You Don't Know Pain

I am perched on the edge of the thin, metal monkey bars. I am waiting for him. The forest around me seems dark and alive. Why anyone would put a playground in the middle of these woods, I have no idea. But it's been our hangout for forever. For those two wonderful years of happiness and then that one year of toleration. I still remember when we first came here.

 Whoa!" I say, looking around at this hidden paradise. "Why's this here?"

  "Who knows," Nolan says, flashing me one of his crooked grins. "But me and my brothers love it here."

  "This is our place now," I joke.

  Nolan nods and mischief lights his eyes. "I'll arm-wrestle you for control!"

  I grimace. Nolan, at fifteen, was crazy strong. And I was only fourteen, tall and wiry. Weak. "You're on," I say, knowing full-well I won't win.

Sticks cracked and I turned my head slowly. He stood next the slide, his dark blond-brown hair longer than I remembered it. He's not wearing his glasses and looked more grown-up than usual. But other than that, he looks the same as he was years ago.

  "Kaylee?" he asked. Pain has hardened his features. My fault, I suppose. But it was also his. He looked kind of like he didn't believe it was me. Understandable. I had changed.

  "Nolan," I said, his name scraping against my throat. I hadn't spoken his name in a very long time. I simply referred to him as "that guy" if I had to speak of him at all. It hurt. So much.

 "Why'd you call me here?" he asked, trying to not look me in the eye. I was surprised he listened. I'd called a week ago, telling him when and where to meet me, using a payphone so he couldn't block the number.

  Hurt knotted my stomach. "I needed to see you again. Once more."

  "What's the point? It's not like we're gonna magically become friends again," he snapped, in that voice he saved for people he hated. I'd never had it directed toward me though.

  "Do you wanna know the last words we ever said to each other?" I wondered, trying not to cry.

  "I don't care, Kaylee. It was a long time ago. Move on." He turned around and started walking away from the playground where'd we'd spent so many of our days together at. Away from our past. Away from me.

  "Friends forever!" I shouted at his back, tears spilling over. "Your mom. She took us aside and made us say that! I meant it! I swear! Did you?"

  Nolan stopped. There was quiet. Then he turned back around, every word he spoke a disgusting foul object he wanted out from himself. "You know who I promised that to? A girl. A girl with beautiful dark brown hair, which was constantly being messed with. A girl with small, square glasses. A girl who somehow made everything look awkward, yet cool. A girl who the only makeup she ever wore was eyeliner and never got it right. A girl who made me feel like anything was possible and amazing.

  "A girl who had a bright, beautiful spirit and who, ever on her crappiest days, wore the brightest, most neon shirts she could found. That's the girl I knew and you aren't her." He gestured hatefully toward my aquamarine and blond root hair. Toward my huge clear glasses, toward my dark punk clothes, toward my makeup-covered face.

 "You're . . .judging me on my appearance?" I asked, confused.

  "No, I'm judging you on how you were," he replied scathingly. "You were always different. Now you're just another copy-paste punk girl."

  The words hit home. For a minute, it quite literally took my breath away. There was a moment before I could speak again.

  "You're an asshole," I choked out.

  "And you're desperate to get back something you can't."

  And then he left.

Our friendship was more complicated than most. I'd moved to that area at eleven, not knowing anyone. An older, prettier girl named Julia took me under her wing. We were best friends. She started dating this younger guy, older than me by a year and a half, named Nolan. I tolerated Nolan. I hated his confidence, his swagger, his casual indifference to the fact that every girl he ever met chased after him. I hated the way he kept cheating on Julia and the way she just kept brushing it off. 

  But soon I got to know him. Julia's mother, Faith, got paranoid. She became insistent that me and Nolan were spying on her behind her back. She forbade us from seeing Julia and Julia from seeing us.

 Me and Nolan, whose mothers had grown to be good friends, were forced to spend time together. His little brother, Ishmah, was smitten with me, but he was twelve and I was fourteen.

  I soon came to know Nolan. Everything about him. Of course our friendship only really kicked off when my cousin, who lived in Arizona, came to visit and he started dating her. But then she went back and we were left behind.

  But she gave us something to obsess over together and we grew even closer. Best friends. We even started saying "I love you" to each other, something Nolan usually reserved for family. Not friends. I was honored.

 I found out that girls were obsessed with him and he did not feel the same. He had, in fact, not actually cheated on Julia, but rather been seen with a girl other than Julia and assumed to be cheating. I learned he had a tough time in school and that's why he was homeschooled now. Actually, that "tough time" was drugs, drink, and dicking around if you catch my drift.

  And then that day came. That STUPID girl. She filmed us together one day, chatting together. Apparently she'd been following us around town for a while. But this day was different. This was the day Nolan kissed me, the day that idiotic girl filmed it and posted it online, where it went viral and ruined our lives. See, his girlfriend saw it. And she was my cousin.

 She went ballistic, hating me and him. It wasn't her fault though. Her dad had been abusive and she came away from that experience with more than a few trust issues and mental problems. Here was this boy, whom she'd trusted and opened up with, kissing her supposedly best friend and cousin. But she never saw the part where I shoved him away and ran.

  Nolan blamed me. He thought it'd been a setup, that I was trying to get him to break up with Karla (my cousin) so he'd be with me. I was furious. His mother found out we were fighting and took us aside.

  "No fighting!" she told us. "You two are best friends, inseparable. Kaylee, say 'Friends forever'. Say it now."

  "Friends forever," I said grudgingly.

  "Nolan?"

  "Friends forever," he snapped.

  And that was it. The next day, he was gone. Our mothers got involved and fought themselves. Refused to see each other after that. And I lost my best friend. I was crushed. I contemplated suicide.

  But I lived. I fought. Reconnected to my oldest sister who was twenty-three and had moved out long ago. Made life worth living once again.

  And then I got the news. Something funny was going on up in my brain. I had cancer. Terminal. I was dying and Nolan didn't know.

 So I called him. Told him to meet me in the park and he came. Broke my heart all over again.

 Wiping my eyes, I surveyed the spot where he'd stood. Talking to me once again. I pulled out my phone and dialed his number with pain. He picked up, not knowing my number. I hadn't had a phone when we were friends.

 "Please come back," I whispered.

  And he hung up.

I was in the hospital four weeks later. I was not going to last through the next week, I was told. My time had expired.

  "Mom, don't cry," I said bleakly. "I'll be fine."

  "I know, baby. You'll be with God, up in heaven," she sniffled.

  I sighed, but didn't say anything. She knew I was an atheist.

  My little baby sister, who shouldn't have been going through this at her age, was sobbing in the arms of our brother-in-law. He himself had tears cascading down his face, which I was stunned to see.

  Ella, my second youngest sister, was hugging me tight. My whole body was seized with pain and I was positive I looked like death itself.

  Emma, my oldest sister, couldn't even get off the floor, where she'd been sobbing ever since she got here. Misha, second oldest, wasn't even here. She'd excused herself to go scream in the bathroom.

"Jeez, everyone," I said weakly. "Why the long faces? You'd think someone was dying."

  "Don't talk like that!" Mom snarled.

  I shook my head. "It's happening, like it or not."

  "Of course I don't like it!"

 I didn't answer because then it WAS happening. My body seized up. My jaw clenched, but I couldn't stop the scream that burst forth. Nurses flooded in. My family was ushered out.

  "Kaylee!" Emma cried. I tried to tell her I was fine. Tell her I was going to be alright because finally, finally, the pain was going to stop.

  As the darkness clouded my vision, I had one, last, conscious thought.

 Love ya, Nolan.

      NOLAN POV

I have not felt pain. Sure, I've fallen off my bike, skinned my knee, and cried. Sure I've gotten into way too many fistfights and ended up concussed or bruised. I've played football, enough said there.

  But that was nothing compared to seeing that my former best friend was dead. Nothing.

  I had been surfing Facebook was interesting things when I came across Jem's (Kaylee's mom) post.

  My beautiful baby girl has lost her fight with cancer. Kaylee's courage and determination will be remembered forever. That bight, outstanding soul has been put out like a candle. Goodbye, Kaylee.

  So that was pain. I screamed, throwing my phone across the room, shattering it and putting a hole in the weak plaster of the wall.

  I slammed through my front door, my mom's worried voice screaming at me to stop. I didn't. I hopped into my truck and drove recklessly to our spot in the woods. I jumped out, running hard.

  "Kaylee?" I yelled. "Kaylee, I came back! Kaylee!"

  The playground was empty, devoid of life. I ran around it, trying to find Kaylee, like it was some kind of game and she was just hiding, ready to pop up, smiling and alive. I waited for her laughing voice to fill my eyes once again.

 Please come back, she'd whispered into my ear. I'd thrown her away. I'd hung up, said good-bye.

  "KAYLEE!" I screamed. "This isn't funny! Come out! Stop hiding!"

  I looked in the slides, I looked under the stairs, I looked everywhere.

  "Please come back," her voice murmured, echoing from all around. "You wanna know pain, Nolan? I'll show you pain pain pain pain . . ."

  The word built up, until it was a shriek smashing into my eardrums.

  "Kaylee!" I screamed. I could barely hear myself over her cries. "Kaylee, I know! I know, Kaylee, just please come back."

And then it was silent. I realized what was happening. This is what Kaylee heard right after she said the same thing to me.

  "Kaylee!" Another agonized scream. Another search through the playground. She wasn't here, never was. She was too mystical and unreal to be here. She never belonged here. She was an angel and I'd hung up, hung up hung up hung up hung up.

  She wasn't here here here here here here.

  Never was.

  Never would be.

  Please come back, she pleaded. Please come back come back come back come back.

Now I'm the one crying out.