5.8

[I have an idea for tomorrow to write a really cool post, but it might break my arbitrary rules. I'll look into it.]

She has a run in her stockings from where the tree branch caught. I slide my fingertips along it. Either I'm hoping to mend it with my will or just touch her skin; she can't tell.
I look just as bedraggled. My tie hangs from my pocket. My shirt flaps open. My hair lies loose and limp. I can't be seen to visibly sweat, but I give off too much heat. She rolls away to cool off.
So why did I bring her to this field? Why in our best clothes? I'm tricky, but she thinks she has me figured out. But then she's surprised; I pull a key out of my pocket and the tie goes everywhere. I probably can't control my smile. She reaches for my hand, eager. I pull back; I make her give me a kiss before relinquishing the key.
"What's it to?" she asks. I shake my head.
"Guess."
She really doesn't know. "Car. Wrong shape. House?" My face gives nothing away. "File cabinet? Work? Desk? Locker? Padlock?" I laugh. She's frustrated. "Well?"
"Do you give up?" I'm infuriating.
"Of course, but only if you'll tell me what it's for."
I roll away and sit up. The sun beats a halo into my hair and she can't look right at me. I pause like the words are difficult to find. "I know we joke and kid a lot, but I want to be serious for a moment. That key belongs to a lockbox in which I put everything I've ever been ashamed of."
"Everything? Must be a small box."
"It's garganutan. But that's not the point. I want you to hold it--that's the point."
She fell silent, not sure what I was going to say next.
"I want you to have it because . . ."
She thought for a minute. In that minute, her mind stretched worlds and saw futures that would never be. She dared ask one question: "Are you serious?"
I laugh. "No, silly. Nobody makes keys for regrets. But symbolically, yes. I give them to you."
"Good." She says. But she doesn't know what to do with them. She doesn't deserve them, necessarily, and I didn't have the right to give them to her, necessarily. So she reaches over and puts them in my pocket. "Hey," she says. Her head tilts onto my chest. "Keep this safe for me until I need it, will you?"

I guess I laughed because I thought it was funny, not tragic. She certainly did.

[I wrote a story at three am from a first person perspective with a different person narrating, I guess.]