Where the Wildflowers Grow

Chapter One

Land stretched out far as the eye could see and kissed the sky out ahead as if the world were flat and precariously curved at the same time. Endlessly connected and lying low, like a patchwork quilt of blue and white, the cloud shapes hovered and languished in the early morning, low enough to capture in her hands.

Still and quiet, the wind made no sound, just tiptoed over the flowers like a dance of ghosts. Moisture was everywhere she looked, clinging to the flower petals like tears. Moisture too was on her eyelids and her belly, and her legs were slippery and stuck together like a suction cup. The whole world was alive with purple flowers; it was recklessly wide, the world, and covered in a ground of yellow and white.

She kissed the boy’s neck, salty against her tongue. His deep brown hair stuck to his flesh like wet pieces of string. A small pool of sweat sat at the tip of his nose, a glistening puddle about to fall and splatter into her eyes.

His breath was sapid, like ginger candy, and his heart pounded wildly. She had the thought that he would fly away, propelled by the beating of his heart. She met his eyes, intensely dark, yet crinkling up at the corners in an offering of fondness and of pleasure.

There were no regrets for what they’d done, what they’d been doing all summer long, ever since she’d found the condoms. He’d slipped inside her easy like, and she held the grass in her hand and pulled it up as she opened for him like a kaleidoscope turning. He was pumping her, and she was losing all sight, all knowledge. Feeling was absolute; feeling was a sovereign drug, overtaking thought. Her legs shook under him as if the blood were leaving, and her heart beat as fast as his.