There were only a few footsteps in the snow. Decklan started to walk, trying, at first, to match them, but soon giving up.
The air was cold in his lungs, stinging his nose as it entered. He could already feel his ears reddening. He put his hands in his pockets and walked up the hill towards the new playground. Christmas lights flashed in the windows of the houses lining the street. Christmas trees stood proudly in the bay windows. Looking through each window, he could see colour. And it wasn’t white or grey. Decorations were hanging, and they were orange and yellow and red and green and blue. There were kids wearing Christmas cracker crowns of purple and pink, playing with their new toys. Adults were sitting on sofas, drinking beer and other liquors, but they looked happy, and Decklan suspected it wasn’t just an illusion. Music could even be faintly heard through the double glazed windows of some houses. And they weren’t theme tunes to popular shows and films. Some people weren’t even watching television. Music was a background to their conversation.
Decklan entered the playground and sat down on a swing. Was all this surface happiness too? Would it be gone after the twelve drummers had drummed? Would the snow, melted and evaporated, uncover their real feelings again, or did they not need snow on Christmas day to feel cheerful?
He bundled a snowball in his gloved palm and threw it at the slide. He looked around him. If he didn’t know he was in Far Forest, with trees and fields the other side of the houses, he could be mistaken for thinking he was on an estate in the middle of town. He used to play golf with Graham right here. Now he would hit a window with a golf ball. Or worse, a kid. Actually, maybe not worse. He smiled. Then it disappeared as he remembered the other reason why he wished he hadn’t come back.
He’d seen Kelly in town two days ago. He went to Kidderminster train station to catch a train to Worcester to do some shopping, but the lines were down and he had to turn around and go back to the bus station, from where he'd just come. He decided, on the way back, to stop in the newsagents and buy a drink. This small act meant he missed the next bus to Worcester. The next one was in thirty minutes. So he sat there, disgruntled and shivering, when she appeared from the Tesco car park with her mother. The last time he’d seen her had been a glimpse between a pub doorway. She’d been behind the bar, pouring drinks. Earning money to fund University. And the last time he spoke to her? He couldn’t remember. Probably an ill-advised, ill-judged text message before he deleted her number from his phone memory. Try deleting it from your own memory, he thought. Luckily, she changed it, the cause of much midnight heartache.
He’d thought about her quite a bit while at University. Less in the last year or so. But always at night when trying to sleep, making up self-success stories in his head, deleting the yearning feeling from his heart at the thought of never, ever, seeing her again. What if she never returns home? What if she stays in Cambridge? It’s not that he wanted to see her again, but having the option removed completely? It made his throat want to swallow, but his chest was too tight.
And then, completely randomly, not even in the town she lived in, she was there.
First a set of circumstances; the leaves on the rail, the distance of his parents, his thirst; then to find him waiting for a bus he’d never caught before. Here, after the separation of High School had made all unrecognisable, those eyes and lips and curves that had been imprinted by regret. Second, his reaction; the clenching of his jaw, the tunnel-view of her, his rising lungs and heart where breath was suddenly a useless tool for life. And all too quickly gone as she passed on by. Unremembered or unnoticed? Had time changed his face that much? The answer was no, where truth lay hard, still heaving, upon that bus-station seat.
The parting of High School had made all, once friends, strangers in the street. But worse then that was this: her ignorance and his still caring. 'Kelly, I can’t believe you blanked me.' In truth, he found it hard to believe he could have pushed someone far enough to hate him. Perhaps it wasn’t hate she felt. Or hopefully not. But whatever it was, it was certainly negative. Guess time can't atone for my childhood and the mistakes I’ve made, he thinks. The thing all dumpees need to remember so they don’t make fools of themselves, is you can never get them back – no amount of pleading, changing or threatening will undo their decision. You only cause personal embarrassment. You just have to file it under the growing list of regrets and hope you’ve forgotten it when it comes to die, or if not, that you die too quick to feel that particular emotional pain.
Decklan realised he didn’t want to see Kelly again in order to be more than friends. Too much had happened and too much time had passed, however he knew what he did want. Just to show that he had changed. Had grown up. He didn’t make the kind of silly mistakes he had made as an inexperienced, desperately in love, kid. Desperation had driven him to the edge of stupidity, he knew this, he knew it then. She knew it then too, probably, and still does, thus rendering his need to show her he’s changed redundant. But he needs to nonetheless. In some way. Not for her, though he would like to say sorry. But for him, so he, what? He can die happy? Happier?
The sun burst through the cloud coverage sending down a ray that landed somewhere in the distant trees. He couldn’t see where exactly, rooftops were in the way.
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