I nodded.
“It’s okay, I can think of a few ways to get warm.”
I bit my lip to stop from giggling, already feeling warmer.
Under the crystal clear water, I saw David’s feet for the first time, and smiled. It’s kinda funny how seeing someone’s feet can make them seem less mysterious; how it can make it easier to imagine them beside yours in a bed or in the kitchen while you make breakfast. But seeing his feet would only make it harder for me to cope when the winter came.
David’s toes kicked up a swirl of sand, which spread out like a brown cloud—hiding our feet completely. My fingers tightened around his again.
“Are you afraid?” he asked, looking at my hand.
“A little,” I said.
“Please, don’t be. I won’t hurt you,” he said softly.
“I know. That’s not what I’m afraid of.” I laughed.
“Then, what is it?”
“I’m just afraid of what it’s going to feel like when I can’t hold your hand anymore.”
He sighed, and a hint of a smile angled the corners of his mouth. “Well, it’s not goodbye, Ara. Not yet.”
I moved my head in a nod—feeling detached and outside reality.
“Are you gonna let that get wet?” He motioned to the edges of my dress, slightly touching the water. “I won’t look if you want to lift it up a little.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said, regretting it as soon as the water soaked in.
Ahead of us, a thick moss blanket smothered the lake at the base of the island. We waded through, parting it with our fingers, like cheese on a pizza, until the steep, muddy slopes of the banks halted us with warding trees, leaning out like diagonal spears. David curled his palm around a branch and hoisted himself onto it. I waited in the water, imagining all the slimy things that might be lurking under the green, sludgy moss.
“Don’t worry.” David reached down from his perch, grinning. “The worst thing out here is me.”
“Well, in that case—” I took his hand, “—maybe I should be worrying about my heart instead of my toes.”
“You just let me worry about your heart, mon amour.” He yanked me from the lake in one fluid movement, swinging me onto the sloped shore; the soil sunk and shifted into a small mound between my toes; I scrunched them together, looking up at the knitted crown of yellow and green leaves. I felt so closed in, with low-lying shrubs and ferns at my feet and flowering vines covering nearly every other surface from floor to canopy.
“It’s amazing under here.”
“I know.” David tucked his bunched-up shirt into the waistband of his jeans.
“I feel like I’m in my own little cubby hole.”
“Yes. It’s very hidden here. No one can see us, not even if they were flying over.”
“Hm. Comforting.”
He laughed. “Come on, I’ll take you to my favourite spot.”
As we walked, my toes tangled in the carpet of loose-leafed clover. I lifted my feet a little higher with each step and placed them flat over the creepers, stabilising myself with my hand on the mossy tree trunks. It all smelled so moist, in a hot but dry kind of way.
“Just watch out for these little terrors—they’ll give you a nasty scratch.” David reached forward to shift the furry, silvery arm of a fern from our path.
“Speak from experience, do we?” I said playfully.
“Yes.” He held it in place, dropping it softly back against the hip of the tree after I passed. “My brother and I used to play here as children.”
I could actually picture that, too; little David, with a companion of exact look-alike, popping up above the bushes, pretending to shoot each other. “I bet you were a cute little boy.”
“Stunning,” he said, then pointed ahead. “Look up there.”
My eyes followed the vertical columns of maples to a deliciously colourful display of twisting climbers, shrouded with palm-sized purple and white flowers. “Wow. They look like purple cherry blossoms.”
“Want one?”
“Oh, no. It’s okay. They’re too high u—”
David grinned, then ran to the base of a tree trunk, took a small leap, wedging his foot against the bark, and plucked a flower from a vine six or seven feet off the ground. “For you,” he said, landing back beside me.
“Thank you.” I sniffed its sour, grassy fragrance. And it was only as I tucked my hair back, placing the flower behind my ear, that I really noticed the vibrant songs of possibly thousands of different birds and small animals, chiming through the treetops like a symphony. “It’s kinda noisy here, isn’t it?”
“It’s a kind of noise I can handle.”
“And what, my talking isn’t?
He looked sideways at me; I turned my face to the front and kept walking—well, shuffling, through the thick undergrowth.
“Would you like me to carry you?”
“I’m fine.” I straightened the flower behind my ear. “But, how much further do we have to walk?”
“Just to right…over…there.” He pointed to a small circle of long grass, centre to a ring of tightly packed trees, with a single beam of sunlight making the busy movements of tiny insects look like sparkles. “Come on.” He took my hand.
“Do you come here often?” I asked.
“Not so much anymore.”
“Why?”
“I used to come here to reflect on the miseries of my life.” He kicked a few stones away from the grass and plonked down on his side. “Last few weeks I haven’t needed to.”
I sat down, too, hugging my knees to keep the moist, tickly grass off the backs of my thighs. “This would be a great spot to bring a book.” I could imagine that warm beam of sunlight overhead lighting the pages for me, just enough that I wouldn’t need to squint. It made me wish I’d brought one with me, but it was great just sitting here—with David.
“I have a box here, buried, where I keep books for when I visit unexpectedly.”
“Really?”
He nodded. “But, right now, it’s great just sitting here.” He sat up, resting his arms over his knees, leaning a little closer. “With you.”
“I was just thinking that.” I looked away from his ultra-cheeky grin. “Sometimes I feel like you steal my thoughts.”
“How do you know I don’t?”
I shook my head, smiling. “That’s just the thing, I’m starting to wonder if—”