You Are the Key

Chapter Nine:

After the rain had subsided, the sun poked through the clouds... With its long sunny tentacles, it reached out and kissed my skin. In the week we'd been here, I'd seen more bi-polar weather than I'd ever cared to. One moment the sky shone, the next, you were running for cover.

We all hoped our new climate stabilized for the rest of our stay. Nice and hot, with small showers here and there. If there was an ideal forecast, that'd be it. Brandon, even if he wouldn't admit it, liked the outdoors, and so I wanted to spend as much time out in the foliage of rural New York as I could with him. If it snowed, Hell, I don't think I'd even give a shit. I'd only seen the miracle a few times, but rain was popular in California.

It rained all Winter and all Spring.

"Ice cream." Brans eyes honed in on a small sign plastered to the side of the Camp Store, it said soft served 2$. I dug around in my pockets, essentially because he never had money on him - this would be my treat. A few minutes passed by while we were waiting, but when he took his cone from my hand, I felt his excitement surge through my veins. It made me smile at how much just an ice cream cone made him happy.

We spent just about all day in our little hideaway in the trees. The moss ground was earthier, more moist. The boulder to our left had a crater filled with rain water, in which Brandon tried to scale, half-assed. When he stood at the top, he flung his arms out to his sides and screamed: "I'm the king of the world!"

I saw different. I saw him as the King of the Five Foot High Boulder, but it's not like I'd tell him otherwise. He simply stood for a few moments, licked his ice cream and then jumped off.

"I could spend forever here." He smiled and lay down beside me. There was an ache deep in the pit of my stomach. Would I be able to share forever with him? Would we even have a forever...?

I propped myself up on my elbow and surveyed the damage the sun had put on his skin, just from today's exposure. His cheeks were rosy, shoulders a radiant red. He smiled his I'm cute smile and shook his hair from his eyes.

"Penny for your thoughts?" He asked with such sophistication. Brandon could be a proper and intelligent being when he wanted to be, but he normally only showed that side to me. "You've been quiet almost all day..." His knuckles grazed down my jawline softly. I sighed and leaned into his touch. My stomach was doing summersaults.

In the dim, protective light, birds sang, bugs harmonized...

I wanted to answer him, but came up short-handed in the conversation. I had no words. His mood darkened and his mouth opened a bit. The only light, reflecting off the pond, shone on his bottom row of teeth that were now visible. He craned his neck side to side, searching the woods for what was disturbing me - he was ultimately scared.

"Sorry." I shook myself from my odd change in mood and he exhaled, pulling me into his arms.

"Don't do that. You know it freaks me out when you get that face..." He inhaled the scent of gel and shampoo from my hair. "Don't do that..." he mumbled, burrowing his face into a safe place, my shoulder. It was frightening how easily he calmed down; it was even more disturbing how he'd gotten riled up in the first place.

He needed me that much? He depended my confirmation that everything was a-ok to keep himself in a safe state of mind, that much? Did he have no sense of security, unless I saw things as off balance? The thought was both revealing and liberating. It also felt good to know I was thought of so strongly. I'd never really confirmed how much my presence affected him, not to mention the general changing of my moods.

A few more days of hiding away, swimming, socializing with other camp-goers and playing a few games of late-night pool at the arcade, and it had started to rain some more. It was a humid, sticky rain. Shaun and Gavin took a trip to a hardware store to buy a few A/C's since it was so awful, even indoors. The rain stopped, but that dooming, hazy cloud hung over the camp for almost a whole three weeks.