Unravel(22)

Lachlan looked over his shoulder, in the direction of my house.

Please don’t tell on me. Please don’t tell on me, I chanted in my mind.

“So what are you doing here?”

“I just wanted to see the treehouse.”

“In the middle of the night?”

“Please don’t tell my parents!” I said frantically. “I only wanted to climb up there. That’s it. I promise!”

He laughed with ease. “Relax, kid. I won’t rat you out.” He tucked his hands into the pocket of his hoodie and looked up at the tree. “Why do you want to go up there anyway? It hasn’t been used in years. I’m surprised it hasn’t collapsed.”

I squirmed and looked down at the ground. “Since you weren’t using it, I thought I could,” I mumbled.

He kept his gaze on the tree and nodded. “Good enough answer.” Slapping the base of the tree, he looked at me expectantly. “You going up?”

That’s what I came here for. But now that he was next to me, I was nervous and still scared that he would tell on me.

I looked away from Lachlan and tilted my head back as far as it would go. I nodded slowly.

“I’m going up.”

I gripped the wooden steps with shaky hands. When I peeked through the opening I smiled and hefted myself up. Lachlan was behind me. He immediately walked to the corner, looking bored. I was anything but. I was only a few feet up from the ground but I felt like I was in the clouds.

“How are you doing over there?” Lachlan asked.

“I love it,” I breathed.

“You don’t get out much,” he murmured.

My shoulders tensed. “I do too.”

“I’m just kidding.” He walked around. The wood creaked underneath his feet. Finally, he rested his elbows on the ledge next to me and stared out into the sky. “So all you want to do is come up here and sit?”

“Yes.”

He said nothing.

“I was right,” I finally said. “It’s beautiful up here.”

The two of us sat in silence, but I was okay with it.

“If that’s all you want to do, then you can come up here whenever,” he said.

My eyes widened before I anxiously turned toward him. “You mean it?”

Lachlan shrugged. “Sure. But I don’t know if sneaking out in the middle of the night is a good idea for an eight-year-old.”

My chin went up in defense. “I’m ten.”

He didn’t look impressed.

“You’re outside too,” I said. “And you’re not that much older than me. Aren’t you thirteen?”

Lachlan’s eyes narrowed. “Fifteen.”

I ticked him off but this was the most fun I’d had in so long.

“Well, have fun up here,” he said. “I’m going inside. And to bed. Like normal humans.”

“Hey, wait!” I said urgently. Lachlan stopped and looked at me expectantly. “What did you used to do when you came up here?”

“A lot of pointless games really.”

“Like what?”

He sighed loudly and sat down. “Stupid games. I’d shoot invisible guns, and then climb down to make runs to the house for more ammo. Sometimes this would be my spaceship. A few times this was my secret agency headquarters. Most of the time, I’d make this place my secret hideout. Or a stranded island.”

I saw all the games he described perfectly. My imagination ran wild, seeking and grabbing everything he was saying with greedy hands. If I looked to the left, I could see mountains with plush green grass and flowers sprinkled throughout. Directly in front of me were palm trees and clean blue waters that touched the sand. To the right were ruins of a castle that once stood tall in Germany. I could see it all.

“That’s why I always came up here,” he explained. “I could dream up anything in this treehouse.”

I nodded and tried to keep the huge grin off my face.

“Dream up anything,” I repeated in awe. “I want to do that.”

“You don’t do that stuff? You’re ten! All ten-year-olds do that.”

Not all.

There were limits that I never crossed. I played board games, Barbies, and rode horses. I rarely used my imagination. It never ran wild like Lachlan’s did.

“No.” I looked down at the wooden floor with shame.

“Not once?” he asked.

I said no again.

He persisted. “You’re lying.”

I cleared my throat and looked at the sky.

“I’ll create a story for you. But you have to keep it going.” He stretched his legs and crossed them at the ankles. I couldn’t tell if he was staying solely because he felt bad for his strange, ten-year-old neighbor, or because he might actually enjoy my presence. I’d accept either option.

“Okay. The world has been invaded by aliens. And now the CIA is relying on you to protect the human race.” He continued on with his storytelling, painting the perfect picture for me to imagine.

I watched him with fascination.

“What’s your name?” he quizzed.

My eyebrows drew together tightly. “Naomi.”

“No. What is your name?” He emphasized slowly. “Just imagine and you can be anything.”