Cracks

025 | olive green junglegyms

O L I V E

—

        Avery leant against the chain-linked fence, squinting against into harsh, fall sun as the wind whipped against his scalp. Children ran around on the cracked black-top, climbing through the green, metal jungle-gym and playing a game of foursquare. Watching them made Avery feel somewhat melancholic with nostalgia, brief flashbulb shots of adolescence sweeping across his mind. Blurs of color and snippets of shrieks, laughter, and something else he couldn't quite remember. But that didn't matter. Sighing, he relinquished his grasp on the fence, moving back and putting the memory behind him; back into the past where it belonged. He only had about two hours before it became suspicious, before it was dinner and people started to ask about him. Avery reminded himself of this with a sense of fearful urgency building in his gut. Yet that urgency was not potent enough to deter him. Instead he opened the doors to the elementary school, walking through them with a faked confidence towards the library. Avery just had to be efficient.

        It wasn't hard to find her; just seconds after his eyes landed on the room, they spotted her sitting at a middle table with a thick book in her hands. The sight of it made him smile. At least this one small thing remained constant. Much like how he felt about the library, which, looked exactly the same to his eyes now, as it had to his ten-year-old ones. Most of the foster kids had gone to the school solely because of the free day care.

His smile upticked a little as she scrupulously  turned the page, shifting the book up slightly and drawing his attention to the cover.
        "Harry Potter, huh." He slid into an adjacent seat.

        "That's pretty ambitious for a nine-year-old." Two, ocean-blue eyes shifted up in slight annoyance before flirting back down. They registered something, swiveling back to his face and widening more than he thought possible. The book slapped onto the plastic surface, and small hands finding their way around his neck. The chair soon subtly scratched back across the wearing dark carpet.

        She didn't say anything, something that had surprised Avery until he understood why; she was being respectful of the space around them.

Smart girl.

        His eyes crinkled around the corners as he hugged her back, careful not to pull on one of a long, blond locks that were uncharacteristically free of a pony-tail. A trembling began, one that started out small, undetectable, but built itself up until it was intense enough to make him bite his lip under a wave of guilt. The librarian gave him a pointed look upon the first sniffle, one that he barely caught in the corner of his eye. He returned it with an uneasy smile, and thankfully, she returned her gaze to the computer.

         "It's ok, Sylv." Avery shifted his attention back to the kid in his arms, murmuring quietly into her hair and hearing another sniffle. "It's ok."

         Sylvia's arms tensed and she pressed herself closer, registering the familiar scent of laundry detergent. Her head slowly nodded from its placement next to his neck, registering his words as she tried to calm her emotions. She didn't want him to get frustrated and leave. More tears chose that moment to billow out of her eyes, and into the collar of his shirt. Her family, the only part of it left, she felt like it was going away. Sylvia already felt so lonely, so lost. Avery had always been there to make sure she was alright, to teach her things like how to boil pasta.

          She missed him so much.

          Sylvia clung to him tighter, until she felt her sobs lessen to sniffles, and her sniffles to small, shuddered breaths. As Avery sighed, Sylvia leant back, rubbing at her eyes with her sleeve and looking up at him hesitantly. What she saw continued to surprise her.