HER | ✓

⍣Six⍣

•July 2005•

"Do you know what it's like to feel as if the whole world has been slammed down on your shoulders?" Farah asked Clayton as they walked the lakes edge. They had been walking in silence, listening to their surroundings, until she broke it with this question. 

Her hand fit perfectly into his larger one. Their connected tangles of fingers were swaying back and forth with each step they took. The summer sun beat down on them with fierceness making him squint to look at her. He thought carefully about her question to see if there was ever, one single moment where he did feel like that. He came up empty handed.

"I don't believe I have. Where are you headed with this?"

"Well I do, I know what it feels like." Her voice was distant and solemn. "And I hate that every time I think about home the feeling comes back."

He stopped, gently tugging on her arm. She looked at him. He pulled her into his embrace and sucked in her vanilla scent. "I hate that you would feel that way."

"It's not like I can help it. When I go home I'll be expected to live up to what they want. Farah goes to college. Farah gets a degree in corporate management. Farah does this and that, but have they once stopped to think about what Farah wants?" Her shoulders dropped. She wrapped her arms around his lower waste, wishing she didn't ever have to let go.

"And what does Farah want?" he mumbled with his chin on top of her head. She leaned back and looked into his eyes. Her hazel ones held a shimmer of adoration.

"You're the first to ask me that," she gaped.

"There's a first for everything." He grinned. "So what is it that she wants to do?" She stared at him for a second then her face split into a grin and she continued to tell him what she would do.

"She wants to open up a shop in a small tourist town, and she wants to fill it with trinkets, and knick knacks, and a colorful array of clothing and paintings. She would let local painters sell their art through this little shop of hers. Local musicians could come in and play if they chose to, and everything would be unique! A one of a kind object because everything, everyone and every place is one of a kind." Her bright face fell. "At least they should be."

"I love the idea," he whispered in her ear.

"Thanks." She looked into the distant. "Too bad it'll never happen."

"Never say never. You don't know what might happen next."

"That is one thing you're right about." Farah took him by the hand and ran. She wanted to get her mind off home. The impending doom. The expectations. The glares and fights she'd have to go through as she protested, all knowing full and well she wouldn't win.

"Where are we going?" Clayton wondered. By now he should know better than to ask. She'd never give him an answer. And she didn't. It's how she kept him enthralled.

He was keeping up even as she jerked him in the direction of the boating docks. Their footsteps pounded against the dock as they ran down it and it swayed under their feet. The end of the dock was nearing to and end and he was growing worried. Did she intend to jump off? He wasn't ready. He needed to empty pockets first. Or at least take his pants off. But as soon as he had the thought, she slowed down, let go of his hand and hopped into a dull red John boat labeled Enterprise. He found the name of boat interesting. Especially considering the circumstance he was in.