“Wait,” I assert, “do you mean to refer to the same one you wear so often?”
“Yes,” he answers aloofly. My gaze softens sympathetically at him.
“But… you were going to give that to me,” I ask gently, “Isn’t that yours to keep?”
“Well,” he sighs, with a shrug, “it’s not like I wanted to part with it, Ava.” “But…” he says, giving me a glance, “I knew you needed it.” My gaze lingers on him whilst a moment of silence falls between us. In my mind, I consider how unselfish he has seemingly been and inadvertently stir my recollection of his previous actions. I begin pondering the ambush of love letters that he had sent my way. I begin wondering that in spite of their nuisance, perhaps they were sent from a place of genuine concern - concern for the girl that had no love letters the last time her sweetheart announced his sudden departure. He had only left temporarily for business affairs, yet he painstakingly wrote to me everyday. I hated them so much, and yet a sick part of me, a part of me still so lovesick for him, wanted to remember and so I kept their ashes in a chest of pearls. It seemed that same sick part of me, the girl whose lover never wrote to her, didn’t forget him and couldn’t bear to see me forget him, too.
Perhaps it wasn’t victory I felt for burning his letters, perhaps it was victory I felt for having gotten even the opportunity to burn his letters in having received them; perhaps the chance to betray him as harshly as I had felt betrayed by his parting is what made me feel so victorious. It was a specific sickness that the girl I used to be could for once relish in, no longer the fool to yearn, but rather the woman to deny, and all the while hiding the fact that she was still in love with him.
“Oh, Ava,” Nik interjects cheerfully, disturbing my train of thought, “here's where we begin walking upstream.” He points to the bend of a river. In our veer off the trail towards it, the ground becomes steep with its white and gray pebble shore. Several rocks push off against my heels, throwing me off balance before I feel Nik’s arm swiftly hug me at my waist, hoisting me towards him. He leans his head close to mine, asking me if I’d prefer he carry me the rest of the way. “The shore only gets narrower from here, and eventually we’ll have to cross.”
“Alright,” I smile, watching as he glides the basket up his arm to carry me. Bending his knees slightly, he presses my body against his chest and swoops his opposing arm from underneath my legs to lift me up. Cradled in his arms, I feel positively special as he traverses the gravel shore, bearing the brunt of the terrain for me so that I may enjoy safe passage. In my glee, I find myself marveling upon the features of his face with intent. As my eyes draw towards the plump of his lips, I bring a tender hand to the side of his face.
“Yes, Ava?” he asks, lowering his gaze at me.
“Come closer,” I tease, caressing his cheek.
“Hmm?” he asks curiously, with an ear to my voice, “Did you want me to set you down, Ava?”
“But Nik…” I whisper longingly into his ear, “weren’t you always quite fond of the feel of my body pressed against yours?”
“Ava,” he sighs yearningly before dirtying his tone, “you know I am.”
“Then perhaps I’ll linger in your arms, Nik,” I assert in quiet expectation.
“If you were to allow me the courtesy I’d hold you forever,” he coos, engaging his face in a soft nuzzle along my neck, occasionally grazing his lips past me, though not quite kissing. “I don’t know if you remember this but…” he whispers, alluding to his informal request for something more sensual than a peck. I roll my eyes playfully.
“Yes, I remember, Nik,” I say fondly, running my fingers through his hair. In eager approval, I cradle his head closer to my neck. “So don’t merely tease me–if you’re going to kiss me,” I affirm, forcing his lips to press against my collarbone, “do it, right.” The initial impact of his kiss burns my skin, having for so long craved the sensation of his touch.
“I’ve missed this so much,” he exhales, his breath wavering in content as his lips trail across my neck.
“I’ve missed it, too,” I say adoringly, the steady breath of his kisses fluttering over my neck tempting me to do more than reminisce about the throes of our passion. In his ascent along my skin, I feel his lips creep up towards my ear and gently tug along it, causing me to not only blush but my hands to involuntarily grip his hair. I see, it seems he’s still well-versed in this respect. “Alright,” I smile, gliding my hand gently along the front of his face as a buffer between us, “I think we’ve had our share of fun. You’ve got to watch the ground before us and I can’t rightly have you distracted.”
“You’re so cruel, Ava,” he teases, nudging his head into my palm.
“Only to you, Nik,” I reply, motioning to caress his cheek.
“Hmmph,” he retorts affectionately, leaning into my hand, again, “Yes, only to me.”
Nik carried me the rest of the way until we reached a clearing below a grand oak tree. After setting down, we both went about setting up for our picnic, sweeping aside pinecones and other forest debris to make room for our blanket. Together we took either end and draped it swiftly over the grass before sitting down to indulge. Nik and I enjoyed the watercress sandwiches and the sliced meats, but we were partial to the desserts we had brought. We shared a slice of the pound cake, followed by the milk chocolate I had insisted on bringing. He broke the bar in half and handed me my share. Afterwards, I gave him a brief peck on the cheek for accompanying me today and told him that I appreciated the time we had spent together. Nik agreed and suggested perhaps next time we bring a bundle of chocolate pound cake as a compromise for our tastes, to which I remarked as a fine idea. Snuggling up beside him, he began asking if coming up here had at all helped jog my memory.
“I remember being here, with you,” I allude, recalling our strolls upstream for our occasional rendezvous, “but nothing particularly specific.”
“Strange,” he replies, contemplating the thought. “Do you think you can recall the circumstances in which you lost your memory? Did you perhaps fall or hit your head?” he asks. Though I consider his reasoning, I quickly wave off his assumptions.
“But it can’t be merely amnesia, Nik,” I claim, “I’ve never gone through anything similar to this and I remember just about everything of my life perfectly–it’s only memories of you I have trouble recalling.” He lowers his gaze, furrowing his brow.
“Only me?” he prods, tilting his head curiously.
“Well,” I suggest, weighing the probability that I technically wouldn’t even know if it was only him that I had forgotten, “It’s entirely possible that there are other things I don’t even realize I can’t remember.”
“I guess that’s possible,” he replies half-heartedly, seeming undecided for himself about our circumstances. We remain quiet for a brief while before Nik suddenly recounts of our past here. “We always sat below this tree,” he interjects solemnly whilst my gaze lingers introspectively on the trees before us.
“Hmmph,” I retort quietly, my thoughts elsewhere. It was strange to think that it could have been simply a case of amnesia, especially after experiencing that splitting headache upon recalling the day he left me. That couldn’t have been a normal symptom, could it? Followed by my fainting and then the dream I now realize was likely one of my memories of Nik, it didn’t make any sense. In my head, it felt as if glass had shattered, but for the pain to have been so visceral, it’s as if something had broke.
“Do you like those trees ahead of us, or something, Ava?”
“Huh?” I ask, peering up at him to see his gaze on me.
“Those trees ahead of us,” he alludes, gesturing to them with a tilt of his head, “You keep staring at them.”
“Well,” I say, pouting my lips in curiosity, “I wouldn’t say I was staring directly at them. I mean, I don’t think I was - just looking in their general direction, I suppose.” Was I staring at them?
“Oh, alright–just wondering.” We fall silent again, but while I deliberate over my memory loss, I do find my eyes drawn towards that same group of trees. Furrowing my brows at them, I note that for a cluster of oaks, they weren’t nearly as grand as the one we found ourselves sitting under. They were older, but judging by their scrawniness, they weren’t nourished. Considering how close they grew together, it was apparent they often fought for sunlight as their gnarled branches wove between each other. It didn’t seem that their dynamic was healthy, leading me to wonder how someone could plant them in such a corrupt manner. However, the weakest of them all appeared to be one off to the right. Its branches grew increasingly thinner in its encroachment of the others, the trade off for each new height reached having ebbed away at its strength. The ends of its arms appear like spindly claws grasping around the others, initially desperate but increasingly envious, the tips of its branches sharpening in rue of its failures. Strange. I feel myself almost fearing it might become envious of our content and hurl its clutches at us.
Bringing me closer, Nik’s hand leaves my waist and travels up towards my head, running his fingers through my hair. The sensation of his touch remains pleasant until he encroaches the top of my scalp, to which the gesture becomes oddly foreboding. As I motion to move away, however, his hand inadvertently gets caught within the webs of my hair, pulling my hair.
First my heart palpitates, and then my hands and my heels push myself away from him, frantic in my sudden scramble until my eyes see his. He looks on with concerned bewilderment, uncertain why he just sustained a brief injury from me when he did nothing at all. Because it wasn’t him whose hand had yanked my hair.
“Ava, what’s wrong?” he asks worriedly, struggling to assess why tears had begun pooling in my eyes, why my nails were gripping the short blades of grass, and why my body was giving way to panicked, quick breaths. The truth is, I knew why. I knew that after Nik had left, and after having spent so long hearing nothing from him, that I had made my way back here to reminisce. I traversed the forest, strolled the pebble shore, and crossed the stream as we did so often together before, but to my knowledge, I was alone. Taking my seat at our grand oak tree, without Nik to sit beside me, I asked myself why he never wrote to me. Didn’t he love me? Did he forget about me? Or did he merely just lie to me? All these questions weaved in and out of my head, leaving me distracted to the footsteps that had made their encroachment towards me.
Emerging from his place hidden behind those same trees before us, like the coward that he was and is now, he waited until Nik had left before approaching me. Exactly the same manner he had encroached me at the ball. It started like it had recently with a conversation harmless enough - that is, until his intentions became more and more apparent. I realized all too late that he had followed me here with a purpose that, although I couldn’t ascertain the full extent to, I knew enough to run. Giving chase, he warned me of concern he had for if I might fall in my dash away from him, struggling past the stream Nik wasn’t there to help me across. I was then told that it was my fault that several strands of my hair had been yanked out in their grip. I was told that if I had only just relaxed, that my face wouldn’t of had to have been pressed into the dirt; that if I had only just listened, that I wouldn’t have sustained that mark along my arm; that if I had only been quiet, that I wouldn’t have broken my voice in my cries; and that if I had only been cooperative from the start, that it would have been less traumatic. And then he told me that I wouldn’t have remembered it at all, but here I was, remembering it all; and it was in that moment, on that day, and in that very forest, that I was no longer the girl that I had used to be.
“Nik,” I croak out, balancing my palms against the grass behind me.
“Yes, Ava? W-What is it?” he coaxes, hesitant to draw closer against his effort to console me.
“I want to go home,” I affirm in a quivering voice, crawling towards him and burying my head in his chest.
“A-Alright,” he concurs, swaddling me in his arms the rest of the way back to the estate.
End of Season 1
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