Pg. 12

Sometimes I go a long time without thinking of things, of the past. Sometimes it's all I can think about, and I tell myself to embrace it, live with it.

It's been a while since I sat down and thought about Aaron. I've been busy. The people guarding me, they put me into a dark room sometimes. Not to be cruel, but to keep me quiet, when they can tell I've been thinking too much.

I've been in the dark room for a while, now.

As always, when I'm left in here too long, I start to imagine I'm not here. This is the problem with their solution: It sometimes brings me full circle.

I usually end up here for crying out in my sleep. I've been told I used to sing in my sleep. Now I cry out and wake up in dark rooms.

Anyway, I've been thinking. About the past, because I can't see what my future might be like. But it doesn't really matter right now, what I think about might be all I've got later.

Aaron and I would play, and the girls would get angry. They would ask me questions about him, wondering what he was like, why we played so much. The boys accepted me blindly, like boys do.

Aaron and I would talk, and everyone would draw closer, trying to hear the secrets we whispered, trying to understand what would make us laugh so hard together, in ways we never did when others were apart.

Aaron and I would sneak out to meet each other, and our mothers would grow concerned. Mine because she couldn't remember who I might be out meeting, and his just because she knew who her son really was.

And so three years passed, like this, with secrets and whispers and laughter and jealousy. And suspicion. But I was never suspicious, no matter how much I wish I could say now that I was.