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ˢᵒᵐᵉᵗⁱᵐᵉ ⁱⁿ '⁷⁷
ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴀᴛᴇʀ ʙᴇɴᴇᴀᴛʜ her ɪꜱ ᴛʜɪᴄᴋ ᴀɴᴅ ᴡᴀʀᴍ.
Like sticky nectar or foamy tea or maple syrup. It clings and trails down the backs of her arms as she floats above it, her hair matted and damp. Her head was hurting. She should have stayed in the car, but she couldn't find it in her to say no to the sweet man's offer. It was summer, after all, and the heat bore down on her like a convection oven as she counted the freckles lining her shoulders.
"Just this way, around the bend. Can't miss it." She recalls him saying, moments before they trailed alongside the foothills of Sham, Washington. A hidden treasure, a forgotten world, a close-knit society of passionate dreamers who never left. She would end up spending forever there, falling in love with it the same way everyone seemed to. She only remembered the smallest fragments of detail from her initial arrival to Sham but what she couldn't forget, even after so long, was how much she adored it. Her first and last love.
"Go swim. Cool off." A low voice, now blurred and muffled, whispers to her before her feet can even touch the bank. She hears no one and nothing for hours, only the soft tug of water as slow and moderate waves graze the shore in response to the wind. Her vision is white and gray, which she wants to blame on the sun but the sun is now gone. She floats, and her head hurts, and the sky is dim, and there is a flash of light, and she can't remember much of the before or the after but she knows she never wants to leave.
