The Turned- Pt. Two

2 Overcoming Obstacles

The warm afternoon air greets us as we push open the doors. There was what I like to call the forbidden park, the park where the incident happened, directly in front of us. On the other side of the park is the middle school. Flashbacks of seventh grade, the day after the incident happened, flood my brain. I push them aside though. I would have to think about all of this at a more appropriate time.

“I know it doesn't seem bad right now, but-,” The guy starts to say, but is cut off by a scream. We look over to the left, the direction the scream came from, and see a paramedic getting bit by a female student, probably one of the girls he was talking about earlier. My breath catches in my throat. The paramedic drops to the ground in what seems to be agonizing pain. The girl starts to finish her meal when she notices us. We lock gazes for a millisecond before she stands up and begins limping across the field towards us. I can hear the moans of anticipation from where I am standing. I feel a tug on my shoulder and turn my head to see that the guy is trying to get my attention. He has an annoyed expression plastered on his face.

“Are you deaf? Let's go.” He whisper-shouts. My eyes widen at how familiar that sounds. Before I let it get to me, I push it out of my brain, like usual.

“Sorry.” I whisper and follow him as he leads us towards the park. I falter before stepping through the gate. As soon as I do, it seems as if a million emotions slam into me. My knees suddenly feel weak and I fall to the ground.

“Hey, what-,” He starts, but then he turns around and sees me on the ground. He doesn't try and help, though. Instead I examine the beyond-annoyed expression he is wearing. “If you're going to keep this up, then we might as well split now, because this isn't working for me.”

Fury shoots through my body. I look away from him, finding solace in the ground. He has no idea what this park means for me, I remind myself. I can tell already that he is either A: super egotistical and thinks he knows everything about everyone at first glance, or B: selfish and just wants to save himself. I'm leaning more towards the former because he wouldn't be letting me tag along if B were the case. Yet again, he might be letting me tag along so he could use me as bait later on... Instead of forcing the anger away, I decide to put it to something useful and transfer it into the strength I need to stand up. It works quite well. With shaky legs, I push myself up from the sand. My legs become more stable as I take all emotions connected to this park and turn them into the strength I need.

Without looking back at the mystery man, I say, “Let's go.” And walk ahead of him. I know that heading to the woods is our safest bet, and the only way to get there is to cross through the park. The woods are located to the right of the middle school from the direction we are facing. That means that I'm going to have to pass through the spot... Under that tree.. From the day of the incident... But it not only held that one bad memory, but another great one from when me and Jason just started middle school. We had carved our names inside a little heart onto the tree. I am starting to miss him again, so I suck that emotion up with the rest.

As we near the tree, I feel the old feelings dealing with this park getting stronger. Its a little harder to convert them to strength at this point, so I decide to slow down a little to see if that helps. It does, but he runs into the back of me. I trip and almost fall forward, but he catches me. I nod my thanks and rip my arm from his grip before looking back down. When I do, I freeze. We are standing under the tree, where it all happened, and I didn't even notice it. But I do now. It somehow looks as if the dent I made from my body in the dirt that day of the incident is still there, but I know that my imagination is on overdrive at the moment. I shake my head before looking at the trunk of the tree. It's as if time reverses back to the day Jason dragged a pen through the tough bark of the tree. I kept looking around to see if anyone noticed, but no one did, just like Jason assured.

My shaky legs are now back and worse than before. It amazes me how I am still standing. I walk over to the tree, and my hand finds the age old etches. My fingers trace the outline of the words that still make me smile, “Jason L. + Emma F. = 4evr”. Tears almost spill from my eyes, but my moment is gone when he says, “Are you done molesting the tree yet?” His smirk is shining like a star on his face, his eye brows furrowed, hands in his front pockets. I can't help but think that he looks so much like a model right now. This makes me even more mad, that he could pull that off in such an emotional time for me.

I stomp over to him and jab him hard in his chest, “Will you just stop?”

His smirk disappears, only to be replaced by amusement, “What ever are you talking about?”

“Just stop!” I shout, “You know nothing about me! Stop thinking that you know everything!”

All trace of emotion is sucked from his face at that moment and he opens his mouth as if to say something, but then he closes it again. I take it as a sign of defeat.

“Don't you ever say anything like that to me again.” I hiss through clenched teeth. I couldn't think of anything good to say, I am that mad. It is taking everything I have in me to not slap him right now. I turn away from him, give one last glance at the tree, and move on passed it. I have a feeling I won't be seeing this tree for a long time, let alone this whole area. If not, ever. I choke back tears and continue walking, my steps not faltering once. I have so much anger boiling up inside of me at the moment that I feel like I'm going to explode any second. We finally reach the gates to the back school yard of the middle school, and also to the path that leads to the woods. I try to open them, but they are padlocked shut.

“I suggest we-,” He starts to say, but I don't pay any attention to him. Instead, I just climb over the fence. In any other situation, I would have just stood there looking helpless by these gates, not trying anything unusual like this so as not to draw attention to myself. But given the circumstances, I don't have much choice.

“...climb over the fence.” He finishes once I'm already on the other side. He looks at me with a curious expression before climbing over himself. He probably thinks I'm bipolar, but I couldn't give two cents about what he thinks of me right now. I turn around again, still in the lead, and head down the path towards the dark looking woods. Well, they are dark compared to the school yard around it, and from lack of sunshine. Once we reach the woods, which seemed like it took hours for me because of how angry I am, I am so relieved. Relieved that I made it through the park alive. In fact, I am so relieved it is very overwhelming. Maybe too... over... whelm... ing...

The last thing I remember is this comforting, vast darkness sucking me in. I choose not to fight, but instead, welcome it.