Never I Thought

Chapter 8 - Avoid Each Other

I stood by the school gates and watched the crowd of students rush by. They're a stampede of screams and laughter mixed into a chaotic scene and who knew where each voice was coming from.

But I could instantly spot Mila and Nikki and their familiar smiles I had grown accustomed to. They were talking and the crowd parted way for them as if they were some kind of royalty. I wasn't sure how they struggled to find friends at first, they were so gorgeous.

"Hey, Alyssa," Mila waved with energetic eyes. Nikki also gave me a wild wave.

"Ready to get going?" I asked them and took a step towards them.

"Oh, we thought Robin was coming too?" Nikki frowned.

I wish they could've just forgotten about him. All day I had been dealing with reminders of what he had messaged me last night. I left him on read, of course, how else was I to respond? The real answer was too creepy and any fake answer just seemed... fake.

"I really don't think he is," I started.

"Can we please wait for him?" Mila asked.

"Please?" Nikki pleaded.

Their big brown eyes looked up at mine and they had instantly won me over, I sighed and they knew I was convinced.

We stood there for ten minutes.

The students had all cleared out, just a few teachers walking by that didn't really give us much thought. The girls watched everyone walk out but Robin was always on time when tutoring the girls. It was the only time he wasn't late.

"We should get going before it gets too late," I said softly.

I could tell they were hiding their disappointment and gave me firm nods and started to follow me.

"I thought we should start off a bit closer to the school and move outwards, so I picked out this park that connects to an oval. It's just a block away," I told them.

It wasn't the park I walked through to get from school to home and vice versa, it was much bigger. Well, the oval anyhow. The playground desperately needed to be replaced except it was so old it was basically an artefact and taking it down would be destroying history.

We walked into the park and I gestured to the old playground. It use to be painted bright red but years of harsh weather had stripped it back to its grey metal.

"It's... something," Mila said, obviously not too impressed.

I put my bag down on a half broken, wooden seat and encouraged them to do the same. We stood in the middle of the playground and the girls looked around.

"What do you see?" I asked.

"I don't see any children?" Nikki frowned.

"That's true, we have better playgrounds around," I shrugged, "but this has been here since the 70s, meaning our parents would've played on these very swings if they lived in the area."

"The 70s? That could be unsafe for children, what if it breaks?" Mila asked.

I sat on the swing and pushed it into motion a little, "it definitely could break. At any moment but it's fun."

"Playground's definitely would impact the environment positively," Mila said.

"Not if it's going to break," Nikki responded, "especially on hot days, wouldn't the sun burn the metal?"

I told them to go on the metal slide to test it out and then we had a competition on who could swing the highest. For about an hour we played on the equipment and felt like we were small children ourselves and then I spotted the sun sitting low in the sky and realised I needed to take them to the oval as well.