A light breeze slipped over my thighs and wrapped it's warmth around my ankles. Where I fell to the ground, my dress had lifted up and my knees grazed, with prickles of pain. My brown hair, stuck to the back of my neck with sweat.
The sound of leaves brushing together in the wind was all I could hear and I smelt nothing but fresh air. My heart was thrumming from running. For a second it reminded me of a boy and how he used to make my heart beat like that. Then I thought of the knife, secured in my handbag, and I remembered I was lucky to have a heart at all.
I opened my eyes and rolled onto my back groaning. I licked my dry lips, craving the jam my mother sold: the jam so sweet it could save lives. Only fragments of the sky were visible through green leaves. I was fortunate: not a cloud in sight. The sweat from my face had mingled with the ground, sticking bits of the forest floor to my skin. Clumsily I rubbed off the dirt and sticks that stuck to my cheeks but my clammy hands only made it worse.
From the aching in my muscles, I could only guess it had been days, I had been running from him. Days since I had seen anybody, I knew or loved and that was the way I wanted it to stay until days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months and months turned possibly even into years.
“You are a long way from home, Amber."
That slight breeze suddenly became harsh. I pursed my lips and stifled a shiver but my skin came up in goosebumps.
"Did you follow me here?" My voice cut through the silence that followed his. It was that male voice that I had been dreading since the moment I left. Somehow, I knew he would find me eventually.
There was no reply. I pulled my heavy limbs up into a sitting position. Drowsily, I looked around at the summer haze of the forest that surrounded me. Pollen in the air, floated from the trees. Birds above me squawked but every space, every shadow and every corner was empty of any human figures. There was nobody there.
Cautiously, I stood up, weak from travelling and my legs complaining, as I forced my weight onto them again. "Did you follow me here?" I screamed this time, my voice desperate. I was sure I had heard him. His voice was as clear to me, as I was standing there in that forest.
The breeze rushed past me again, this time a little stronger, playing with the hem of my skirt. There was nobody there, no friendly face or even unfriendly. It was just me and a lot of trees. Through a clearing I could see the expanse of the forest to the North: millions of leaves clustered on branches for a distance, which seemed to stretch to eternity. It was as if the forest never ended.
Like a foal, separated from the mother horse, I continued to wander, unsteady and vulnerable. I needed to get out. I just needed to get away: to see something, anything apart from trees.
“You should go back, Amber," that time, I was sure I heard the voice. I remembered the knife in the handbag, slung over my shoulder and wondered how I could reach for it without him noticing. "This is no place for you to be alone."
I turned sharply but could not see him. "Why not?” Leaves rushed, as they slipped against each other. “The woods always used to be our favourite place to go." I waited for him to appear, give me a sign or anything but he did not show. "What was it you used to say? There are no songs more beautiful than the songs of the forest."
Still, I waited. Still, there was nothing. “I should have known something was wrong,” I almost laughed at my own stupidity. “Nobody like me, ever ends up with anyone as perfect-looking as you."
“If I were uglier, would you have preferred it?"
"No," I retorted and continued walking.
This time he appeared in front of me, like one muscular wall. He wore his usual shirt and jeans, with glasses and a book tucked under his arm: the same classic paperback he had been flicking through, the day I first met him in the library. Everything I had dreamed for in a guy stood before me. "How did you-"
