It's not his fault. I know you're going to want to, but you can't blame him.

He
really has no idea how it happened. I kept trying to come up with excuses I could
say to mom that would keep her calm when she found out what happened, but the more
I tried, the more I could see none of them would work. He was going to get her
wrath and there was nothing I could say to prevent it.

It was going to rain. The weather forecast didn't say that, but the steel plate in
his hip did. He had learned over the years to trust his hip over the weatherman. It
was going to rain, so he better get outside and prepare.

The tree missed the days the kids used to come by and play. It still wore the tire
swing the kids had put up in its branches years ago although both the tire and the
rope had seen better days. The tree had watched all the kids in the neighborhood
grow up and leave, and it wondered if there would ever be a time when another child
played and laughed again under its branches. That was the hope that the tree wished
every day as the swing gently swung empty in the wind.

It was a good idea. At least, they all thought it was a good idea at the time.
Hindsight would reveal that in reality, it was an unbelievably terrible idea, but
it would take another week for them to understand that. Right now, at this very
moment. they all agreed that it was the perfect course of action for the current
situation.

The coin hovered in the air, spinning over and over again. It reached its peak and
began to descend. Both boys were pleading with it to land a certain way but the
coin had already made up its mind on what it was going to do.