Petalhead
It's been so long, Petalhead.
Don't tell me you don't remember that nickname. I would call you that every day!
Every day since second grade, that time when you stood up too fast and hit your head on one of the lower hanging tree branches, covering your head in the redbuds of course.
Petalhead. It's good to talk to you again.
Remember that spot? With the bushes that kept us out of view? We would run off to that corner when the teachers weren't looking (or when that jerk erick would hit the woodchips) and sit and gossip all afternoon.
I cherished our talks, even if it was silly grade school conversations most of the time.
Or remember that time when the stray basketball came soaring over the fence and landed right on the sandwich you brought out for lunch? You just tossed the smooshed pile of bread and jelly to the side and declared it was meant for the ants anyway.
Always going with the flow of the wind.
Every day was a new type of adventure, Petalhead. When you found that family of beetles living under the crate of jumpropes and tried to bring them home as new pets? Or when we tried eating those pinkish berries that grew when it got hot in the last week of school and they sent us home sick halfway through the day?
I was always trying to reach your level, I guess I was jealous of your spirit. My mother always called you callous. I just considered you courageous.
It was one of those nights when she was yelling at me. Yelling more than often, at least. I remember running over to your house with tears drying on my cheeks, perching on my tiptoes to peer over into your window and tap on the glass.
You looked at me like a goldfish in an aquarium, Petalhead. Eyes bulging, mouth agape, you always were so concerned for me.
We ran back to that spot under the redbud tree at school just past sunset. Remember the candles we swiped before we left? Yours was unscented. Mine was Bahama Breeze. I had to help you strike the matches, it made me feel important.
And those symbols we drew in the dirt, those ones my older brother showed me before he left home- they were so close to serving their purpose, Petalhead. They almost worked like a charm. Please tell me you didn't forget the symbols.
When we lit the chalk aflame and the embers sparked and fizzed, when the crickets grew silent and the cicadas paused their incessant buzzing, when even the moon itself seemed to dim out of courtesy for our pact, and the stars outlined the way to the neon exit sign so vividly.. Please, Petalhead. It hurts to much to remember. Remember it for me?
The chalk burned the tips of your fingers, then. You tensed and for the first time ever admitted to me that you were scared. I was scared too, my heart was beating out of my chest, but I kept that to myself. I insisted that we finish. The redbuds had just begun to bloom once more when you ran away.
You ran. You looked back of course, shouting back apologies in a trembling voice, but it was all too late. All your cries were met with was the chirp of crickets and buzz of cicadas once more, and I was nowhere to be found. I could still see you, though. I saw you scoop up the burnt out candles and chalk in a state of shell shocked bewilderment, the uneasy look on your face as you dragged fresh mulch over the symbols with your sneaker.
I watched you trudge home in the dark, dropping the candles as you walked. I watched how difficult it was for you to carry them alone, especially while wracked with the sorrow of loss.
The search began a few mornings later, but you didn't say anything. I don't blame you, Petalhead. Nobody would have believed you.
The town forgot about me eventually, and I thought you did too for a time. After middle school, high school came and went in a flash and pretty soon you were moving away for college and starting to make a pretty good life for yourself. Your photography is hung in the hallways here, and they tell such beautiful stories.
So many shots of those trees, though-Cercis canadensis-I found the name in one of the library books here. If you want the whole picture, you need to return.
Our redbud tree has long since wilted, the flowers disintegrated. The bushes we used to sit behind are overgrown too, so you might need to bring hedge clippers, but I know you can still make it somehow. Come back to the school, come back to me. Promise me you still remember the ways we spent those mornings here, I hang onto those memories like a coarse and blistering lifeline.
It's been so long, Petalhead.
It's just going to be a little while more.