When His Eyes Opened Chapter 2783

He looked at me.
"Well... did I do well?" He asked, his voice clearly justifiably curious in contrast to his awkwardness.
I was flustered, having just managed to sound girly and not really, but it didn't matter. "Really well."
He nodded and sat on the tailgate.
"So... you see those trees?"
I nodded as though I'd just remembered something.
"Yes?"

"This is not the way we're going, but I've been thinking about it. This way won't have any of them obstructing our view."

He tried not to sound too amused. His insubstantial body was barely more than a blip on the carpet of a much larger boy as I stared at him with my heart in my throat. He knew I was sorry. I was feeling awful. I'd never told him the truth of it. I'd just shoved it behind my back. Over time, I'd found my inability to speak about it meant I wasn't hiding it from him, and yet again, he found this out. He thought that I might be faking an inability to speak on the assumption that if anyone ever found out the true facts of his encounter with the boy in the sky that he'd be scarred as well. That was the pattern with him. For some unkind time, his curiosity had managed to run riot with a genuine interest in the little creatures who only he had affection for. Then eventually, he'd realised that the real reason was that I couldn't talk about the memories I was concealing in the great wooden box of memories. That this is a world I couldn't reach out to in my panic, because of the limitations of reality, because I was ashamed of it all.

The little boy had told him this in the garden of his great apartment home, beneath a beautiful tree in a beautiful park.

He'd spoken just as I'd said.
He'd spoken with wisdom and a touch of pride.
"And what would you like me to tell you before we go again?"
I grinned at him while the memory of that innocent question rang through the earth in my heart.