Braided

Chapter 18: That Big Red Thing

The park was gorgeous even in the dark. Even though I knew the dangers of the world and being out this late, the beauty of the park and my friends next to me made me forget. There was a swing set and a huge red thing with several slides going down the sides and three rocking ponies. The big red thing was what made me the most excited though.

I let go of Nathans hand and left the two of them behind me as I ran towards the huge red thing. I climbed up the black steps and stood at the top of the smaller slide. I had seen people play on these things on T.V. and had seen kids play on a similar one in Texas when Mom would take me to do something for my birthday. I would always ask her that I either want to go to a real school or to play at the park. She'd reject both of them and would just take me out to eat. It was still fun, but it was my dream to play on one of these things. The other kids had always seemed like they were having so much fun on them.

"Wow Daisy you seem really excited." Naomi said cheerfully.

"Yeah, you're first time out and you're already taking on the biggest thing in the park." Nathan taunted playfully.

"I've never played on one of these." I yelled to the both of them. Naomi joined me up top while Nathan stayed on the ground.

"Well you can play on it all you want right now." Naomi whispered as she threw herself down the small slide.

I followed close behind as I slid my way down. Everything passed by fast. My heart was beating and I felt fantastic. When I finally reached the end of the slide. I jumped up from the end of the slide and turned to Naomi and Nathan.

"Oh My God! That was so funner than I thought!" I couldn't hide my excitement.

They both just smiled at each other.

"Is that really the first time you've slid on a slide?" Nathan asked as if it was unbelievable.

"Yeah." I admitted. I felt slightly ashamed of it. We didn't even have a swing set at home and if I had played on one before it was when I was so little I couldn't remember. On a side note it was kind of pathetic that the first time someone played on a swing set was at 16.

"Well just play on it all you want." Nathan smiled as big as he could. "No ones stopping you from doing it."

I climbed back onto the big red thing and crawled through the the tube and then up to the next highest slide. Compared to the other two it swirled instead of being straight shot down. It also had a cover over it that looked kind of like a tent. I stepped under the tent and sat. The inside of it was covered in writings some vulgar some of them with names put together with an and or a heart. I noticed a familiar name among them.

"Hey Naomi is this you?" I peaked out of the tent to the blonde girl standing on the other side of the tube.

"Maybe, let me see." She crawled through the tube over to me. I moved over a bit as she crouched partly inside of it with me.

"Oh yeah I forgot that I wrote that when me and Micheal were dating." She crouched down and stared at it with me.

"Oh, Yeah I remember that jerk." Nathan chimed in partly peaking into the plastic tent.

"Wait a second." Naomi stood up and dug through her bag. I tried to peak up at her only seeing the bottom half of her Nathan was sitting crouched on the outside of the plastic tent doing the same. A spark of excitement shinned on her face as she pulled out a black marker.

"What are you doing?" I asked as she pulled the lid off and began to scratch out the name Micheal.

"Wait a second." She answered as she blacked out Micheal till it was almost just a black streak. She then began to write to the side of it.

"Naomi needs no man." Nathan read it out loud. I smiled at her knowing that it was true. She seemed like the type of girl that could take care of herself and a man wasn't probably needed in her life.

"You gets me girl?" She asked having her hand hover between us.

"I gets you" I smiled and high fived the hovering hand.

"Hey." Nathan pouted. "But I need you."

"Oh, sweety she doesn't need you she wants you." Naomi patted his back as she helped her self out.

"But you still love me right?" He crawled in and sat next to me.

"Of course I do." I said holding onto his hand.

"Then you won't be mad at me for this?" He asked with his stupid wide grin.

"For what?" My question was answered when he pushed me down the slide.

"I love you Daisy." He screamed down to me.

"Let me show you how much I love you Nathan!" I screamed at him. They were both giggling up there as I tried to make myself up a weird black thing that lead to the area Nathan and Naomi was in. I chased him around the play set as Naomi cheered on for me in the back ground.

Her cheers fueled me more as I chased him to a tree with bricks encasing it. I watched as he suddenly tripped on the other side of the tree and disappeared out of sight. I quickly ran towards him as he slowly got up from the ground.

"I got you." I screamed as I hugged him from behind.

"How do you know I didn't let you get me?" He asked with a pouty face.

"Because she's not a moron ya klutz." Naomi chimed in as she made her way down the small slide to us.

"Well..." He paused for a brief second "That's true," He admitted.

For another hour we ran around playing on the various playground equipment that I had never even touched before. It was all so new to me and it was kind of exciting. All of this lead to us just sitting around talking.

The night kind of ended perfectly as we laid on the ground staring up at the sky. The stars were beautiful even the sounds of a near by dog kind of set the mood all together. But the best thing about it was that I was with Nathan and Naomi. Me and Nathan held hands while we laid on the soft grass and Naomi sat on a swing that was on the other side of me. We talked about anything that came to mind. It was all kind of perfect and beautiful and I only hoped for more moments like this.

A/N: Sorry that I promised to update more often, but my last computer decided that it was going to refuse work. The keyboard was broken and it was just time to retire it, and sadly it had taken some time to find it's replacement. But now I should be able to update more often. Don't forget to vote/ comment if you're enjoying it so far!