In the fall, she opens her mouth in laughter towards the sky as leaves crunch beneath her feet. And then she looks at you, her hands pulling back like two turtle heads into the sleeves of her jacket, and you’re counting days and weeks and months together. Not really together though. Friends, working on getting to something more, but trying hard to get back to where you used to be. It’s slow going, but you don’t mind really because she sometimes falls asleep against you on your couch, drool on your shirt, and it’s enough for now.
While you’re counting time, she’s counting leaves left on trees and noting their color and shape and how the sunlight passes through them.
“Jim,” she says louder than the first time because you’re transfixed by four months and three weeks and four days of her. She’s holding a leaf by its stem between her thumb and index finger and she takes a few steps closer to you and touches one of the leaf’s points to your nose, smiling, grinning, her skin glowing with October sun.
“This is the one,” she says, holding the leaf close to your face.
The corners of your mouth don’t listen to you anymore.
“This one?” You take it from her hands and turn it over, pretending to examine all of its details closely.
“Yes, this one,” she says, “Now be careful. I can’t have you tearing up my homework assignment.”
The leaf is large and red with a spot of yellow coming up from the bottom. You hand it back to her, resisting the urge to run its smooth surface against her cheek. You think she’d laugh at you for it, but really you just want to see her blush beneath this canopy of gold and ruby.
“It’s perfect,” you tell her and her eyes can barely contain her pure elation over something as mundane as this leaf.
And so after four months, three weeks, and four days, you put your hands on her face and kiss her hard as cool autumn air rushes over the exposed skin of your wrists and your fingers. But you’re warm and she smells like crisp Macintosh apples as she stands on her toes to reach you with the leaf still held carefully between her thumb and index finger.
You pull back, trailing your fingers along her jaw line.
“Sorry,” you murmur, your face still close to hers, her eyes still closed.
She doesn’t say a word or open her eyes or anything, just tilts her head up towards yours to find your mouth again. You hear the slick sound of damp leaves against the soles of her shoes as she moves closer and for a minute you’re worried about the leaf, losing it, her dropping it. You almost stop her to say, “Hold on, maybe I should put that in my pocket or something,” but then her lips are pressing softly against yours and you forget about leaves and there’s just her.
Then she’s pulling back and the hand that isn’t still holding onto that leaf is sliding from your shoulder, down along your arm until she finds your wrists and holds onto it. You look down between you and, “Shit. We, uh, tore your leaf a little.” And then, “Sorry.”
She looks down at the leaf and laughs a little, “Doesn’t matter, there are plenty of other leaves around,” she says, letting go of it and you both watch it dance in the wind for a second before dropping back to the ground, adhering itself to a clump of wet leaves.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Thought I'd post this here since I only posted it on livejournal when I first wrote it.
unfold is the author of 102 other stories.
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