Welcome to Redwood, Oregon. 54 kilometers from the city of Calhoun, population 286.
This small, quiet town is home to beautiful waterfalls, quaint cafes, enchanting phenomena like gravity hills and glowing streams, and a girl named Reagan Wallace.
...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
She usually found herself on the roof of her house at her weakest moments. The first time she found herself crying there, it was when she was twelve and she found out about how her brother brought his girlfriend to Ritter which she still treated as the greatest act of betrayal she has experienced.
The second time, it was when their parents got into a fight that manifested in actual noise (shouting, breaking dishes) instead of the silences and passive glares that she was used to.
The third time, it was when she had a fight with her best friend, Jen, who was the closest thing she had to a sister.
Then the ones after that, she couldn't remember. It was a mess of more fights and class deadlines and existential crises.
Between the first time she found herself trying to calm her heartbeat on that very spot, and the time she invited Jack Avery onto her roof, she's had many moments there in between. But among all those moments, it had one recurring theme: she was there when she was weak and vulnerable.
So maybe inviting Jack—the likely reason for why she couldn't breathe in the dead of the night—wasn't her brightest idea but as always, she was yet to find any trace of regret or second thoughts.
"Couldn't sleep either?" was the first thing that came out of Jack's mouth when he took the spot beside her, leaving a foot of distance between them.
It was a bright, clear manifestation of how their relationship was going so far and she didn't think the sight of plain, empty space could make her chest feel heavy.
Reagan willed her heartbeat to calm down.
"Why do you think I'm not a morning person?" She shrugged, passively watching the redwoods swaying from afar.
From the corner of her eye, she could see Jack's lips purse apprehensively. "But you don't have insomnia, do you?"
"No," She snorted, shaking her head, "Just a messed up sleeping schedule."
He laughed curtly, mumbling with a shrug, "Mine's pretty fucked as well."
What followed that was heavy silence. Reagan watched the trees sway, counted the seconds between each particularly cold gush of wind, and strained to listen to the stream far down behind them. She did anything to ignore the steady, solid presence sitting a foot away from her because she was afraid she'd remember it too clearly.
She knew exactly how it felt like to have Jack Avery's hand gently cup her face with the sound of rushing water in the background. She knew exactly which parts of his hands had soft skin and rough callouses. And she knew exactly what his breath felt like on her skin.
She didn't need more reasons to lose sleep.
"You're ignoring me," He finally said with a deep sigh, as if it was such a heavy load to get off his chest and Reagan could feel the blood rushing to her ears.
