2. Catching Up

His name was Dalton, hers Scarlett. They shared a sense of humour, a love of irony and violence. They both would bathe in the macabre, scar themselves internally and repress it. They seemed desensitized, terrible risks themselves. They were identical in most aspects of personality, both felt the same on most things. Dalton, he was just outspoken, while Scarlett kept herself unknown.
Scarlett would be leaving soon, moving on to live on her own, and more prominently, not to see Dalton walk by every day. She hadn’t spoken to him for weeks, just watched him from afar much like she did before they had ever talked to begin with. Dalton still didn’t need her, as much as she yearned for his company. It was by miracle that they reunited.
Two bodies had been found in the parking lot outside of the building where Scarlett could say she worked. Dead with no logical explanation, possibly the most exciting news bulleting for Dalton and Scarlett both. Scarlett felt her head spin, she did research as desperately as she could to find out anything, make the situation as bad as it possibly could be, halfway praying that the ghosts of the unnamed dead would find their way to her. Dalton shrugged the news off and went out for a walk, feeling the cold air as a bitter reminder that it wasn’t him who felt the cool touch of murder, not this time.
Dalton let his feet carry him, using his eyes only enough to avoid collision as he stalked through houses and into the neighbourhood park. He sat on the swings, a small breeze rustling his short hair that fell just above his eyebrows. He could feel the bags under his eyes stretch. Dalton was the kid that never slept. He let his days blend into nights until the week blended together into an hour. He never knew why he didn’t sleep; he just didn’t. There was no need for it.
The swing set let out a creak with every motion of the swing, moving back and forth rhythmically like a pendulum. The chains rattled softly and shadows danced in the distance, everything was empty surrounding Dalton. Everything but the solitude.
That was the night it happened. She couldn’t stop running. Step after step, her heart was pounding and she didn’t know what was happening. She just knew she had to keep going. Don’t stop, Scarlett, don’t let him catch up to you.
Her dress flew around her thighs and disrupted the calm night air, her feet made the ground vibrate with every pitter patter as they landed and took off again, but she didn’t care. Everything was in her head, nothing else existed in order to be disturbed, not even Dalton.
Gasping for breath, Scarlett fell onto a swing in a park a few miles from her house, in a neighbourhood she hadn’t visited since that day months ago. She told herself that she didn’t know why she ran in here, but it was a lie. Dalton was here, or he lived here as far as she knew. She’d only been here once before, but always felt drawn back, just to know where he was, to feel relief in the notion that he hasn’t disappeared yet, but she was only looking for the red car. She overlooked the bony figure on the swing.
Scarlett let her frail body collapse, hanging limply as her blank gaze was directed toward the bark underneath her. She didn’t move for a moment, she didn’t think, she didn’t even breathe, not until the rhythmic creak of the swing had halted.
“Scarlett?”
She remained still and lifeless, consciously holding her breath.
“Scarlett, is that you?”
She grasped onto the chains of the swing, flipping herself over to sit upright.
“Are you okay?”
Scarlett felt a faint heat in her face and she knew the colour of her flesh was changing. Not here, not now, she hated how it always did that. She looked away, but nodded.
“How did you get here? Did you walk?”
She nodded again.
“Why? Don’t you live a bit far to be walking here alone?”
She shrugged, and looked up at the figure next to her.
“Dalton?”