Dating : Escape Velocity

Decades later, you can still picture Katie on the summer afternoon she vanished. She sat on the very swing you’re on now, her pink sweatshirt sleeves shoved up her forearms, her white-knuckled hands clutching the chains. Her face went crimson with effort as she swung herself back and forth, higher and higher, her blonde hair streaming behind her.

Today was the day, she told you. Today, she would swing high enough to launch herself into outer space.

As she soared ever higher, you felt sick. If she really jumped from that high up, she’d break her arm or her leg (maybe both!), and you’d get in trouble because you should have stopped her. As if anyone anywhere could stop Katie when she got one of her crazy ideas.

You considered lurking behind her and grabbing the swing to slow her down before she could really hurt herself, but you waited too long. At the highest point of her highest arc, Katie let go and hurled herself into the air with a joyous whoop.

Her body sailed upward, and you shielded your eyes against the burning white sun for a second as you waited for the thunk of Katie’s body falling back to Earth. But you heard nothing. When you uncovered your eyes, she wasn’t there. Not on the ground. Not on the empty swing, which still moved back and forth.

You glanced around the playground. Two neighbor boys climbed on the jungle gym, paying no attention to you.

“Katie?” She was playing a prank on you. She had to be. In those few seconds when you’d covered your eyes, she’d decided to be a jerk and go hide somewhere. The next time you saw her, she’d be full of stories about riding on comets, or meeting Martians.

But there weren’t that many places to hide on the playground, nowhere she could have gotten to that fast.

But she couldn’t have actually launched herself into space, because nobody could do that. So where was she? Your heart started beating a little faster.

“Katie? Stop being stupid. This isn’t funny anymore.”

You called her name a couple more times, catching the attention of the two boys on the jungle gym. They started making fun of you, calling Kaaaatiieeeee in ridiculous high voices and giggling.

Fine. This was a stupid game, and you were tired and hungry and hot and fed up with Katie, so you went home. You grabbed some green grapes out of the fridge and watched Animaniacs in the living room.

You didn’t think about Katie again until after dinner, when Mom got off the phone and told you Katie hadn’t come home that afternoon. An arrow of fear pierced your stomach as Mom peppered you with questions. You knew perfectly well Mom wouldn’t believe you if you told her what happened. Who would?

Katie just left you on the playground, you said. That wasn’t even a lie.

Mom’s eyes narrowed behind her glasses. “Just like that? Did you two have a fight, Michelle?”

“No.”

“And she didn’t say where she was going?”

“No, Mom.” The macaroni and cheese you had for dinner started curdling in your stomach as you envisioned that empty swing moving back and forth, still propelled by the force of Katie’s absent body.

“Hmmmm.” Mom pursed her lips, and you knew where her mind was going. Katie often showed up at your house in long sleeves and pants even on hot summer days, and when she was in her bathing suit at the community pool, you saw why: Dark bruises blossomed in blue, purple, and red on her pale arms and legs.

Katie always had ready reasons for the bruises when Mom or another adult pressed her about them: She fell off her bike. Or she slipped carrying laundry up the stairs. Or Scooby, the family dog, knocked her down while they were playing.

Mom didn’t buy it. One night, you overheard her telling Dad that a bruise on Katie’s arm was shaped just like a large handprint, and no goddamn dog had done that — it was that no-good bastard Katie’s mom was shacking up with.

But Katie told you to shut up when you tried asking her about what Mom said, and nothing ever came of any of it.

You couldn’t sleep the night after she disappeared. Every time you closed your eyes, you saw her propelling herself higher and higher towards the bright blue sky in that swing. The sound of the chains squealing as she sailed upward rang in your memory.

The police took Katie’s mom’s boyfriend from their house for questioning. Adam from down the street saw it all and told you and some other kids at the playground the whole story. The cops searched the house and the yard for hours before moving to the woods behind the neighborhood. Katie’s school picture went up on a hundred HAVE YOU SEEN ME? posters taped to windows all over town. Her cheerful, gap-toothed grin always taunted you: You saw me, Michelle. You know.

You thought about writing Katie’s mom an anonymous letter, just so she’d know too. Dear Mrs. Miller: Katie wanted to go to outer space, and so she did. Don’t wait up. Sometimes you pictured Katie standing on a tiny planet like the Little Prince. You imagined her drifting aimlessly through the stars. You wondered if she got bored up there.

More than anything, you just wanted to know where she was now, and that desire never went away. Sometimes you’d spend afternoons on that swing pushing yourself higher and higher, trying to get the nerve to fling yourself into the air and fly to the place she went. You’d swing until you were dizzy and nauseated and the other kids were yelling at you to let them have a turn already.

Katie slipped the surly bonds of earth. When would it be your turn to join her?