I gazed intently at Isobel through the solid glass of my bedroom window. She sat on a swing under a canopy of autumnally-shaded leaves, something habitual to her daily routine. She didn’t actually swing, but instead, wistfully examined a map of the world. That was her thing—maps—she could stare at them for hours on end, and never seemed to tire of them. After gently removing the top of a black marker, she proceeded to circle faraway places she longed to visit, though she knew she probably never would. A sigh of disappointment made her shoulders collapse; she had never traveled more than fifty miles from our town of Rowington, and neither had anyone else for that matter.
That was her hideaway—under the tree, I mean. It wasn’t exactly hidden, for it was simply a weeping willow tree in her backyard, with a wooden swing dangling from one of the branches. The tree was still quite young, only seventeen years of age—Isobel’s family planted the tree when they moved into their house the year before her birth—though it was fully grown and quite sturdy, with dandelion weeds sprouting around its thick base. Its leaves draped around the tree like a curtain, creating a barrier between the tree and the rest of the yard.
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Under the weeping willow, she read thick novels that spoke of topics far more abstract and complex than my mind could ever comprehend. Other times, she flipped through shorter stories about fairies and magic, perhaps dreaming of impossibilities. On various occasions, she wrote in a journal, scribbling seemingly secret ideas and thoughts no one else would ever read. Most of the time, however, she would just look at the maps of places she must've dreamt of traveling.
I liked to watch her, not in a creepy or perverted way, but more like how a child watches a train chug along—with raw curiosity. I watched without any agenda, besides gaining an insight of who she truly was. Although she wasn’t ravishingly gorgeous, she wasn’t ugly either. She was plain, though there was some sort of magnetism that continuously pulled at me, and captured my attention. I wasn’t in love with her—hell, I knew nothing of love at the age of sixteen, yet she forever left me fascinated and in awe.
I was six years old when my family moved to Rowington and into the house next door to Isobel. The sheer geographical proximity of our houses destined us to become best friends, with our bedroom walls exactly 17.25 feet apart—we measured the distance when we were younger to tell as a “fun fact” at school.
We were “joined at the hip,” as my mother would say. We had the innocent and platonic love people rarely have nowadays, and it remained even as we grew apart.
Isobel’s father was the dreamer of the town. He believed in peace, happiness, and adventure—ideas that had slowly become unorthodox. As children, we spent our days engulfed in his stories of the distant places he yearned of traveling. He would push us on the swing under that weeping willow, telling us to close our eyes and imagine flying. We dreamt of being people far more adventurous and courageous than we.
When middle school began, our trips to the tree became rare. The tree became a childhood memory, and a symbol of the naïvety of our youth. We grew up, and we filled our days with schoolwork, insignificant friends, and discussions on trivial topics we thought important. It was at a time of internal discovery, and we both thought we had finally discovered who we were as people, and what our purposes in life were, when, in reality, we hadn’t; we were still children.
Isobel’s dad died in a car crash two years ago, when Isobel and I were both fourteen years old. Everything we had thought we valued and believed went into question, especially for Isobel; she felt accountable for keeping her father’s spirit alive, even if his body wasn’t.
There are said to be five stages of grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. I guess Isobel was always one to hide her emotions, but she never showed signs of grief. She missed two days of school to help prepare for the funeral, but that was it. She seemed to skip right to the acceptance stage, and seemed perfectly normal.
She did, however, begin to see the tree more, and me less. It was her special place, and she would spend hours just sitting under the weeping willow.
The death created a crater between the two of us, and although the distance was never acknowledged, we both felt it. It was understood that I could never be able to feel what she was going through, making me more of an observer of her life, rather than an active member in it. I was simply a boy who watched her out of my bedroom window.
So there I was, watching a fatherless red-headed girl scribble frustratingly on a map. Her sighs turned into sniffles, and I watched as a tear brushed the side of her cheek. I had never seen her cry before, and her tears frightened me. A well of sadness had built up inside her for so long, and it finally came pouring out.
A force pulled me toward her. Grabbing my car keys, my feet navigated me down the stairs, out the front door, and onto the grass. I shouted, “Isobel!” not with anger, but purely with enough volume to carry my voice the twenty feet to where the tree laid. Her startled eyes met mine, and then she quickly hid her face with embarrassment when she realized the crying had made her eyes red and swollen.
“Get up!” I hollered peremptorily, “We’re going on an adventure,” I decided, shaking my keys in the air. Her eyes brightened, and a child-like smile stretched across her face, the type so genuine and contagious, that you can’t help yourself from smiling as well.
“Where are we going?” Isobel questioned in a curious voice.
“Anywhere we want,” I promised with a grin. I ran with excitement towards the willow tree, feeling my body halt to a stop when I reached the canopy of leaves, afraid to break the barrier into Isobel’s sanctum.
Isobel stood, and moved closer to me. She kissed my cheek, and whispered, “Thank you, Oliver,” with sincerity before tugging on the sleeve of my shirt, and pulling me into the world that hid under the weeping willow.
