Author's Chapter Notes:
A/N: This was inspired by A Light on A Hill by Margot & the Nuclear So and So's. Also, I've taken some liberties with how cold it might actually be at night in the fall in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
Also, I own nothing.
***
They wake up in the grass of his back yard, their eyes unknowingly opening themselves right as the other’s do. They silently watch the early morning sun move, rising gracefully up and up, turning the world rose colored. There’s devastation in her curls catching the light and the air, flames licking at his face, promising to burn. He closes his eyes again. His arm has lost its feeling from the weight of her body, but his fingers still feel themselves all tangled up in hers. They tighten and release, tighten and release. Like his heart’s beating, like reassurance, like the light autumn breeze as it comes and goes.
She turns toward him. Her skin is warm in the sun and she blinks to shake the sleep from her eyes until they’re a sharp green. Her body settles in a new position still trapping his arm, but her fingers leave his. She’s looking up at him on her back. He misses her fingers and her curls and the quiet unawareness of the waking world, when he couldn’t see her face and they could both pretend sleep was still holding them.
The remnants of the night before are found only in nearby discarded bottles, the dryness of his mouth, and the unfocused lens through which his memory is being played. She had stayed. After everyone else was gone, she had stayed. Not for the first time, the concept quickens his heart and he breathes in deep through his nose to stop the surge of love, lust, life.
The stars had been swirling around in the sky above them. Their mouths had been laughing as they fell backwards onto the ground. Their bodies had stilled and sobered with the cold earth beneath them. He had turned onto his side and pressed his forehead to her shoulder. His mouth had formed those three words, unplanned and unstoppable. Her mouth had frowned slightly, stayed silent. They had fallen asleep.
Her lips part now, about to speak, but they stop and stay open. She is golden and alive here in the morning grass with her lips parted and her face open to him. He feels his entire body being pulled toward her, aching to touch, to feel the soft warmth of her skin. So he bends his head, presses his lips to hers.
He waits and her lips press back. Softly, quietly, over and over. It doesn’t deepen and she doesn’t touch him. He still feels it all in every part of him. She makes a tiny noise in the back of her throat, stops and pulls away. She shuts her eyes tight for a moment. He watches her eyelashes fanning out against lightly freckled cheeks. The fingertips of his right hand reach out and brush against her cheekbone. Lightly, a whisper of a touch. He’s afraid of pushing too hard.
At the feeling of his fingers, her eyes open slowly. The color in them has changed to a deeper, more inviting green. He presses his palm against her cheek, runs his thumb along her skin. She opens her mouth to speak again, but doesn’t. Instead, she turns her face and presses it into his hand. Her lips brush against his skin as she turns her head.
She says, “Sorry,” into the center of his palm. Her voice is quiet, sweet but sharp. She sits up and starts to stand. She untangles her awkward unused limbs from themselves, from the ground, from him. He sits up as well, his left arm finally waking up, though still feeling the pressure of her body pressing down. It’s all needles and numbness and fails to successfully push him up from the grass.
By the time he gets himself standing, she’s walking towards the gate at the side of the house. She doesn’t turn around as she unlatches the gate, steps out into the driveway. She folds her arms across her chest in the face of the sudden chilly air and walks across the street, climbs into her car, drives home.
Alone in the yard, he looks down at the ground. The grass is pressed flat where their bodies had been.
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