This is my first story. I'm sorry if it sucks.
Rewritten 06/23/18 because I hated it as it was.
5 years old
Beatrice walked along the cracked cement walkway with a chubby hand clutching a fistful of her mother's grey robes. Her mother promised to take her and her brother, Caleb, to the park, which made Beatrice practically vibrate with excitement. It took all of her will not to run ahead and pull her mother along in her eagerness. Caleb wasn't quite so excited, but that was okay with her. She was excited enough for the both of them.
First she would go on the swings, and maybe the slide, and then the monkey bars if the big kids weren't sitting on top of them, and then back to the swings. She loved the swings. Oh, she could hardly wait to get there!
When the park came into view, her mother pulled the two children to a stop and recited her playground rules. "Remember to wait your turn, share the equipment, don't run, and don't stray too far." She turned to her eldest. "Make sure Beatrice is playing fair, okay? I'll be just in that building over there, I shouldn't be too long. Go, have fun! No running!" Beatrice slowed her pace but continued to walk as fast as her short little legs could handle in pursuit of the nearby playground.
Her feet kicked up tiny playground pebbles leaving grey dust clouds in her wake as she threw herself as fast as she could into the last unoccupied swing. She swung her legs back and forth forcefully until she was flying through the air, seemingly miles above the heads of the other children. She barely noticed her robe as it cluttered and clapped around her in the wind, but it seemed Caleb had.
"Beatrice! Don't go too high, you'll fall!" But she was too giddy with joy imagining herself as a raven flying through the sky, free to go on as many adventures as it pleased to heed her brother's scolding.
In the corner of her eye she noticed another grey-clothed figure beside Caleb. When she turned her head to look his head quickly swivelled in another direction. Had he been looking at her?
Albeit hesitant, Beatrice turned her focus to her bird-like adventures, picking up the pace with her pumping legs that had gradually slowed during her distraction. She was having a blast, her imagination running wild as she swung back and forth on the creaky old swingset, but she couldn't entirely focus; she could still see the boy staring at her out of the corner of her eye.
Maybe he wanted a turn on the swing. Oh, but she was having so much fun! And she only just got there! Just another minute…
"Beatrice!" She turned add her brothers voice and caught his piercing stare and he jerked his head toward his silent companion and his rose his eyebrows at her. She sighed and dragged her foot against the rocks when she neared the ground.
After kicking the rocks a few more times and coming to a stop she hopped down from the swing and stumbled dizzily toward her brother and the boy. She looked at her brother's toes as she approached the two, her cheeks already pinkening from both her brother's obvious disapproval and the proximity of the strange boy. She looked up when her brother coughed and gestured toward the boy. Even more heat than she thought safe travelled to her face as she hesitantly we met the boys gaze.
"You can have the swing if you want," she said, deciding it was safer to look at his chin rather than his eyes. She shifted back and forth on her feet, eager to get back to playing as much as she was to get out of this conversation.
She saw his jaw tick as his teeth clenched and a second later came is raspy voice. "No, thank you. I don't… like heights very much." His neck turned as pink as hers was, she thought.
Embarrassment forgotten, she straightened and showed him an excited smile, her gray eyes meeting his blue ones. "Oh, but it's so fun! You have to try it. Come, I'll show you." With that little Beatrice grabbed the boy's hand and drag him towards the swing she had abandoned moments before, ignoring his alarmed protests and plopping him down on the seat.
He squirmed in the seat and stuttered as she went to the back of him and pushed on his back as forcefully as she could. He startled and tried to turn and face her. She kept pushing on his back until he turned forward again. "It's okay. You won't get hurt, I'll catch you."
It seemed as though he was not comforted by the thought of the Chihuahua sized girl attempting to catch his much larger form as he seemed to go even more stiff and squirm about.
Beatrice pushed him until he was swinging a good three feet away from the ground before scrambling toward the recently vacated swing to the boy's right. "Swing your legs, like this!" she yelled to him and pumped her legs back and forth, quickly matching his height.
Tobias was terrified. He hated heights, and he hated playgrounds because everything involved heights. Why can't everybody play near the ground, We're following wouldn't kill them? He stared at the ground longingly and fearfully at the same time, wanting to be on it but not if it meant he had to fall and smack into it to get to it. He closed his eyes and breathed heavily through his nose. Swing his legs to go higher? She's dreaming.
He carefully he turned his head toward the little monster that pulled him onto the swing and saw her staring straight up into the sky, smiling as bright as the sun. Hesitantly, he looked up towards the sky as well, mimicking her. It couldn't be worse than looking at the ground.
It was disorienting, seeing all that blue and nothing else, while still feeling the fluttering in the stomach from swinging. It almost felt like falling in that moment. Or flying. Gradually, he felt his cheeks pull up in a wide grin as he imagined himself flying through the sky, free and alone, safe and beautiful.
"It's like flying!" He laughed to the girl.
"I know!" She laughed back.
He looked away from the sky and towards the little blonde Abnegation girl. "I'm Tobias."
She turned to him and smiled even wider. "I'm Beatrice."