She could feel the ache in her sweaty hands as they clenched tighter to the rough branch she dangled from. The girl didn’t know how much longer she could hold on.
      “Let go Melody!” The boy she came here with yelled twenty-something-feet below. She had a clear view of him through the branches under her feet, bare from the sandals that fell off. She could see the cropped brown hair that glinted from the sunlight and the pale arms that reached up towards her on the ground. He looked so far away from her shaky view.

     The boy wants her to jump into those pale arms from her twenty-something-feet height up. How else could she get down from the tall maple tree which she just had to climb in the heat of a moment trying to prove a point but having too little of a grasp of what doing that would mean? The branches she used to get there snapped and crashed onto the grass a few seconds prior. The only branch around the teenage girl with thick, curly brown hair and dark chocolate eyes now was the one she clung to for dear life. And unless she were to wait there for some more to grow out of the tree, her only sane option was to let go and trust the boy, Eliot Martin, to catch her. The kid she’s known since the days they were building lopsided castles in the sandbox and listening to picture book’s being read to them at a dimmed-light naptime was more than capable of doing that with his matured, strong wrestling arms.

     So it should’ve been easy. Her bony hands were in pain, her unexercised arms were tired, so she should just let go right? Let go and have faith. The only problem was that her faith was wavering between barely tangible and just about depleted.

      The petite girl had come with the boy to the field just a few blocks away from their neighboring houses after school. Years of wandering together in their small town had led the two to discover the empty land filled with trees, nonthreatening wildlife, privacy, and peace. Over time it became their place as the memories that were shared grew a part of the habitat. They were able to work on homework together, breathe in fresh air, get away from the stresses of a mechanic life, and just relax. It started out as the sight of playtime adventures including the searches for treasure and the mythical kingdom that needed a king and queen, which they dutifully served as, but time has a way of gradually transforming the meaning of a familiar place. So you could call the acre of land, inconsequential to the rest of the world, somewhat of a hideaway for both Melody and Eliot. Even at age eighteen and during their senior year in highschool, the two were able to go to their sanctum in blissful solitude. 
      That is exactly what they did on the sunny day in May. Melody, who preferred to wear dresses no matter the weather or occasion, was venting in detail about the calculus class which she borderlines an ‘A’ on. Eliot, who never cared for numbers much, listened with open ears anyway and just as the violet flower that Melody stuck in her hair whistled out and up into a maple tree. The flower, blown away by the light breeze, intertwined itself into a narrow thicket of a branch pretty high up just as Melody was saying how she was ready to give up on the hopes of a better grade. Eliot had picked the flower for her on the way over so the the boy and the girl exchanged small rueful smiles as they saw the plant sail away.

      Melody lightly joked when she suggested if she should climb up the tree and get it but after Eliot made an ignorant remark about how even if she wanted to get it she wouldn’t be able to, her joke turned into a statement. Melody was stubborn and a bit sensitive. She’s keen on proving people wrong about her which is why the girl dropped her backpack as soon as the comment was made and started fumbling her way up the rough trunk only to realize how hard it would be to get down a moment too late. As soon as the branches came crumbling down, she knew she was stuck. That’s when Eliot started pleading with Melody to let go.
      He was repeating the words over like a song on replay because the girl now struck with indecision and fear wouldn’t let go. It wasn't because she was afraid of falling and it wasn’t because she blocked out the boy’s comforting words in her moment of panic. It was because she couldn’t trust him.

     The moment she was faced with him being her only option was the moment everything she tried so hard to bury away came surfacing up. The field they were in had good memories but it also came with its fair share of haunting ones as well. Melody had crouched under the very same tree she was hanging from now wearing a different floral dress and crying salty tears polluted with pain and betrayal.

    Two summers ago the childhood friends took their strong feelings of the love, that is immersed in friendship, and changed it into one of romance. They were no longer holding hands out of company but out of that bubbly feeling that comes when you’re first experimenting with awkward teenage relationships. It was a plain, sweet type of dating for a while but like all relationships at this age, it was rushed. Melody fell in love with him and Eliot somewhat did the same. The only difference was that the girl depended on him and when she needed the boy the most, he failed her.
     When her father was diagnosed with cancer, he was with his friends. While her family was disintegrating just a few feet away from the boy’s house, his doors were shut and locked. But she blamed it on herself, suffered alone and in silence. He’ll come around, she figured. But he never did. The boy was just too young to grasp the concept of trust and reliance. He was too  immature to realize how his obliviousness and carelessness killed her, broke her down.
      So she would cry under the maple tree alone. It was a place where they used to look up at the stars together and wonder about life. But when she sat there by herself, in her mind, she knew what life was. Disappointment.
      The girl with the fragile heart but pleasant smile always plastered on her face could not have known how worse it would get. She still lingered on to that boy, the first boy she ever fell in love with. But he was too absorbed in his own artificial world to return much of the love back. She didn’t see the handwriting on the wall of what it was until she walked right into the concrete itself; until she saw him kissing another girl as if she was never a part of the picture. He’ll deny it to this day if you ask him about it but how real it was. The girl was finally introduced to the boy who she knew her entire life.

     By then, there was no more she could give. When something like that happens to a person, something so emotionally cruel as that, it changes a person’s views on life and on themselves. The girl knew who she was. Or she at least thought she knew. Vivacious, determined, caring, and smart, she knew she was all of that. But it was doubted when the situation forced her to reflect on who she had become. Looking in the mirror she could see the person who let someone else destroy her, take away a piece of her. She was the person who wasn’t strong enough to deal with her own reality. That realization killed the once unflinching girl. At that moment she made sure a mistake like that would never happen to her again. I guess you could say she coated her heart with the armor materialized from hard lessons and a new perspective.

      The two were clearly not meant to be together. The stars must have been aligned that way from the start. But after time gone by, and new air filling new seasons, forgiveness was able to fertilize. The girl was able to forgive and the boy was able to try and make up for what he never comprehended he did. Which is what led to the two older kids walking side by side through the place where they first discovered any type of love.
     Yes, they had to overcome the damaged done to their relationship. A fire of betrayal and mistakes burned the bridges that kept the two together and in reach. Yes, it was a long time before they even talked on civilized terms. The girl wasn’t able to forgive that easily. But as the new seasons blossom the flowers, matures the plants, and circulates in the new air, forgiveness wasn’t the only thing that was fertilized. The girl was a new girl. That armor coated heart of her’s did wonders to her insight. When she forgave the boy she knew exactly who she was forgiving. She saw him for everything he was finally.

      And he wasn’t all bad, the boy who she was once in love with. She could see that his innocence wasn’t completely lost in a void. So that was how the girl and the boy were able to pick back up on the friendship; leave the immature romance buried deep in the past, and move on with what they didn’t dig away.  

     But now the girl was faced with those recurring thoughts, those undeniable memories once again as she gripped on to the rough bark of the tree. The truth can only be hidden for so long. She knew the boy all her life but she couldn’t let go because she also understood that just because you know someone, even love them, doesn’t mean you can trust them. Of course he would catch her, though. He wouldn’t just let her come crashing to the ground would he? She wasn’t so sure. He had done the same thing just over a year ago.

      The girl had matured, that was a given, but it wasn’t set in stone that the boy was a changed person. Melody could dig as deep as she wanted to, she could pour gallons of gasoline onto every fiber of every bad moment she ever shared with the boy and light it all on fire, but that wouldn’t make what happened nonexistent. Pain leaves scars and the only way to get rid of those are to destroy yourself in the process. As much as she wanted to believe she was never hurt by him, and the boy was always who she wanted him to be, that just wasn’t possible. He was who he was. And that was a person who the girl just couldn’t have faith in.

     But she was left with no choice. The branch was slowly bending, and soon it would snap like all the other ones once neighboring it. Time doesn’t stop for anything but it does tick pretty fast. She had to chose. Trust him or don’t. Either way she would be falling but it didn’t matter. Whether she trusted him mattered. It mattered everything.

    Their friendship, their beliefs, it all depended on it. It is single moments such as this one that shape futures. If she couldn’t have faith in him, then who could she have faith in? And maybe, no matter how she let go, the two could go on as friends, but what would that friendship be built on? That would only be determined with one decision. Let go and trust the boy, live with the scars as best she could, or don’t trust him and come down forcibly knowing that she would rather nearly die then place her life in his hands. 

      She was soon out of time to decide.

      “Melody, I got you,” the boy yelled once more just as another breaking snap could be heard from the branch.

      The girl came flying down.

      And how she did it? Just another piece of the story to dig up.