Rope
“You don’t have to sit here with me and wait, you know.”
“Yeah, I know. But I don’t mind.”
“It’s embarrassing somehow.”
“You mean to climb a tree and get stuck?” I laugh. He remains serious.
“To be unable to do anything. It feels helpless.” His gaze is directed down to the leaf-covered floor. The branch isn’t very high, maybe two or two and a half meters, but I know he is afraid of heights.
“You don’t have to feel like that with me, you know that,” I say, looking at the horizon, the sky illuminated by orange and red lights as the sun goes down.
“It really doesn’t matter who I’m with. It doesn’t make it better.”
“Why did you come up here in the first place?” I see his hands clasping around the thick branch, the tension in the muscles of his arms, his legs, concentrating on keeping his feet still.
“I guess I wanted to see if I could do it.”
“Well, you did! Like, fifty percent of it!” I grin at him. I want to cheer him up. But his face remains frozen. His eyes wide opened, glued to the floor beneath us. I can feel his fear, easily covering the short distance between us and crawling up my right arm.
“Come on, relax. It won’t be long and Hannah will be back with the ladder. I’ll make sure you’ll be alright, okay?”
Suddenly he turns his head and stares right into my eyes. There’s a weird expression on his face. No movement, no determinable emotion. But something seems off, his eyes are so hollow, maybe even sad… And the words he speaks to me sound distant.
“We both know that there is only one way for me to get off this tree.”
“What are you doing up there?” I turn my head to see Hannah standing in front of the tree, looking up to us. She frowns and I can see her hands fiddling with the plastic caps of her jacket’s cords. Where is the ladder?
“Can you…Please, just come down.”
For a moment I feel like I can’t move, while the thoughts in my head melt into a grey blur. Then I slide over to the tree’s trunk. As I climb down, I can see the mark on the branch, the part where the bark has been rubbed off by the rope.
“God, it really freaks me out to see you up there,” Hannah mumbles into her scarf as I approach her. She looks at her feet, kicking around in the colorful leaves. I try to see her face, but she turns away, avoiding my gaze. Eventually, she stuffs her hands into her jacket pockets, takes a deep breath, and turns to me.
“Look…I can imagine what’s going on in your head. I miss him too. But there’s nothing you could have done to help him. And I don’t know if sitting up there is good for your, well, mental health. I don’t want you to go crazy, too, I…”
She stops, noticing the expression that came to my face.
“Sorry, I didn’t want to say…I didn’t mean he was crazy. I just feel like I’m losing you. And I can’t handle losing both of my best friends, okay?”
I look at her for a few seconds, she holds my gaze. There is so much I can see there. Anger, sadness, concern.
I wonder what I would have seen in his eyes if I just had looked at the right moment. If I just had been there with him.
“I’m sorry, Hannah. I didn’t mean to worry you. I’m just trying to handle this whole thing somehow. But I’m fine, okay?” She keeps quiet, examining my expression for any clues.
“Come on, let’s get out of here. The light is nearly gone.” I reach for her hand and she takes it hesitantly.
As we start our walk back to the valley, I can hear her sigh silently as I turn my head back to take one last look at the high oak tree getting swallowed by the falling night.
