Chapter 2

It seemed that the fastest way to get there was to actually cut through central park. The almost animated, humorless faces were few here. There was a liveliness to this scene, children clung to their mothers as they stared wide eyed about their world, others galloped around pure glee etched into their faces, laughter filling the air. Parents sitting on benches next to the food stands, perfecting their multitasking ability to carry on a conversation while keeping a watchful eye over their children. Joggers and bikers going about their business, neatly separated from the world by their headphones. Squirrels bounding tree to tree. Birds adding their song to the symphony of the moment. It was a whole other world here. 

The people more life like, more relaxed, completely different from 5th Avenue. Perhaps it was the addition of children to the scene that made the difference. 

Children. That place in life where everything is grand and wonderful. They know how to enjoy the moment. Somehow, we forget that along the way. Maybe it is children that are the wisest among us, so care free. But no, he knew that to be false, the only people that believed children were completely care free, are people who had forgotten their own childhood. But Gavin remembered, children are much like teenagers in the way that they both experience high highs and low lows. Everything is either the greatest thing in the world, or it is the worst thing, there isn't much of an in between and children are much worse about it than teenagers. Much much worse. 

Gavin could remember always worrying, worrying about silly things. True there was nothing to worry about, but that's beside the point, pain is relative to the feeler. He can remember falling down and scraping his knee, how tears immediately flooded his eyes and poured down his checks, the pain excruciating. He suspected, that if he were to feel that same level of pain now, experience exactly the pain he experienced as a child, just the pain, not the injury; that he would react in a much similar fashion, even though he is now nearly twenty. Not because he is wimpy but because he has a little theory that children aren't actually as wimpy as they appear. That instead of crying over something that is insignificant, for them, it is actually very significant, because pain is actually much more painful to them.

He was going over in his head what exactly would be tantamount now, to the scratch he got as a child, when he realized with a start that he was at his destination, standing just a few feet away from the steps leading to the door.