The grass in the meadow at the edge of the woods was tall, untended, and swayed gently in the afternoon breeze. I lay in the field amongst the dancing blades naked, supine, relishing in the feeling of the sun heating my skin.
The sun in the meadow was unlike any sunlight I'd known since escaping the fire. The sunlight I'd met in the woods, on the road, was weak and tepid, watery, even when it shone down through the leaves of the trees between rain showers. The sun of the forest never warmed my skin, but often made it tickle and itch with the promise of, the desire for, something more.
When I'd wandered into the meadow, I'd found my more.
The sun in the meadow was fierce; hot and strong like a passionate warrior, battling through the clouds, through the rain, through the darkness to reach his lover, the meadow. And when he found her, when the war separating them was won, he conquered her, loved her – he kiss her with heat, caressed her with his rays, watched her come alive under his influence. I couldn't blame the meadow for her surrender – I was half in love with this warrior sun myself. His heat stirred me, brought forth images of vast, empty spaces, dry, brown mountains, hot and cold valleys. Sparkling in the rays of sunlight, my body warm, my eyes closed, I didn't know and didn't care whether these images were fantasy or reality. I didn't give a damn whether they were memories, dreams, or something imagined. All I knew in that moment was satisfaction. Everything else I would think about later.
I stretched languidly, like a cat in the sun, and relaxed into the ground. I breathed deeply, nearly purring out my pleasure, and let the smells of the meadow wash over me. The breeze rustling the grasses carried scents and forfeited the secrets of objects, creatures, hidden beneath the flora and verdure. I could smell the nest of rabbits twenty yards to my right, huddled silently in their hole, sleeping. I could smell the field mice, running noisily, playing field mice games near the fallen log that had escaped the forest. I could smell the snake slithering just an arm's length from my feet, moving quietly, stealthily, no doubt on his way to make the field mice his dinner. In the meadow, I was in heaven - warm and content, happy.
I low rumble met my ears a while later and I let my head loll to the side, my ear to the sky, listening. After a long moment of torn focus, I recognized the sound - an engine, getting closer by the second.
I frowned toward the sun, eyes closed against the brightness.
There wasn't a road near the meadow, of that I was sure. Since there wasn't a road, I couldn't predict where the vehicle was coming from or where it might be going. Unwilling to leave behind the meadow, the sunlight, my contentment, I lay still. Until I heard the engine cut off and a door slam shut. The smell of blood set my throat aflame.
"Really, Josh? This is where you bring me?" I was on my feet and into the cool shadows of the tree line in a second.
"What?" said a male voice on a laugh, "This isn't private enough for you?"
The girl huffed. "Yeah, it's private enough. But there are probably snakes and things." My eyes flickered to the big log where the snake had just downed its second mouse. The others had scattered. My eyes flicked back toward the voices just as the couple came into my line of sight.
The girl was a young, a dirty blonde, with round hips and small breasts. The boy, Josh, was a little older, maybe a year or two, with a fleshy stomach, dark hair and glasses. They tromped through the meadow holding hands.
"Snakes and things," Josh scoffed, using the girl's arm and momentum to turn her so she was standing in front of him. He circled her waist with this arms and lowered his mouth to hers, barely brushing their lips together. "I'm sure I can protect you from snakes and things." His lips met hers again, the contact longer and more fevered than the last, and I cocked my head at them from the tree line. The passion, the heat behind that simple touch . . . was familiar. I'd had that.
I scraped my nails over the ache in my chest, my bare skin still warm from the sun, eyes trained on the couple. My mind scrambled to fill in the blanks, to supply the memory that came with the action, but I came up empty. I scowled at them from the forest.
The girl hummed her assent, her pleasure, breaking the kiss just long enough to pull her shirt over her head. Josh's thick fingers set to work the second her lips were pressed back to his and he dropped her bra into the high grass a moment later. His lips were on her breast in a flash. The girl threw her head back, arching into his mouth, long hair streaming behind her as she moaned skyward.
The aching in my chest lessened when their lips weren't touching and I found my fingertips ghosting over my own bare nipple, trying to stir something familiar. My fingers brought forth nothing – no feelings, no memories, no sense of déjà vu – and I dropped my hand, angry, frustrated. The fire in my throat pulsed, burned hotter.
In the sixty-four days since I'd escaped the fire, I'd learned, remembered, a lot of things. Most of the things, such as how long to microwave popcorn, were total nonsense and completely useless to me. Where the hell did I find a microwave and why would I make popcorn? But the things I wanted to remember, the things that kept me searching, thinking, straining to recall day after day, were obscured by a fog, locked and hidden away from my conscious mind. It was on the rare occasion when my mind strayed, when I stopped examining the few remnants of memories that I'd managed to snag, that something new, something that had been locked away, would break free.
Unfortunately, dragging my mind away from thoughts that consumed was more than a little difficult.
Josh redirected his attention suddenly, moving from pressing his lips against the girl's chest to her mouth. The ache in my chest flared again when their lips met and I dug my nails into the skin over the pain. I growled when I felt my skin break under my nails but didn't reduce the pressure.
"Unzip your pants, baby," Josh breathed, breaking their kiss to pull his shirt over his head. His torso was much paler than his arms and face, his skin under his shirt only a few shades darker than my own.
"Not until you say it," his girlfriend whispered back, flicking open the button on her jeans and waiting, her bare chest just inches from his. He pulled her flush against him and leaned in for another kiss, this one soft, longing, loving.
The ache in my chest turned to pain, flaring white-hot, forcing out the air from my lungs. Rage erupted and spread, burning its way through me, intensifying the fire in my throat and making my fingers tingle. I stared at the joined couple with such intensity I was surprised I didn't set them aflame with my gaze alone.
I would take him first, I decided. He brought them here, causing this pain, ruining my afternoon. It was him who drove off the road, started the kissing, wanted to be naked. It was him I would drink first. Then I would have her.
He broke the kiss and looked down at the girl with an expression I couldn't place. His words were so soft, so tender, I almost didn't hear them over my own thoughts. "I love you, Charlie," he whispered passionately, reverently. I stopped short, crouched within the tree line, just a second from tearing into them both.
Abruptly, from nowhere, memories broke loose.
A dark headed man in a living room, feet kicked up, sports game on TV, pictures of a brunette girl smiling at him from the mantle.
A tidy kitchen with bright yellow cabinets and a mismatched dining set.
The smell of sweat and fear in the darkness. An embrace, the smell of aftershave. Love, comfort, and safety all back-lit by a light just outside the door.
Kind eyes, caring eyes, a deep brown, both worried and crinkling around the corners in pleasure.
Fish . . . everywhere fish, toted into the kitchen by the cooler full by a man with a shoulder holster and a mustache.
I gasped, replacing the air sucked out of me with rage, bringing my free hand to cover the one already digging into the skin at my chest.
I knew that man, that place.
The couple in the meadow forgotten, I turned and darted into the forest.