Writing Short 1 - Tree

I've just recently started working freelance on editing a friend's books and helping out with the publicity and promotion of her latest work and it got me thinking with a writing head again. I used to write a lot. Didn't we all at some point? I'm sure we've all penned a little ditty or two over the years... Anyway, I digress. I showed my mum something I'd written ages ago, when Adam and I first got married. It's not long, nor perfect. But she liked it - and my mum is not afraid to voice her opinions. So we decided to write. Both of us. I know she's been working on a book for a while trying to get her ideas together, her fibro brain being a pain. We thought it'd be good to base a short story around an inanimate object and my mum chose tree. I won't post hers here as this is a place for my shorts but if she doesn't mind me doing so then I put it up at a later date. Anyway, without further ado, here is mine.

Tree

She closes her eyes against the summer sun, air whistling past her ears as she goes higher and higher, her body almost horizontal. She opens her eyes as her body propels her backwards, face pointing towards the floor as she holds onto the ropes tightly. Loving the feel of the suns hot rays beaming down on her face through the trees; the way the fields of flowers, corn, wheat and barley intoxicate her nostrils.
            This place is home, always has been. The sun, fields, trees and this little part of the wood, all collide in her heart, making it home.
            She swings again, not touching the ground; using her legs to push her forward. She’s always loved this place.

“Hey”, a voice comes from behind her, she puts her feet down towards the ground, slowing her pendulum free-fall.

“Hey! I didn’t think you were going to make it. I was just about to leave”. She studies his face, his chest rushing to fill with air and quickly emptying again. She realises he’s bent over slightly, trying to catch his breath. “Hey…You okay? If I hadn’t seen you this afternoon I would’ve just come to your house at some point this week, you know.”

“Yeah…Yeah, I know…I just wanted…to see you...today” He breathes in quickly, trying to answer her question without being too urgent with his answer.

Aside from the almost dying, breathless, look he has on his face, she can see something else in him today, something…different. Grown-up, maybe? Her reflection into his appearance is giving him some time to catch his breath, glad of the silence. He needs to do this today. He can’t wait any longer, this is killing him.

“Mum’s cooking up some apple pie for when we get back. I told her you were coming with me, not like it wasn’t obvious.” She smiles, glad he seems to have regained his composure.

He straightens up, hands on hips, “Oh man, I love your mum’s apple pies” smiling at her in response.

“I know. Why do you think she’s making it?” She winks, swinging slowly back and forth, her feet scuffing the floor.

“Dad’s got my ass in a grinder this week, working me until my head explodes with all the information, about the garage, he’s trying to shove in there.” He walks up to her, pausing his hands on her back, pushing her forward into the air. Her golden hair splays backwards at him as she moves through the wind up to the sky, like an angel. The sun, doing nothing to quell his thoughts, each time it hit her hair it sent a bright shot of anxiety through his mind, telling him he couldn’t do this right now, knowing in his heart that he should.

After pushing her back and forth a few times she says, “Well, you did agree to work for him so it can’t be that bad. If I remember correctly, you did have the opportunity to go to Uni, you know”.

“You did too. Yet you stayed to work with your mum in the flower shop”.

“C’mon, you think I could’ve really left this place? I mean look at it”, her voice gets slightly quieter every time he pushes her away…pushes her away – how ironic.

“Yeah, it’s not all bad I suppose”. His body goes into auto pilot, slowing down the thrusts hurling her into the sky. He has rehearsed what he’s wanted to say to her so many times and yet he falters. It all sounds too dumb, now that he’s here with her. She interrupts his thoughts, obviously aware that he’s slowed down in his task of pushing her on the swing. She’s looking around at the tree.

“Remember when we used to come here as kids? Your sisters, you, my brother and me? We’d climb as high as we could on this thing”. She looks above at the gigantic tree, towering down on her, blocking the sun, except for little trickles of summer air falling through the cracks.

“Ha, yes. I don’t think my old bones could make it past the first branches now. Either that or I’d snap it with my weight!”

“Seriously, Noah? You’re not old or fat. If you’re old at the age of twenty-two, then what the hell does that make me?”

“Uhm…ancient?” She stops the swing and stands, turning to hit him on the arm; hand meeting soft cloth with a loud thud.

“Hey! That’s not fair! I’m younger than you!” She laughs at him and looks up. Her eyes are the brightest green he’s ever seen, no flecks of any other colour, just pure emerald green. He loved them. He loved her, and the freckles that crowded around her nose.

She is looking at him confused, while he stares at her, because he’s gone silent and his pupils have gotten bigger. She’s never noticed them do that before. She’s noticed him before, always has. They’ve been through their young lives together, grown up in school together, passed exams and gone on double dates with each other’s significant halves. But, since their teen years she’d stepped back and aside, watching him from afar. Loving him more deeply each day, yet too scared to lose him if she ever mentioned the slightest idea of romance between them. But here he was, looking down on her, differently, in a way she’d never seen him do before.

He knew it was now or never. He knew if he didn’t tell her now then he’d mess it up forever. What was he thinking? Even if he did tell her it’d still mess things up forever. But her eyes, her face, her body, all leaning into him, pleading for him to say something. Their close stance making her temporarily mute.

He gazes into her eyes, knowing he can’t say anything. He just can’t. Everything he’s practiced for months to say just goes out of his mind, flying away in the wind, with one look from her. That look. The one he’s always wanted from her. He moves a hand up to her face, catching a stray curl waving in front of her eyes, blocking his view. He pulls it down and tucks it softly behind her ear. She closes her eyes at his touch and opens them, looking up at him with deep desire.

The summer breeze flows up around them, pulling them out of their trance. She looks away and he knows he’s lost his moment. It was gone. She moves from him towards the tree, running her hands over it’s rough, mossed edges, staring at the details in the grain, staring at anything but him. Sighing, she says, “I wonder how many lives have been lived under this tree. This swing was here way before I was. I mean, sure, it’s had a few rope replacements over the years, but I couldn’t ever imagine my life without it”, she looks up, lost in the tree’s over-bearing awe, handling the wood delicately under her fingers.

“I couldn’t ever imagine my life without you in it”. She snaps her head back quickly to face him. He realises that what he was thinking he must’ve said out loud. The shocked look on his face must’ve made her nervous because she replies with a quick laugh.

“Well, of course not, Noah. I’ve known you forever! You’re like this tree. Ha. Always in my life. I’m grateful for that, you know…” She smiles at him. Her back now leaning against the hard, unforgiving surface, legs out in front of her, perching against the tree.

The elation he’d had at telling her how he really felt about her quickly dissipates when he realised she’d laughed it off. But, having half told her what he’d desperately wanted to for so long, he couldn’t stop the thoughts in his mind from splurging out in front of him.

“No, Sophie. That’s not what I meant. I couldn’t ever imagine my life without you in it…with me. Together. Not just friends…I need you.” He takes a deep breath, realising he was holding it in, the whole time he spoke.

She looks at him, stood a few feet away from her. He’s holding on to the swing’s rope for support, balancing himself after relieving a massive weight from his heart. She realises, that’s why he looked different today. That’s why he asked to meet her at their favourite childhood spot. This place reminds them both, of the amazing times they’ve had together.

He's blown it. He knew this would happen. She’s staring at him and hasn’t said anything at all in so long. The air grows thick around them and from the shocked look on her face and the fact that she hasn’t replied to him makes him realise she doesn’t feel the same way. But, he feels better knowing that he’s said what he came here to say, and even though she doesn’t feel the same way at least he can move on now. Stop obsessing about this. Constantly building up this dream-like vacuum in his mind where they’d be together. Together, with kids and a cat, maybe a dog, or both. And, they’d come here with their children, for picnics under the tree, just like their parents did with them. The air starts to feel constricting and tight, he needs to say something, anything, to leave and collect himself. He rushes, “I’d better go. It’s getting kinda’ chilly and I didn’t bring a jacket”, deflated, he kicks at the floor and turns, walking away into the wood to his house on the other side of the clearing.

“I love you, Noah.” She says it so quietly he only hears it through the passing air, riding on the wind to his mind.

He turns and stares at her, mouth breaking into the widest smile she’s ever seen. He comes storming towards her, pulling her face into his hands as she is pushed, hard, against the tree. She grabs his waist to steady herself against his onslaught of masculine power.

Neither says anything. They know they don’t have to. He searches her eyes and follows her freckles down her nose, looking at her mouth as she breaks into the most beautiful smile he’s ever seen.

“Say that again, Sophie.” He whispers, breathing onto her face.

“I love you, No…” Before she can finish he kisses her, moulding together like it was always meant to be. He moves his hands from her delicate face, whilst still kissing her, and wraps them behind her body, shielding her back from the harsh bark protecting the tree digging into her. Her arms come up to fold around his neck, pulling his body closer. She never wants to let him go and knows he’ll never make her.

Their mouths slowly part; his warm breath tickles her lips. Their eyes open, finding one another, and he moves back slightly so her arms fall from behind him. He pulls her forward off the tree and guides her over its thick roots protruding out of the ground.
He releases a little laugh and smiles at her, “I love you too, Sophie” holding out his hand he beckons her to take it. Gladly, she obliges, slipping their fingers together like they’d never been apart.

“C’mon. We’d better get back. I heard your mum’s got apple pie on for me, and nothing is going to stop me from eating that!” He winks back at her, she beams at him as they walk back to her house, hand in hand, looking at each other and the world in a completely new way, smiling at everything.