Farewell

Sunlight filled the air around them, flowing smooth and soft like a song. All the greens and browns of the tree they were in were tinged with gold, as if, at least to their view, the whole world was bathed in warmth. The leaves around them bobbed happily at the mild whims of the wind, barely being nudged out of place before returning with a little swoop. 

It was that time in the early evening when the insects had come out, when the air was that perfect temperature, sliding smoothly between day and night. That time when inspiration comes to artists, and meaning makes itself known to philosophers, when those with itching feet wish to travel, and metaphors or rhymes come to poets. 

This particular evening, two young people sat in the tree. They were settled on a familiar wooden platform attached to the trunk with both their backs leaning comfortably against the bark. Their long limbs were pulled up in front of them, and their minds were distracted, focused on other things.

Not much could be heard around them, just the easy buzz of the coming night, along with the occasional dog bark or mumbled conversation from somewhere down the street. The sun had been getting lower over the last few hours and was now reaching down towards the house they sat facing. It was the girl’s house.

“This is my favourite time of day, you know,” she said.

The boy beside her nodded, his light brown curls rocking with the movement. He did know that. 

They were quiet for a moment longer. 

There was little the girl liked so much as the peaceful familiarity of nature-watching with a friend, especially one who was just as content to sit as she was. Together they enjoyed the feeling of the last of the sun’s warmth on their skin as it was filtered through the leaves. It was as if the leaves seemed to lower themselves around them, as if distancing them from the world that was, in reality, just as close as usual. If the girl tried, she could look through a gap in the branches and see her father in the kitchen, fussing leisurely in front of the stove. She would know that elsewhere in the kitchen her mother was reading a book, as she always did when her father cooked. She didn’t look though.

“I know you like it too,” she said. 

He fidgeted lightly with his hand, tapping irregularly on his knee a couple of times before stilling. 

“I do,” he agreed. His voice was quiet, as it often was, especially when they were sat here like this. She didn’t see him anywhere else very often. He was usually here, always welcome in her home. Any other day he would likely be seen next to her parents in the kitchen, rarely helping but curiously watching as her father decided what to add, how to change tastes, how to add colours. 

He was a quiet one, at least that was how she knew him. When with his friends he was louder, more willing to be riled up, a little more scathing, but she saw very little of that. His friends never came here, never sat in their tree. They didn’t see the focused look in his eye when he filled his sketchbook, or watch the sun set and the stars light up one by one in the sky. 

She often wondered how they had got to know each other in the first place, as both seemed to the other as particularly different to themselves, but that story was lost to history. Both of them had been too young at the time for it to have stuck in their minds. 

They could hear a car now as it rolled down the road along the other side of the houses, keeping its speed and passing by quickly until the sound was lost again to the air. 

“I can’t imagine anywhere else being as pretty either.”

If she had looked towards him she would have seen his expression twitch with irritation, cringing with an awareness of the oncoming argument, but she looked resolutely forward. A small part of her recognised she was being petty, but she ignored it, pushing it to the side with only the tiniest bit of guilt.

“No,” he said. She stiffened. There was a hardness in his tone that she rarely heard. It felt so out of place in the sweet air. “There’s beautiful sunsets everywhere in the world.”

She stopped herself from turning her head, stubbornness building in her spirit. 

“Sure. I’m sure they’re great. Not quite like this though.” 

She could hear him breathing out slowly, heavily, next to her. 

“No,” he disagreed.

She glared at the branch above her, following it down to the window. Her mother was standing next to her father in front of the stove, their lips were moving as they spoke about something. Her mother leaned her head back as she laughed, happy creases crinkling around her eyes. 

The girl frowned.

“No?”

“No. There are many beautiful places.” He was getting more clipped now. There was emotion building under his skin. She’d never felt so separate from it before. “There’s a whole world to see. And frankly, I think it’s a bit dull of you to be so content with just this one.”

Her chest squeezed, a resentful, ugly ache building in her heart and spilling out her mouth.  “Well it definitely would be nicer to appreciate it in peace.”

He barked out a laugh, a dry, harsh one, and started moving. She finally looked back to him but he wasn’t looking at her at all. He was shuffling forwards towards the ladder at the end of the platform, his expression scrunched up unattractively.

“Yeah.” His voice was bitter. “I’m fairly sure I won’t miss this particular sun set at all.” 

He rushed down the ladder with quick motions, shoved his hands into his pockets and sloped off to the left, making his way to the main road. She watched him leaving, her fingers balled up in frustration. She wanted to tell him not to go, that she didn’t mean it, that she had so much she wanted to say to him, but that stubborn grip on her heart held her in place. 

Instead, she watched him walk away. She watched him knowing that he was heading back to his house, back to his room which was all but fully packed away, folded into bags with brochures of smiling faces and biology textbooks already covered in notes. 

The sun finally lowered below the roof of the house, leaving the tree to the bluer light of night. Her arms prickled with goosebumps as she held her head in her hands, curled up on the hard plank of wood, loneliness making a home in her heart.