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 Posted: Mon Jul 15, 2013 8:57 pm
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Posted: Tue Jul 16, 2013 9:14 pm
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Fiona looked at Nick with a mixture of fear and confusion - how was he going to go get the swing, wherever it was now, after midnight?
Then, she noticed that he wasn't using percentages, statistics or a more formal vocabulary. He sounded almost normal without using that particular method of speaking, and yet it scared Fiona even more to hear it from him.
"Nick," she whispered to him as if he didn't already know, "It's after midnight."
Something was telling her to go with him. He might be in danger if he went alone, considering he had just gotten over an illness that could have killed him in a more severe situation. Since her window was open, she reached forward and took his hand - it was ice cold. Not unlike when he had been on the hospital bed, she thought. She looked into his eyes, and knew he probably even wouldn't stop at another bout of pneumonia to get back the swing that he called home.
"Hold on," she said to him suddenly. Then, she abruptly turned away and put on her snow boots.
Distantly, she knew she had to go back to school tommorow.
Well, technically today.
No time to think about that.
She threw on her puffball jacket. Barely time to zip it up.
Slipped out of the house. No time to worry about what her parents would do if they suddenly woke and found her gone.
She joined Nicholas outside.
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Posted: Tue Jul 16, 2013 9:36 pm
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Posted: Tue Jul 16, 2013 11:34 pm
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Posted: Thu Jul 18, 2013 12:56 am
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The cold midnight winds made Fiona shiver in her nightgown, and she pulled her jacket closer to her. There was really no need to wonder why the cold didn't seem to affect Nicholas, though - he was too determined in his quest to care about something like freezing temperatures. Even though ignoring Mother Nature had landed him in the hospital just a few days ago.
Fiona was able to realize soon enough that they were approaching Dead Park, and the gigantic black shadow that was the metal cart loomed in the distance. It was an ugly and frightening sight to see Dead Park without the things they had always known it by, and a bit scarier now too. But as they approached the metal cart, Fiona saw the dismantled pieces of the park they knew - of course, she had been halfway blinded by her own tears when the dismantling was being done. She looked up at the cart now, thinking about how incredibly monsterous it looked in the darkness.
Then, Nick started jumping up to try to get at the pieces of the swing. Fiona jumped a few times, too, until she fell down one too many times and soreness told her to stop. Fiona stopped jumping but watched Nicholas as he kept trying. The top of the cart was much too high and Fiona knew he was still much too weak, but still he tried. And what would he do if he could get in? Might the pieces, even broken apart, be too heavy? Or could he become injured? No one needed to feel the sharp pieces of broken metal, not even an enemy.
Even still, Nick tried to rescue the swingset.
"Nick," she said very quietly to him, "Do you need a boost?"
Even as she said it to him, she actually jumped up one last time, but the effort was in vain because she only fell down again. She looked up at Nicholas when she regained herself, feeling a strong mixture of both love and concern for him.
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Posted: Thu Jul 18, 2013 9:22 am
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Posted: Sat Jul 20, 2013 12:38 am
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Posted: Mon Jul 22, 2013 10:11 pm
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Posted: Thu Jul 25, 2013 12:09 am
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Fiona knew Nicholas would be light, but when she actually boosted him into the cart she was still surprised. He was still so weak, and it was actually a little bit scary.
But she tried not to think about that. Or how mad her parents would be if they found out she had snuck out.
(She would be grounded for the rest of her life.)
Or how school would start in six hours.
We expect you to come straight home, young lady ...
She tried not to think about the broken metal that was in that cart. Or spiders or how frail Nick had looked in the hospital bed.
Fiona looked up at him now, since she was still on the ground and he was in the cart by now. He looked almost like a ghost in the glare of the streetlights, pale and scrawny and pretty much devoid of emotion. Fiona shivered for reasons other than the cold and tried to locate the different pieces of the park from where she was, but it was a little more difficult. She was, however, able to see Nick scoot forward and try to reach for the pieces of the swing.
In the huge black hole that was the cart, Nick looked like the little boy Fiona had known many years ago. But not the laughing, smiling one who also happened to think that love was "gross". She saw the Nick who was so completely devastated by the loss of his mother that he'd kept all of his emotions inside. The Nick who had made the swing his second home, and now they had taken it from him. She loved him, but at the same time felt the overwhelming sense that she had let him down.
Fiona saw him pause after a second, and if it were at all possible he probably would have turned paler than he already was.
Nick, are you okay?
She wasn't able to see that the swing had been torn from its chains, hadn't seen it when it had actually happened. She hadn't seen how the workers had thrown the pieces into the cart like garbage, because her parents had tried to shield her from the sight.
Her parents.
Like the day that Rufus had arrived to tell the two of them that renovation would begin on Dead Park, Fiona had some doubt in her mind that Nick would be willing to go to school in a few hours. In fact, it was highly unlikely that he had even slept at all tonight. But what would he do when the workers came back, once the sun came up, to take away the cart and its contents? Her heart aching, Fiona once again pulled her jacket close to her and watched Nicholas with eyes that had cried too many tears to do so again. No matter how much she wanted to.
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Posted: Thu Jul 25, 2013 9:05 pm
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Posted: Sat Jul 27, 2013 10:00 pm
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Posted: Mon Jul 29, 2013 10:57 pm
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Fiona walked as close as she could over to Nick considering, afraid he might fall. Whatever he was seeing was turning him into a ghost before her eyes, ready to join Dead Park in death. He was already so weak, that Fiona feared it might not be long. She had foolishly let Dead Park slip through their fingers, but she couldn't lose Nick. She just couldn't. In the cold hours of the night, she looked up at him.
The seconds lasted too long before he even turned to her, and her worst fears seemed confirmed. His eyes were lifeless, his tone dead. He was too pale.
If Dead Park was dying, then so was he. Nick was being reduced to a ghost right before her eyes.
Fiona looked into his eyes searchingly, searching for life.
She didn't find any.
She outstretched her arms to him, to help him back down out of the cart. He had seen something that would haunt him for the rest of his life, and again she selfishly wished she could have saved Dead Park for him. So that he would never have to see what he had seen. So he could still come here every day and sketch on the swing, and remember his mother. And maybe she could have come too and hoped to see him smile one last time. Just like when they were little.
But none of that could ever happen.
I'm sorry, Fiona said, apologizing for what he had seen. For the things she could never go back and change. For the death of everything they held near to their hearts, and now it would be gone. If only the time warp they felt at the park could have saved it.
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Posted: Mon Jul 29, 2013 11:08 pm
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Nicholas was an empty shell, one who seemed to be coming back from depression, soon to be sucked back in. He weakly reached for Fiona's hand, taking it into his cold and pale fingers.
"My memories of the park may be dead... But you haven't gone... The memories of you are still in my head, the chance of them fading zero percent..." He said to her, putting her head on her shoulder. His tone may have been lifeless, but the meaning in his words were deep and loving, unable to be expressed in any form by Nicholas. Even though his haven was forever destroyed, Fiona, the one he loved, was still by his side and never gonna go away. |
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Posted: Sat Aug 03, 2013 12:58 am
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(I'm really sorry finishing up this post took me so long. :c)
Fiona felt a small ray of hope as Nick spoke to her using percentages again, because this was the Nick she knew and loved. She would remain a constant in Nick's life, and hopefully he would be for her too. Because sometimes it seemed all they had was each other.
She gave his hand a small squeeze and nuzzled him a little, feeling once again how cold and weak he really was. She loved him more than she could say, and wished she could give him something more than her word that things would be okay. But how could things ever be okay after this?
The sun would be up in a few more hours, and the construction workers would just come right back to continue demolishing Dead Park. Eventually, to build where the park equipment had stood all these years.
Fiona knew they shouldn't have even been here right now, especially not at this particular hour, but at the same time she knew that even if she was at home she wouldn't have been asleep. Because she would have been thinking about Nick, and about Dead Park, and about the sketchbook that was now apparently hers. All those drawings, sketched with painstaking effort on the swing that now sat dismantled and ... well, dead, in the cart.
I'm so sorry. If only I could change things. I love you.
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Posted: Tue Aug 06, 2013 9:48 pm
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