I am an arrow released into the Red Oaks.
“Dessin!” I scream to the open woods.
Please, God. Please, God. I beg of you! I beg of you! Show me mercy! GIVE HIM BACK TO ME!
A divine animal in my chest snarls and digs its claws into the earth, willing to rip every tree from this earth…just to see him. Just once.
For his brown eyes to be open.
To look into mine.
“Dessin!” A shrill, unbecoming scream ripples across the treetops.
My sprint locks into my place, dying into the dry dirt as someone stops me in my path.
Off to the side, a woman and her son hold hands, watching me with the purest, most sincere looks of peace and overwhelming happiness.
It’s Sophia and little Arthur.
The doubt in my soul vanishes at the heavenly sight.
They peer at me on this beautiful morning with misty eyes.
“Sophia…” I say with a lump in my throat. “Is he…”
Kane’s mother grins.
My feet move again before I can think. My heart a banging war drum. Twigs scratch against my skin, tearing open spots of my dress. The earth rolls back. The sky peels open.
“DESSIN!” I bellow at the top of my lungs.
I duck under branches and leap over protruding roots.
There is no world where I walk.
I move like fire consumes a field of dead crops.
My mind hiccups. Briefly shuts down. Goes blank.
There.
A few strides away.
His name unable to move past my lips.
Real. Real. Real.
Death looms close by as the whole of my heart threatens to stop beating.
Dessin.
“My god,” I whisper.
The love of my life stands among a pile of chopped wood. A gentle morning breeze moves through his brown hair. Sweat glistens over his bare chest.
He is the axis to which I move.
He always was.
