A small, clean park comes into view, completely abandoned at this time of the morning. The brightly colored merry-go-round squeaks, and the plastic-wrapped chain swings rattle in the wind. They settle on the wooden swing set, the black seats dipping under their weight.

“So I went to Sheila’s the other day,” Rowan says, breaking the silence with the spur-of-the-moment admission.

The other day, a couple weeks ago, whatever. Immediately he wants to kick himself. This wasn’t how he wanted today to go. He’s not sure he even wants to tell Mal how he feels anymore, after everything that happened yesterday. At least not today. He isn’t sure how Mal would react to the confession so soon after such an emotional evening.

“Oh yeah? Takin’ over my stomping grounds, huh?”

Mal’s teasing voice pulls Rowan back from the edge, and he huffs out a laugh. Moves his feet a bit to sway against the breeze blowing past his cheeks.

“Nah, just went for a drive and got hungry.” It’s not a complete lie. More like a gentle omission of the truth. “Was weird… being there without you,” he admits.

“Yeah?”

“Mmm.”

Mal kicks off from the ground, starting up a gentle swing with each pump of his legs. Rowan watches him while he sways.

“How’d you find that place, anyway?” Rowan asks. He figures it’ll be a safer subject to talk about than yesterday.

At first, Mal doesn’t say anything. Simply swings higher and higher, until he’s nearly level with the top of the swing set, the wooden frame creaking ominously. On one particularly big swing, Rowan thinks he’s going to go all the way over. But then he stills his legs, letting gravity pull him back to earth in progressively smaller, sweeping arcs. He heaves a sigh as he finally stills next to Rowan, stirring up the wood chips on the ground with his feet.

“When I left with Amy, I didn’t know where to go,” he says, voice nearly drowned out by the wind. When it calms down a minute later, he continues, staring straight ahead into the jungle gym across the park. “Didn’t really have any other family that wasn’t connected to Larry in some way, so we took the T all the way here. Walked for what felt like fuckin’ miles lookin’ for a hotel or something and wound up at Sheila’s since it was the only place open. Turns out the Back Bay doesn’t really do seedy, cheap motels.”

Rowan snorts in acknowledgment, but lets Mal continue.

“So we walk in, two pathetic-ass-looking runaways. Might as well have been soaked through with rain and shivering for how sad we must’a looked. Anyway we ordered some food with the money I’d stolen before we left and ended up sitting there for hours.”

“She didn’t kick you out?”