Beth is tired. She is depressed.
She wishes she could scream. She wishes the world was not like it is, but it is, and she lacks the motivation to change it.
She is scared, and she does not care about many things anymore, and it is funny because she used to care a lot. Who cares, though, if she does not use a coaster on her mahogany dresser, or if she does not floss? Who cares if she does not make her bed, or drive the speed limit?
She certainly does not care. She is tired. She is sad. She wants to cry, but can't. She wants to scream, but can't because her parents will hear, run to her, and ask her what's wrong like she knows what's wrong.
She is just sad. She does not care. She is just tired.
Life is a rollercoaster, and the adrenaline is gone for her now, and she wants to cry because not just a few days ago she was happy. She was okay, but today she is sad, and tired, and does not care.
She feels nothing, but everything at once. Beth feels trapped in her bedroom, but also free. Her room is after all the only place she can be.
Right? No. She can be in that swing. That swing that one day mysteriously appeared not far from her parent's farm, and that helps her clear her head as she flies in the air.
Beth decides to head there.
She throws on a gray hoodie because the air is chilly outside. She puts on her flip flops because she does not feel like tying shoe laces at the moment. She walks out of the farm and heads to the swing determinedly because she is sad, she feels nothing and there is no reason for her to.
She walks for most of the trip, but once she sees the swing she runs for it through the foliage. She runs as if she's being chased and that swing is her only salvation, and perhaps it is.
The swing is held together by rope. The seat is an expertly sanded piece of wood, and she gingerly sits on it. She doesn't start swinging right away. She just sits. She just takes in the scene. The air is chillier but fresh. The ground is hard, and littered with leaves. The animals are hibernating, so they are not there to bless her with their beauty.
She does not know why, but that thought makes her gloomier, so she starts to swing her legs. She swings, and swings until she flies, and her hair is wild, and the adrenaline she gets when she rides rollercoasters returns.
Tears fell down her face sometime as she swung. She feels them now that she's stopped. She clutches the ropes, which keep her from the ground, tightly. She cries for a saddens she doesn't know where it came from. She cries for the world, and its state.
A branch breaking stops her mid sob.
She looks up and there is a man. He is wearing a blue flannel, and jeans. His hair is scruffy, and so is his facial hair. If she was one of those people who liked to judged people before she got to know them she would say that he is a lumberjack. He certainly looks like one with his attire and all.
"Who are you?" Beth stammers at the man who she notices has his hands raised up as if he was guilty of something. Well he is guilty of disturbing her while she wants to be alone.
"I'm Daryl," the man responds with a gravelly voice.
"I'm Beth," she says even though he did not ask.
Daryl nods, lowers his hands and burrows them in his pockets. "Why are you crying, Beth?"
At first she is shocked. How does this man have the balls to ask her such personal question? It is none of his business. She then thinks. She doesn't know why she is crying. She just is, and she doesn't know if Daryl will understand that.
"I don't know," Beth decides to answer honestly, and she sees Daryl nod his head. Maybe he does understand, and does not need an explanation.
She then sits there for a minute, and he stands. The silence between is just silence, not in any way awkward, and she wonders how it can be like that. She doesn't know this man, he just walked to her, as she cried on this mysterious swing.
"Do you know where this swing came from?" She then asks, the question popping on her out of nowhere. Perhaps Daryl knows where it came from.
"Yeah," he utters leaning to a tree near him. "I put it there."
"You?" Beth asks completely shocked. "You placed this swing here."
"Yeah," he answers again looking too intensely at her, and raising goose bumps on her skin. "I put it there for my niece. I babysit her sometimes, and she loves swings."
Beth's frowns at that. "Why would you place a swing for your niece in the middle of the woods?"
"I didn't" Daryl responds back, looking amused, and she wanders what is amusing. "I put the swing in my backyard."
"In your backyard" Beth responds surprised again. "This is your backyard?"
"Yeah," Daryl answers, and this time he actually lets his amusement show. "
My cabin is right over there," He says as he points east, and to a cabin she never noticed through the foliage.
"Oh," is Beth's response as she rises from the swing feeling completely out of place. "I…I didn't know. I didn't know any one lived out here."
"I just built the cabin a few months ago," Daryl informs her. "I bought some land from Dale. You know him?"
"Yeah," She nods, thinking to their neighbor who a couple of weeks left on a road trip in his beloved R.V. "He is our neighbor to the east, though I guess that's you now."
"I guess," Daryl answers, and he continues to intensely look at her.
"So," She begins to say wondering just how many times he has seen her in his backyard and not said anything. "Um have you seen me here before?"
"Yeah," Daryl responds and for the first time he looks away from her. "I was going to say something," he continues scratching his head, and she notices his ears are turning red. "But you looked so at peace on the swing, and I couldn't take that away from you."
"Oh," she says almost in a whisper. "Thank you."
Daryl nods at that. "It was nothing."
"No," she corrects him making him meet her eyes again. "It was something. This place…This swing," she explains as she turns to look at the wooden seat he must have sanded down. "It means a lot to me. It's the only place I can be, you know."
"Yeah. I know," Daryl grunts back continuing looking at her.
She then looks back at him, and she notices his eyes. They are blue. They are almost too blue, but nevertheless the most beautiful eyes she has seen.
Clearing his throat, breaking eye contact yet again Daryl says, "You can come to this swing whenever you want. It doesn't bother me."
"It doesn't," she can't help but ask.
"Nah," he answers seeming like he wants to run away. "All you do is swing on it."
"Okay," she answers thinking that she must leave but not wanting to.
"Um, so how long have you been living here?" She questions, mentally slapping her head for being too curious. This man does not owe her his life story even if he was asking her too personal questions. Well, question. A question that for some reason felt good to be asked.
"Since September," he tells her.
September. That sounds about right. The swing appeared around that time.
"Well welcome to the neighborhood," She says trying to be welcoming despite he has been living here for six months now.
"Thanks," He responds looking at her through his hair. He seems shy now.
She moves toward him then wanting to be more courteous since the space between them makes her uncomfortable. Though she should be afraid of the man, she doesn't know anything about him, she gets the feeling he's not bad unless he's a good actor.
"I'm Beth," she introduces herself again, thinking they need a better introduction; she doesn't want him to remember her as the crying girl that sometimes swings on his swing.
"Daryl," he says taking her hand in his much larger one.
"Nice to meet you, Daryl." She replies with a smile.
"Nice to finally meet you, Beth," Daryl says giving her a small smile in return.
She heads back home after that. She excuses herself from Daryl, and returns home not feeling that saddens, or that carelessness. She feels like she's on another roller coaster now. The Daryl roller coaster. The one that has her filled with curiosity, and making her look forward to the next time she will see this man, who walked into her life out of nowhere, gave her a place to be though he didn't know, and made her forget her sadness.