Bora tangled our fingers as he guided me into the forest. Parts of me can not believe this is him. That deflated skin and black vein images of him keep resurfacing like an obsessive abuser who wants to remind me what could happen if I am not careful. I try to block it out of my mind, but my knees fall numb from it, treading on air. So lost in the before and trying to catch up to the now. Every part of him is real. Or is it a sick dream that I will soon wake up from? I stare at him, so alive and well. I can't stop staring.

Are you him? What if — I took the tips of my fingernails, placed them on his shoulders, clutched and dug into his skin down his arm, doing as hard as I could to feel the realness of his flesh as my heart feels like it's surviving on the Speed drug. My stomach is in knots, shoulder tension in my neck, and no toes. He did not flinch. I watched it heal from scratch and looked up at him as he gazed lovingly at me with a smile. "Trust me, I am real, Gemma."

"Just checking." We awkwardly stared at each other as I saw the distance and hesitation between us. A gap that I should close with immediate attention. A sense of excitement I couldn't bear to hold any longer as I leaped into his arms like a baby monkey. He caught me squeezing tightly as I buried into his neck with tears yet so many doubts, but he felt very much alive. A little bulkier than what I remember, but it must be him. It has to be. "Okay, I think I will behave." I tried to get down, but he pushed me back up, holding me up by my buns.

I eyed him with surprise, trying to suppress my tiny smirk. "Nonsense. You never have to behave with me," with his, how dare you say that look, followed by a soothing gaze with those thick eyebrows, putting more emphasis on all his expressional feelings. I felt the urge to apologize for how I made him feel, but I thought if I did, it might offend him.

"Okay," was all I could mention as I wrapped around his neck comfortably in this position, withholding my inner excitement.

"You also don't have to hide from me." He squeezed it a little as my smashed lips hardened my cheeks, trying not to blush. Jeez, I forgot he can sense my emotions like second nature. What a nosy ass man. Yeah, it's him alright, his nose is always seeking inside my body. I love it. It makes communication easier and I never have to guess with him. I could regularly grasp it even the day he left. I knew he didn't want to, but yet, I let him. That's over now. There is no need to dwell on the past. We are okay now.

I understood his reasoning, but it was the hardest thing I ever had to face. I hope we never go back there.

"Stop worrying, Gemma."

"I'm trying." I softly whispered, confiding the rest of my emotions into him.

Deep into the evening, where the hearing is a replacement for the eyes to locate the next meal. And the animals that try to survive through the night, taken from your homes while resting. Bora leads me further in, wondering where we are going as it eerily gets silent with wrestling leaves dropping small hard things from its branches as I flinch to see where it landed.

"This way." He turns a sharp corner through the tree tunnel as I try to stay close behind.

"Couldn't this have waited?"

"Why so scared when I am here?"

"Not entirely sold on that yet. You might be a ghost leading me to my devastating end."

"Ha-ha. Hilarious." He comes up to a vine wall and sweeps it to the side of a dark opening. "Ladies first." I look at him and then the opening and him again.

"You always got me going into weird places."

"Come on Gemma, you will love it, I promise." His eyes were promising.

"Okay." I held a comforting smile as he helped me up the roots of a tree that covered the entrance grounds. This time I was ahead while he followed behind through lanky woods. We arrived in the middle of this place, it was a small paddock with dewy green grass and surroundings of trees with no path but the one we came in. It was well-lit as I gazed up, seeing the Milky Way flowing of its starry river across the sky. "You remembered."

"Of course. Your eyes always looked beyond the horizon."

I turned to him with an unbelievable chuckle, and still could not believe he was back from the dead. I faced forward while the wind swept my hair to one side of my shoulder, trekking through the high grass. My next step led up thousands of fireflies that scattered into the air so brightly it took over the skylight. In the middle of winter? How? Bora brought me near to his chest, protective, as he knew this wasn't normal. Especially in Colorado. Although I couldn't deny the beauty and the warming feeling in my heart.

I gazed upward at him as he still inspected them while I measured the shape of his jawline towards his perfectly shaped lips and my love for his butterscotch eyes that found mine in a heartbeat. "I think they are harmless. No need to worry."

"I wasn't worried."

He took me in for a moment, staring. His smooth movement with his thumb placed at the corner of my mouth, cuffing my cheeks to caress across them. "This isn't the first time fireflies have surrounded us." He moved it to free my lips. "They didn't belong in Iowa either."

"What are you trying to say?"

"That maybe it is a symbol of our reunion."

"I see." Our gaze remained still, feeling my back warm and tense. He owns my existence bursting with a sensation shooting through my chest and cheeks. How deeply have I longed for this? How I thought I would never have it again. He combs his fingers through my roots, cradling my neck as he brings me into his soft lips, deepening with more passion, different from our last time. Still, it is him, just more confident when he touches me, more familiar with himself. Though it was never hard for him to get my attention, amateur or not, he was easy on me. I know his strength could break me in half. Not that I would mind.

This night is taking a full swing as we burst into the home doors, undoing pants while they hit the floor in desperate need, like an untamed teenage love. He smells of the expensive Salem aroma that is driving me insane. I tried to pull him toward the bedroom, but he pulled me back, pressing me on the kitchen island, filling up inside my sweatshirt. He sat me on top of the counter, hungry, occupying my in-between. "I need you." He whispered, treading, kissing along my neck, freeing me from my restrictions to accept my love.

The knocking knees on the base doors and the open window where the breeze fills the room with the sweet scent of the tulip pot on the windowsill. His lips on mine taste so good. I bet every living thing can hear me sing out his name from miles in as I receive his force of nature in my essence. It's a dream. The love and passion in my curled toes and sweaty thighs run through my body like an electric wave as I release all the pinned-up emotions of losing him. My worries went into the air and dispersed into fading tiny lights that would no longer burn me.

We wasted nothing to show each other how much we missed each other. That gap in time has been filled as though it never happened. "Never leave me again," I whispered as we lay in bed. He squeezed my back to his chest and spooned me.

"I won't. You are my life."

"Promise?"

"I promise." As he turned my chin, to twist tongues with him.

We were rabbits the rest of the night, unable to get any sleep. But who needs it? We can sleep when we die. Let me not say that out loud. He is going to protest about it like he did a few hours ago. Babe, your body is tired. We should stop. Blah. My body was fine. I step forward, legs feel wobbly as I hold the counter where I sat. Maybe I should clean that. I giggle at myself, boiling a pot of water for my mushroom coffee.

I keep reminiscing about it in a trance. Oh, how I want to go again when he comes back. "You're still alive?" Carina walked in, slapping a skinned, dead duck on top of the spot.

Confusion had me at a halt. "Good morning to you."

"The way you sounded last night, I thought someone was killing you."

"Wait, you heard me?"

"Sweetheart, the entire forest heard you. It made Malinda and Adam dip." She laughed, snorting over the duck with a butcher knife in her hand.

"You guys left?"

"I mean, it was at a respectful distance. Quinn is trauma-free. By the way, I am going to strangle your brother." She chopped the duck's neck, and I flinched. "If he asks me one more time to have his baby so it can be a quarterback for the Ravens, whatever the hell that means? I am planning to feast on him."

"Well, don't say that last part. He might take it the wrong way." I chuckled, but she didn't catch my joke as we looked at each other, lost. "Anyway, it's good seeing you."

"Awe you too."

She was walking toward me for a hug, but I stepped back. "I would hug you." I pointed at the duck and knife in her hands. "But kind of occupied."

"Oh, yeah." She laughed a little, wiping her nose at the reach of her upper arm.

"Ah, what the heck." I hugged her anyway as she kept her arms away, only giving me her cheek on my head. A loud bang from outside made us jump from each other. "What was that?"

https://youtu.be/esoeRwGJMLI