There's a strange sort of contradicting atmosphere when you go back to a place you've been before. At first, it feels empty. Eerie almost from the silence of returning. But then you hear someone laugh to your right and someone snap a picture to your left and suddenly, your mind is flooded with all the memories and moments you have in that place and all at once, the air is buzzing and the atmosphere turns full.
But then it goes. Quickly. Like you had it in your grasp and then you didn't. Just the way you suppose memories will always be. Coming and going in waves of nauseous nostalgia.
The dirt under your feet is red and sandy and instantly, you feel like your feet are suffocating in their flip-flops. You remove them slowly, taking time to step your soles into the warmth the evening sun has glowed upon the earth. The sand seeps between your toes and you feel better connected than you have in years.
You take a deep breath as you watch your feet mould themselves to the colour of the sand and you smile, remembering how it was always one of your favourite things about this place. The lids above your eyes close over them and you release your breath, stretching out your arms and your fingers and your toes.
There's a small ridge in front of you that looks directly out to the Namibian landscape, a cluster of mountains ahead rolling for miles and miles. The sun seems about to fall right behind them and so you move towards the ridge and take a seat, crossing your legs and taking another deep breath.
Your eyes are closed and the voices return again, louder than before and stronger than they have been in years, like they are right there with you. Rachel Berry's voice almost penetrates your ear drum in the worst way but the heaviness your heart seems to beat to makes your jaw slacken and your breath shake.
(Maybe this wasn't such a good idea.)
"Santana!" Rachel squeals, moving to sit beside you. The feel of her skin is rough and irritating but she's grown on you. "I was thinking tomorrow we should jog the enclosure patrol. What do you think?"
You wouldn't have thought it three weeks ago but this short brunette midget has become your friend and you find yourself nodding your head in time to your beating heart.
"Prepare for another loss, Berry." You reply, smirking the way you always do. "Imma whip your ass the moment that sun rises."
Rachel rolls her eyes but accepts the challenge nonetheless. She's fit and she's a challenge even to your athletic body but you're learning to be a personal trainer so what does she expect?
"You're on, Lopez." She gets up to leave. "We meet at dawn."
You take another breath and her voice disappears into the sunset before you in rippling echoes. The evening birds sing around where you're perched, the crickets doing their best to perform Tchaikovsky with their back legs. It is just like how you remember and as you exhale, you feel you heart quicken to the same speed as the cricket's legs just the same way it sped before.
Because you almost feel her before you see her.
She's warm. Hesitant. Incredibly anxious.
You hold out your hand even before she's said hello and if you weren't still smirking from your conversation with Berry, you'd have blushed at how eager you looked to introduce yourself.
(Really, you just wanted to hold her hand. See what she felt like to touch.)
"You're new." Are the first words you ever say to her, as you look her up and down, wondering how someone can get away with pulling off a white t-shirt with a yellow duck on the front the way she so effortlessly was.
(It was hard to resist calling her 'baby' the moment she stared into your eyes.)
"Yeah," She breaths, the cutest smile upon her freckly face as she takes your hand. She gestures next to you. "May I sit down?"
Still holding her hand, you nod and whisper the faintest, "sure," and watch as she gracefully lowers herself to your left, her denim cut-offs touching your blue elephant hippy pants.
"I'm Brittany," She greets, shaking your hand. You shake back and then regretfully let go. "Do you always go barefoot?"
You turn sharply to your feet and giggle. "Yeah, I guess I do." When you look back at Brittany, she's giggling.
"Nice to meet you, Barefoot Blue Pants."
And you don't even bother to feel offended since her eyes are dancing and her lip is nipped between her teeth in a way that tells you you're fucked.
A breeze pushes into your neck, blowing your hair over your left shoulder and past your collarbone. You open your eyes for a moment, embracing the sudden coldness of the silence as the sun disappears between where the sky meets the earth. The blue is tainted with strokes of orange as the first couple of stars sprout from their hiding places like freshly blooming flowers in the spring.
You smile at how easy it is to feel eighteen again.
"Barefoot," She calls as your eyes close into the sunset. Her voice is like pollen and you are the bee. "Are you meditating again? I keep interrupting you, I'm sorry, I'll go back, I-"
"Brittany," You whisper, keeping your eyes closed but holding your palm out for her. The moment she takes it you feel better again. "Come sit with me."
She falls to your left but you pause her.
"No," You say, patting the space in front of your crossed legs. "Here."
The heat from your day's work walking baboons and cleaning enclosures and game counting radiates off her back like the sun. You widen your legs around her and feel your heart jump as she places her palms on your knees.
"Breathe," You instruct, placing your hands shakily on her waist. "Head over heart, heart over pelvis and think of nothing else but the way it feels to be this close to the earth."
She breathes before you and you steal a moment to open your eyes. Her neck is long and her hair is tied in a messy knot, straggles of blonde falling like spiral fireworks along her spine.
"Do I have to place my hands like Rafiki on my knees when I do this?" She asks, giggling. You giggle too.
"No," You reply, gripping her waist. "You don't even have to sit up. Are you tired?"
"I'm good." Comes her instant response.
There's a beat and a pause before Brittany speaks again. "If I turn around, will it be okay if I kiss you?"
It's darker now and you know you should probably get back but the stars are shining and they're blinking at you like they're remembering too. You smile up at them, inhaling right into your toes and out again, biting your lip at the familiar scent of wood and the tart sweetness of rhubarb.
You can hear the lions in the background and occasionally, the baboons grunting out a disagreement with their scrunched up faces and wildly intelligent eyes. You smile.
Your fingers find the silver band on your left fourth finger and twist it around. You grin down at it.
Her fingers are so soft, you wonder if she's even touching you. But your hand is pumping and your heart is running and all you can hear is Brittany's breath in time with yours.
She kisses your palm, and then your wrist, working her way right up to your shoulder. She's cold from where the moon has risen and the night air has landed upon her skin in goosebumps, so your sky blue hooded sweatshirt is hugging her upper body like an extra embrace in winter.
You can only see the shadows of the mountains ahead of you but as she sits beside you, you can't help but fall in love. Her hair falls beside her cheek like a veil and you find your free hand leaning up to tuck it behind her ear.
She looks at you and smiles. You smile back and lean forward to kiss her.
"I love you," She whispers in your mouth.
"I choose you," You say back. She frowns and pulls back.
"I choose you." You repeat, stretching out her scrunched eyebrows. "For the rest of my life, I choose you. I want you. Just you. You're the one I want to be with forever. The one I want. The one I am frighteningly in love with."
She leans forward and captures your lips so softly you feel like you're floating.
"Marry me," She sighs into your mouth as she slips off your t-shirt.
"Okay." You whisper into your wedding ring, closing your eyes and sighing.
It's completely dark now and the stars are shining like glitters been thrown into space. You wonder if she can see them too.
The ridge feels empty. Finished. Terribly quiet.
You can't help but choke out a single sob.
Your hand rises to your mouth in surprise as you try and hold back another one but the pressure in your chest is greater than your breath and soon your shoulders are shaking with the largest need to release.
The moon hovers to your right and you can see the face she always pointed out glowing down on you like a guardian angel. The wind blows again and the leaves rustle, falling gently over where you sit. You wipe away your tears, take a deep breath and let it slowly out. The blue elephant pants you wear are twelve years too tight and as you stand up, your bones click and you wonder why getting old had to start so young.
This time, Rachel's voice really does penetrate your ears but in an awfully lovely way.
"San?" She calls cautiously, the wind taking half her power away. She's leaning over the balcony of the lodge house a hundred yards behind the ridge where you stand. She asks with her eyes what you know she cannot say with her voice.
You hold your thumb up, pursing your lips together, and she smiles lovingly. She bends down slightly as the wind vanishes, her mouth moving and indicating you. Moments later, you see a mop of deep golden hair running towards you, a kitchen towel wrapped tight around her little body.
"Hey Little B, what have you got there?" You ask, bending down and letting the child fall into your arms.
"Look, Mama, look!" She squeaks, folding open the kitchen towel and revealing the tiniest baby baboon you'd ever seen. You gasp, feeling your eyes well up again at how similar your wife and your baby look right in this moment. "Auntie Rachel says we should name him Barefoot. Do you like that name, Mama?"
You smile and stroke the baby baboon's soft head. "I love that name, sweetie. I love that name so much."
You look up and see Rachel standing on the balcony, her head in her hands and smiling. You wink at her and she winks back. Your best friend is a genius.
"Is Barefoot staying with us whilst we're here, Little B?" You ask, lifting her up onto your hip.
"He's going to live in this tea towel and spend all day with me for the rest of the days we are here. Even when I have to get in the bath." She answers, her bright blue eyes sparkling with so much happiness. "Because that's what Mummy would have done."
Your heart splits in two as a smile erupts from your lips.
"Listen," She continues to the baby baboon, pointing at you, "this is my Mama - sometimes she gets frightened of baboons but it's okay, she won't hurt you. Want to know how I know? Because over there," she says, pointing to where the sun set earlier, "that's where my Mummy is and Mummy would never let Mama get scared of anything so don't you worry. We'll make sure you stay safe."
Your daughter is an angel.
You hug her closer to you as she continues to tell the baby baboon about Brittany and although she's miles away from anywhere close to you, she's so near to the two of you right now that as the wind blows once again around you, you swear you can hear a faint whisper as the leaves falling off the trees get blown over the ridgeway and into the horizon.
"Nice to meet you, Barefoot Blue Pants."