**Chapter 2: Playgrounds**
There are places you remember because they were magical.
And then there are places you remember because they weren't.
This one was the second kind.
The ground was cracked.
Paint peeled like sunburned skin from the steel skeleton of what must've once been a swing set.
Someone had drawn a penis on the slide in permanent marker. Not even an artistic one. Just lazy. Like even the vandal had given up halfway.
The kind of place where ghosts wouldn't bother to haunt. That's where I was. That's where I ended up. I don't know why. I don't think I chose to be there. I don't remember choosing.
But I was there. So.
I did what any normal person would do in that situation.
I panicked.
No—wait—okay. First I blinked. A lot. My eyes were dry and fuzzy like I'd just come off a six-hour nap I hadn't meant to take. Then I looked around. Then I panicked.
There. That's the correct order.
