A playground doesn’t quite seem like a playground when the air is eerily empty of high pitched, excited screams or never-ending, contagious giggles. Without miniature footprints pounding on its turf, without a mother trying to coax her fear-filled child down the slide, the essence of a playground seems to be gone, and all we’re left with is dirt and plastic.

Spencer stares at her toes, which seemed to have a life of their own, lazily drawing patterns in the black grit. Every few minutes she would feel the need to have a clean slate, erase everything, wishing she could start over. But she can’t. The closest she can come is flexing her knees, launching herself off the ground, holding onto the metal chain, and dragging her feet over her previously created masterpiece, embracing the momentary feeling of freedom, until she comes down from the sky and slowly rocks back and forth, back and forth, until she is still.

Then she starts again.

If you asked the blonde how long she’d been sitting there, she couldn’t tell you. It could have been an hour, a day, she honestly would have no idea. Hell, if you asked the blonde her name, it might take her a few to retrieve it from her memory. However, if you were so inclined as to ask her about Ashley, well, then you better be ready for an earful. She could recite, without so much as a pause or break, every small, strategically placed freckle on her face, or the way her nose crinkles and her eyes lights up and her pupils dialate just slightly when she gets excited, or the fact that when she gets nervous, she sticks her hands in her pockets, lifts her shoulders up and does this half smile thing that could, Spencer truly believed, break your heart in two in an instant.

It’s hard to believe that she only met Ashley a year ago. A year. 365 days. 8760 hours. 525,600 minutes. She couldn’t, or rather, didn’t want to remember what her life was life before Ashley. Sure, things may have been easier, but what’s the point in living a life, even an easy one, if you have nothing to live it for? This 5 foot 3 inch brunette popped into her world, full of energy and passion and love and finally, Spencer had her reason.