Perfect Places; e.d

1

“Hey, no peeking!”

   

    “But why?” He whined.

    “Because that’s cheating, and cheaters never win! You have to see with your taste buds.” Ethan furrowed his bushy brows and removed the multi-colored fabric from his face. “My taste buds don’t have eyes, Aubrey.” Sighing, I snatched the scarf from his hands and motioned for him to turn around. “You’re missing the point, E. You have to use your imagination, let your taste buds tell you the color.” Ethan held out his hand, beckoning for me to give him another jelly bean, and I gladly placed one in the center of his palm. He rolled the bean around in his hand with his pointer finger, analyzing the shape and thinking of all the color possibilities. I waited anxiously for him to pop it into his mouth, even the birds seemed to have sensed the intensity in the air, despite the childishness of the situation. He took a deep breath and slowly lifted the candy to his lips. I watched quietly, as he began to chew. Suddenly he pursed his lips and a little boop is felt on the tip of my nose. In a fit of giggles, Ethan sprung himself from the wooden floor and topples into the beanbag next to him. The jelly bean taps on the floor of the treehouse and rolls away and falls through a crack; I could feel the slobber on the tip of my nose. “Ethan! Why would you do that?!” My appalled shouts were drowned out by his squeaky, high-pitched giggling. He stopped laughing and the treehouse grew silent, nothing could be heard except for the occasional acorn falling onto the roof from a busy squirrel scurrying to carry them back to his tree. “Aubrey?” His concern evident in his voice. As a warm tear fell onto my dirty jeans, I saw Ethan’s face drop from an amused smirk to a remorseful frown in a matter of seconds.  His hand twitches as if he wanted to move it but chose not to. From the corner of my eye, I saw him shift onto his hands and knees, lowering himself to get a better view of my face, then crawled to sit in front of me.

    “Aubrey? Are you crying?” He asked.  My hair drooped farther over my face, hiding my wet cheeks. “Please don’t cry. I’m sorry, Peaches.” He reached his hand to remove the hair from my forehead so he could look me in the eyes. Seeing my chance, I slapped his hand away and tackled him to the floor. He let out a shout as we landed with a loud thud. I straddle his waist, grabbed his face in my hands, and left a long streak of my drool on his left cheek, which drew a cry of disapproval from him. The treehouse shook and we both froze in place, afraid that we would make it slip from the notches in the trees. It steadied and we looked at each other. Not even a second later, we were in hysterics, faces red, cramps in our cheeks, and our tummies aching from laughing.  I rolled onto the floor next to Ethan as we came down from our laughing high, still giggling from the events that had just taken place. “Are you sure you don’t want to reconsider that drama class? Mr. Adams would love you.”

“Shut up.”