work. He closes his eyes, and he’s no longer crying. Lets out his breath and listens to the sound of air rushing past him. There’s a faint cry, a yell, almost. It isn’t him. He isn’t screaming.
And then he’s on the ground. Can’t feel his arm, can’t seem to breathe. His ears are ringing, and it almost sounds as if someone’s running towards him. That can’t be right. There was no one else in the park, let alone by his tree. But then he opens his eyes and sees an unfamiliar face with impossibly long hair and dark, maybe blue? eyes.
Laying there, on the ground, not breathing, not understanding why, how, he’s still alive. The sunlight is dappled on the grass, a green-gold from the leaves. And the face is still there, and it’s attached to a pair of arms that grab him and pull him up. The hollow ringing is overpowering. He sways, and the other boy says something, but he can’t hear. He’s tugged along, beneath the trees, across the field, back to the street where a dusty-looking car is parked.
He’s pushed into the passenger side and the door slams shut after him. Sitting there, staring out the window, as the engine starts and the car begins to move.
The boy is saying something, but his voice is garbled and sounds as if it’s going through water. He doesn’t reply, just stares out the window until the car stops again. They’re at a hospital, and it feels familiar. He’s left alone in the car for what feels like both seconds and years, but then the boy is back.
Suddenly, they’re inside, and he is sitting on a table, and there’s his mom, and the boy disappeared. Wait. Mom? Still wearing her scrubs, her eyes are wide and red.
“Evan! Oh, my god! Evan!” She hugs him, careful of his arm. She’s crying, and he knows she knows, but then she says, “I was told you fell, you were climbing with a friend, and- and you fell!”
And he wants to tell her the truth, wishes he could tell her, but then she has to go, has to get back to work, and he doesn’t say anything. He just sits there, watching her leave.
***
Leaving the hospital, Evan looks down at his arm. In the cast. He doesn’t know how to feel, whether he is sad or angry, or even happy that his plan had failed. He just feels a sort of numbness that isn’t going away. At least the ringing in his ears has gone. One of the doctors who treated him had said he was ‘in shock,’ and that it could go on for several weeks.
Evan doesn’t even really remember what had happened in the thirty minutes between landing on the ground and appearing in the hospital. There were little snippets of memory, of a tall boy who seemed both familiar and unfamiliar, of a car with dusty tinted windows, of trees and buildings flashing by. His thoughts go back to the boy. Someone he didn’t exactly recognize, someone who came to get him even though he didn’t need to. He doesn’t know how to react to that. Why would a stranger help him?
He decides to walk home rather than take the bus. It is warm outside, and the sun is still out. The bus would be crowded, and he doesn’t want people to stare at him because of the cast. Or because his hair is a mess, and his skin is bruised, and that there are grass stains on his clothes. So he walks.
It is dark by the time he gets home, and he’s exhausted. His mind keeps going in circles. Why did the boy help him? Why was he at the park, when no one else was there? Who was he? Did he know Evan? Was he going to see him again?
He needs to thank him. It would be the polite thing to do. And the right thing. But he doesn’t know how to. What would he say? Thanks for not letting me die? Did he even know what Evan was planning on doing?
At least there are still a couple of days before the first day of school. He wouldn’t have to think about talking to the boy for a while. But even so, Evan falls asleep with those questions on his mind.