Page 5 of Dove
She reaches down, takes my hand in some sort of conspiratorial grip, and starts talking, and as she does, the plan takes shape around us. It's a fluffy, bubblegum-flavored thing, full of hiding and leaving something out as a trap, then videoing the aftermath, and by the time she's finished telling it, she's giggling so hard she can barely contain herself, the mirth fizzing out of her like she's made of soda pop.
And I'm laughing too, because even though I see approximately eleventy-three plot holes in her plan, the bubblesfrom her soda pop are infectious enough to have me feeling half-drunk myself.
"One of these days, you're going to be the death of me with these plans," I say, breathless with laughter.
She turns and brushes her lips across my cheek, the touch so quick, so light and airy, that for a moment I think I must have imagined it. The flush of my skin, though, tells me otherwise. My brain might have been too slow to notice when it was happening, but my body wasn't. Every nerve ending has lit up with a soft, hazy glow that makes me feel like I've become a dandelion. All fluff and delicate, overly sensitive blossoms, fluttering in the wind and ready to blow into a million pieces.
Christ.
"I would never, ever let you die on me," she whispers. "If anything ever went wrong, you're the first person I'd save."
Christ again. Christ doubled.
Suddenly, though, her hand shoots up over our heads, her pointer finger out toward the clouds above us, and she switches subjects again.
"What's that one?"
I look up at where she's pointing and try to orient myself again. Put my roots down into the ground below us and tether myself to the earth rather than her joy. Biting my lip, I remind myself where we are: our favorite mountain meadow, high above town. We come here when we need to get out of the hustle and bustles of Hawke's Wood. When the gossip of the town and the intrusive eyes of our neighbors become too much. Sammy and I have both grown up in a whirlwind of drama–not only because of Bear, but also because my mother fled town when I was seven, leaving me alone, and Sammy's mother died when we were only fourteen. Bear married Sammy's mother when we were seven and forced us to become a family right after my mother left, and between Sammy and me...
Well, I guess we keep the town gossips gossiping.
And sometimes escaping that is the only way we can maintain our sanity.
Up here, the sky is larger and the air more open, the land softer and quieter. There are only trees and birds to watch us, with the occasional deer and cougar. The top of the mountain rears up on one side, with a valley dropping below us on the other, and I've always felt like I could either scream into the void or sit and keep my voice inside, and either would be just fine with the grass and trees and flowers.
They don't expect me to perform. Don't have a specific idea of who I should be or what I should think. And they sure as hell aren't going to turn to the woman standing next to them and mutter about what a poor boy I am, with both a mother and father who deserted him.
This is peace, and when I brought Sammy here for the first time, it immediately became our place.
I look to my left again and find her staring at me like she's thinking the same thing, her fair, freckled face softer than usual. Her large, gray eyes consider me seriously, the color of a dove's wing, and when a black curl blows across her face, I reach out to smooth it away.
"Cameron," she whispers, and I think for a moment that she knows what's sitting on my heart, heavy and dense and Sammy-shaped.
Then she speaks again. "The cloud."
Oh, right.
I turn from her and look at the cloud she pointed out, trying to turn my mind away from the way the her skin shines like she's got the moon inside of her to the game we're playing. It's one of our favorites–giving names and identities to the clouds–but she's evidently started playing it before I was ready.
No surprise, there.
The cloud above us is broad and flat, with two pieces that stretch to the sides and a ripple of color moving through it, and I stare up, trying to focus on it, but see only the coloration. Gray and blue, shades of silver around the edges. Gray like a bird in the sunlight.
Gray like a dove.
"A bird," I whisper, before I can think about it. "A dove."
She snorts.
"Wrong. It's a dragon. One that's ready to take on the world if he needs to. Ready to protect the damsel in distress, the moment she asks him to. And even if she doesn't. You lose."
My mouth drops open and I stare at the cloud, trying to see past the dove and toward the dragon, but before I can respond, she's on her feet and sprinting away, giggling again.
I sit up and follow her with my eyes, confused. "Where the fuck are you going?"
"The bridge!" she shouts. "And if I get there first, I'm jumping without you!"
I don't even think. I get to my feet and sprint after her, stretching my legs as long as they can go and pumping them desperately, my heart pounding and the breath short in my lungs. Because I also knowthatgame, and I know the rules.
