A Forgotten Promise

Tw: Brief implication of underage sex work

Time flies. Of course, we all know this, but it seems we don’t realize the severity of it until we are much older. When you are a child, two or three years seems like a lifetime, and something further away, like ten years, seems impossible. But as an adult, as you grow nearer and nearer to death, the days and years blend seamlessly. Tomorrow, yesterday, today, and next year are so streamlined, it is easy to forget the events that occur in a given moment. 

Like many children, these thoughts never crossed my mind. The thought of moving away from home, getting a job, and having to pay rent was so laughable, I made a game out of it. “Adults” is what we used to call it. We would walk around the house dressed in vests and belts because that was what adults wore, and complain about work, bills, and children. 

I take a deep breath as I sit on the steps to the porch. I haven't been here in years, though I always meant to come back. But something always came up. I couldn’t take off work, I had an appointment, the flight was canceled, rent went up–something. And before I knew it, seven years had passed. Time really does fly. 

I stare at the swing set in the yard, long deserted. The chains are rusted and the seat weathered. The gentle winter breeze pushes the swings slightly, the rusty chains squeaking in the wind. It's a miracle they even swing anymore. 

When I was a kid, my best friend and I would spend an obnoxious amount of time on those swings. We would have a competition to see who could jump the furthest, swing the highest, or even pretend we were riding on the back of a dragon. Man, I wish I could experience that carefreeness again. 

I stood and walked over to the swings, grabbing a hold of the rusty, rough chain. I wonder if it will hold my weight. I sit carefully, expecting the chains to disintegrate in my hands. I pick my heels up first, waiting for the swing to give. 

I couldn’t have been older than five when we got this swing-set. I remember watching from the porch steps as my father put it together on some summer day. That happened to be the same summer day I met my best friend, April. She had just moved here the week before, and much like me, she loved swings. I remember her mother standing at the gate to the yard, holding April’s little hand, as she smiled at my father. I remember my father walking over to the gate, soaked in sweat, to greet this mystery woman. I watched with eager eyes as they spoke, their voices too distant to understand, and I watched as the gate swung open to reveal a young girl with doe-like brown eyes, hiding behind her mother’s leg. 

So far, so good. The swing holds surprisingly well. I slowly sat further onto the seat, cringing as the swing-set moaned in pain. 

April and I were inseparable and spent literally nearly every day together. We would spend hours on the swing set, sometimes playing, sometimes talking. We were nine when we began to pretend it was an airplane able to whisk us away from this hellhole. It wasn’t that our parents were bad to us. No, I don’t think they could have been better. But everyone in this town ended up the same way: fishermen, miners, or factory workers. Sometimes women became teachers, but she and I wanted more. We needed more. And so, the swing became an airplane, a vessel that would take us away to a place where we could be more than our parents, more than our destinies; a place where we could be actresses, lawyers, doctors, or rockstars. At such a young age, our parents let us dream. They let us dream though they knew the reality would be much different, but they let us dream because, at such a young age, time doesn’t seem to pass at all, and the future we were destined for would seemingly never arrive. They let us dream, because they had lost their own dreams long ago. 

I sink further into the swing, lifting my feet a little more off the ground. My heels are barely hovering over the sludge of snow and mud. I wince as the swing trembles in agony, threatening to snap and send me to the ground, but it never does. 

I think we were fourteen when we realized we were doomed. Our parents at this point had told us to start thinking about the future. They told us they couldn’t afford college, that we couldn’t go. I remember how we sat on this swing set and cursed up a swarm at our parents. Didn't they want us to be happy? Of course not, why would they? It was my first time cursing, though it wasn’t hers. April and I had a different approach to our parents crushing our dreams. I became more determined than ever to make it happen, unless I was on the swing-set with her, there wasn’t a moment I wasn’t studying or volunteering, trying my hardest to break this chain of depression and despair. April, she tried that a little bit. But she also thought that she simply had to leave this town. And so, one day a trucker drove through. April and I were at the gas station getting some snacks. So was he. He approached us, and though he looked at both of us, he only spoke to April. He complimented her, told her how mature she looked. At first, she resisted, but even when he knew our ages, he persisted. I guess she liked it, or maybe just saw it as an opportunity. When he invited us to his motel room, we denied his offer. But I remember when we sat on this swing set, eating our chips, when she looked at me and quietly said she was going to go. Though he never said what he wanted, I knew what they were going to do, and so did she. I tried to stop her. But the next day, she approached the swing holding a one hundred dollar bill in her hand, smiling brightly. She told me she was saving every dollar she made to buy us tickets to New York. Whenever that trucker came into town, she would go to his motel room. Sometimes he only stayed a night, others up to a week, but each night she stayed, she left with a handful of cash.

Thinking back on this still makes me shudder in disgust. No girl should ever have to experience that. No girl should ever have to grow up so fast, so fast as to think illegal sex work was the ticket to a better life. Especially not at that age. 

I tighten my grip on the icy cold chains, as though they’d save me if I fell through the seat onto the icy ground. I lift my heels a little more, putting more weight on the swing, and leaving the balls of my feet on the ground. I hold my breath as rust flakes in my hands, the swing-set shakes, and the chains moan in pain. Still, I do not fall. 

We were sixteen when we realized our futures were right around the corner. April and I remained as close as ever, sharing the same dreams, but we didn’t have much more than that in common. She had been dating for a few years, mostly older men. I was afraid to date. I was afraid because I didn’t want to have any weights holding me down when I tried to leave. I was afraid because I didn’t want to love somebody who would never be more than this town. April thought I was immature, and maybe I was. She stuck to her studies too, though not like I did. Our parents made us take summer jobs at the fishing market, preparing us for a bleak, eventless life. We both saved every dollar we made, dreaming of New York. Our parents grew more and more frustrated, telling us we would never make it, and needed to dream smaller, needed to aspire for less, needed to settle. Not me. Not April. 

I release my breath slowly, watching it as it fogs the air. I remember doing this same thing in the winter time as a kid, only I would pretend to be smoking. The thought of it makes me laugh. With a slow deep breath, I fully lift my feet off the ground, holding the chains even tighter in my hands, hoping, praying, dreaming they hold strong. 

We were seventeen when life really caught up to us. We sat on this swing set, and we talked, just as we had every day for the last twelve years. That was the year we sat and filled out our college applications together, hoping, praying, and dreaming we would defeat our destinies. That was the year we both realized that we had exactly one shot, one chance to make something of ourselves and that if we missed it, we would fade into the same bleak nothingness of our parents. They tried to romanticize it for us; telling us it didn’t matter so long as they had us and each other. But, April and I both knew that was a lie. They simply gave up on their dreams because they saw no way out. But not us. That was the year we found out that I made it into college, with a full ride. That was the year we found out that April didn’t. That was the year I used all of my savings for a plane ticket, but couldn't afford a bus ticket. That was the year April bought one for me, with tears in her eyes and a sad, happy smile. I cried. For months. But I promised I would come back. That was the year April decided to own her destiny, though she claimed otherwise. She got pregnant with her long-time boyfriend. She lost the baby shortly before I had to leave. 

I give myself a small push, nothing too forceful, just enough to move the swing slightly more than the breeze was capable of doing. Something just fast enough to begin to dry the tears on my cheeks. The swing cried out in agony, the rusted bolts moving for the first time in years, their shrieks carried through the wind.

We wrote to each other often, and she began to work at the fish market, saving for a bus ticket to visit me, while I worked to pay for a plane ticket for her. As time passed, excuses came from both ends. I have work, I have bills, gas went up, I broke my foot, I need a tooth pulled. And then, the letters just stopped. And now, seven years later, I come to fulfill my promise just a little too late. 

I missed April more and more as the years passed, and I wonder if she felt the same way. I felt guilty that I outran my fate while she succumbed to hers. I felt guilty that I had the life we dreamed of escaping to all those years ago while she had the life we both feared. But, until I got the call from her mother, I didn’t even realize seven years had passed since we saw each other. Or that five passed from the last letter I received. In fact, it felt as though I had left town just a month before, though I knew better. I still felt seventeen. In my mind, though we went so long without each other, she and I were still best friends. 

I sigh and set my feet on the ground, the sludge crunching beneath my feet. I step backwards until I am fully standing. I look at the empty swing next to me. 

April died in a freak accident. But in her desk her mother found years worth of letters addressed to me, ones she never sent. She found a jar labeled New York, full of money. April might have succumbed to her destiny, but she never gave up on our dream. On her dream. 

Tears stream down my face. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. What made me different? What made her different? I wonder if I had stopped by earlier, maybe four years ago and not now, if her fate would have been different. It took a phone call, one I almost didn’t answer because I didn’t know the number, for me to learn the fate of my best friend. It took a phone call for me to realize seven years had passed since she was sentenced to death, while I walked free. It took minutes for me to realize years had passed me by obliviously. It took seconds for me to learn April was dead. 

I look at the empty swing and take a deep breath as I pick my feet up. I swing forward, the rusty bolts screaming and shrieking with grief and pain, its cries being carried by the winter wind. The swing rocks back and forth unsteadily in the loose ground as I swing back and forth. I wait for the bolts to break, the chains to snap, the seat to fail, I wait to fall. But it never happens.