Dark days are comin' now you see
Hard times for you as well as me
All time low is comin' under your front gate
You gave me love
But too little, too late.
(Johnny Cash, "Too Little, Too Late")
***
Ben listens to the song until the weight of the lyrics presses down unbearably on his chest and he has to stop the cassette tape.
He's watching her from the living room window. It's black outside, nearly midnight, but she's still there, out at the swing set, the edges of her long brown hair catching the floodlights as she moves lazily back and forth.
It was a gift from her, that tape. A secret slipped into his hands as she passed his desk at school, labeled simply, "Annie's Favorite Songs."
He hadn't asked for it.
She is all he has in that hellish place, and he clings to an image of her whenever he feels the nightmares coming. Narrow eyes, broad, freckled forehead, pink lips curled in a smirk, hinting at things he can't quite grasp.
He opens the front door to the warm island night. Somewhere beyond the perimeter of the Barracks, the jungle is alive, but all he hears is the creak of the swing's chains, like lonely peals on a violin.
She turns to him before he speaks, and he sees a single shining trail on her cheek.
They aren't ten years old anymore. Time has carried them in a few short years to different places, places barely bridged by the span of their friendship. Ben wishes for a life that cannot include her.
Richard had said, You will have to leave everything behind.
She swipes at her face. "Hi, Ben."
He smiles because he knows it will make her feel better. "Are you having trouble sleeping?"
"Yeah. You?"
"I was just—" He looks down to the tape still in his hands. "I thought I should return this."
She reaches out for it, closes the distance between them for only a second, places the cassette atop her bare knees and stares at it. "It was for you," she says.
"I listened to it," he answers. "I liked the first song."
Her head comes up sharply, her expression clouded. She doesn't reply. There's a bird somewhere, and it chirps once overhead and lands on a nearby rooftop.
"Well," Ben says. "I'd better get back before my dad misses me. I'll see you at school?"
"Yeah," she says.
Hands in his pockets, he moves back toward his house. He's letting things go, one by one. But he'll hold on as long as he can, for her.