Ghost Story (Glutton Fanfic)

We met at the park. I was 5 years old.
It was late autumn. I remember because mum explained to me that the leaves fell off if the trees because they were getting ready for winter. I believed her, of course, I believed everything back then.
My best friend was a popular girl named Evelyn Thorn. I loved Evelyn. She was so beautiful, her mum was a first grade teacher and she was one of the nicest people I knew. However, we were young and stupid. 5 years old and already forming the ideas of cliques. She was "popular" and I was the talkative girl who ate glue and nobody wanted to be friends with. I was Mary.
So earlier that day, during recess, she told me the story of a girl who no longer wanted to talk to her best friend because she "wanted to meet new people". Leave it to Evelyn to be perfect and polite even as she was metaphorically ripping out my heart.
I couldn't hate her, or argue, but I understood perfectly what she was getting at. I cried, I cried so hard that mum was called and she took to to the park to play out my unhappiness.
And I did. The mere sight of the park from the car window as we pulled into the lot had me overcome with joy, the day's events suddenly out of mind. I ran as fast as my tiny, chubby legs would take me and promptly fell onto my face. Once again I was sobbing, my pain now physical, but painful nonetheless. It wasn't my dear mother who comforted me this time, though. I was picked up and dusted off by a pretty girl with wavy, blonde hair and "weird" eyes; one was brown and the other was blue.
I immediately ceased my screaming, staring at her eyes in absolute awe, causing the girl to turn away in shame. She'd most definitely gotten that before.
The first thing I'd said to her was an apology. She accepted it gratefully, both of us blissfully unaware that my final words to her would be nearly the same.
After that, she took my hand and dragged me over to the slides. I don't remember much else. I learned a few days later that her father had left them and that that day had been her first in Amberstone. Her mum had taken her to the park, hoping she'd make some new friends in town before she started school and maybe she'd forget the heart break of losing her daddy. Dads and stupid friends aren't the same, not even close. That hurt her far worse than any park or any friend could fix.
The park became a frequent meeting spot for the two of us. We'd both made a new friend and the park was a symbol of that. It continued to be a symbol throughout our friendship, even as she held my shoulders in that very park and made me swear the impossible.
Nazi, Rape, Homosexuality, Terrorism; those are words that I find makes people the most uncomfortable to say or discuss, but Love is such an easy word to toss around. My biggest pet peeve was when girls went on about how in love they were mere days into a romantic relationship. TJ didn't really believe in romantic love, and understandably so. She had grown and began to understand more about what her father had done. She hated him and I think in her miind, all males had become her father. Now Amberstone was her father, abusing her and turning away just because she was different. I can help but wonder if maybe things would have gone differently if her father had been a decent man, or even if the town hadn't hated her. Then she wouldn't have a reason to hate it back.