the freckles lined her lips, tracing them with spots of fairy dust and sun-memories. whispering, whispering, she stared at him with hazy eyes, foggy from sleep and drifting into submission. he combed her hair back, the dark wisps pulling away from her eyelashes, making her shiver run down the back of her neck and eat at her insides. shh, shh, she thought she heard, and she lifted her fingers, tracing his ear, wondering where did he come from? why was he here? he winced and took her fingers from his neck, holding them and staring, tracing the spaces between like they used to do in church. it had been so long, but he felt familiar and warm, and she missed him. she missed the grass, and the games, she missed the running that made her insides heave and the scrapes from the sidewalk, the wet cement and incriminating laughter. she missed the rope burns and the plotting, the butterfly jars--she missed summer and the heat and the carelessness. don't leave, she told him, don't leave. when he brushed her cheek she smelled sunscreen and paint on his hands, so familiar she wanted to reach out and hold onto it. his hand was wet from her tears, the tears she didn't know were there until they smeared against his hands. he didn't bother to wipe them off, and he smiled sadly at her, pulling her up and rolling her onto her back, tucking a blanket around her. are you cold? she nodded, and he added another blanket. he stared at her for what seemed to her an hour, in her incoherence, and then touched her forehead and sighed. he turned, slowly, intentionally, and walked towards the door, glancing back at her before he took hold of the doorknob and closed it. she felt the tears running hot down her face now, fast, stinging her sunburned cheeks. she closed her eyes and imagined him away, imagined it all away, until her mind was nothing but wisps of darkness and bright spots of light, swarming together in a garden of emotion, sinking itself into oblivion. the more it swirled the more the pressure built in her brain and she forced herself to breathe, keep her eyes closed, ignore the tears. she felt the bed under her and let it swallow her, let it open up and take her in, and she gave way to the hole in her mind and slept.
