There she is. I watch her from across the park, her red hair flying as she and her best friend ride around the grassy lawn of the park. She puts her arms out to try to balance and ride with no hands, and she falls, but not hard. She and her companion throw her heads back in laughter. Her friend helps her up, and she dusts the little bit of grass that had gotten on her during her fall.

The two of them start to climb one of the nearby willow trees. Her friend stops when she is about ten feet off the ground, but Peyton keeps climbing. I watch as she scales the tree, and when she is almost thirty-five feet off the ground, she sits on one of the branches, the well-chosen branch posing no danger to her lightweight form.

I get off my butt on the park bench hidden by a curtain of leaves from another willow, and put my skateboard on the ground, riding the concrete path to the area she's in. I stop six feet from the base of her tree, when she sees me and waves.

"Hey!" she says, almost yelling from how high she is. "This is my bae, Charlie. Do not call her 'Carl' or 'C-H-A-R-L-O-T-T-E'. [I intend this to be her spelling it, btw] Carl is my name for her and if you say the other one you may not wake up tomorrow." I laugh as Charlie solemnly nods in agreement.

"...Thanks for the '411'" I say, with mock fear and disbelief in my voice. They both grin.

"Carl, this is Justin. We're in French together, and he met me here at the park the other day." Charlie waves, and I smile politely at her.

"Hey, Justin! Catch me if you can!" Peyton shouts, as she starts to climb higher.

"Oh, I will!" I shout back up at her, and start ascending the tree, at almost twice her speed. Before he moved away, my father taught me how to scale any tree, wether it oak or palo verde [from Arizona, where the cool kids are from] I quickly get close to her, and she goes down a few branches to sit with me, on different branches, but facing each other. We are fifty feet off the ground.

"Who taught you to climb?" she asks, tucking a lock of that perfect dark red hair behind her ear, only for it to fall in front of her face again.

"My father, before he moved away. He taught me how to climb any tree, any rock, anything. He's from Colorado, and there are many mountains and good climbing trees there. What about you? You climb well."

"Well, I kind of taught myself. Carl and I used to come her a lot to practice, and this was always the tree we climbed. She used to be really good, but then... something happened and she grew wary of heights.

"But you're not?" I ask, wanting to absorb every aspect of what she's saying.

"Well, it's kind of hard to explain," she says. "I am afraid of heights. I'm always scared that I'm going to fall, but at the same time, I love the height. The isolation, the view..." she trails off.

"I love heights. If I could, I would stay up here forever."

"Yeah, same..." she trails off, looking down over the park.

Then, something super unexpected happens. She reaches her hand out, and I take it, wanting to treasure every precious moment of her company.