Try-State Area

Twilight

This path is harder to navigate in the increasing darkness of the dusk...

Shadows made the way seem narrower, and the bushes seemed to reach toward Emily more insistently. Panic percolated within her and she began to doubt herself.

"Maybe I should have waited for Evan," she said aloud to hear something human in the wildness around her.

But when she broke through the final clutch of branches, she was rewarded for her bravery with the most gorgeous sunset she ever bore witness to.

Pillowing clouds of lavender floated in a backdrop of deepening purple, and the whole thing delicately streaked with shades of mauve. They pressed down upon the sun, which was now a faint orange ball resting low against the horizon. The crescent moon was a barely visible white scar, a mere sliver high above. The reeds and rushes rudely interrupted the scene with a ribbon of deep green, nearing black, before the water reflected the shades of violet above so that it was a gently moving twin of the sky above.

Emily sat down to take it all in.

It feels like I've stepped into a piece of art... But I can't decide if it is a canvas or a song...

Her eyes told her it was a painting of the most spectacular landscape. But her heart told her it was a song, because the way it made her feel was a combination of delicate appreciation and melancholy.

And I know which song this moment would be...

She took out her phone and listened to the violins begin. The delicate keening strings were soon joined by a quivering flute and the honeyed voice of Nat King Cole. Tears sprung into Emily's eyes as he sang "And now the purple dusk of twilight time steals across the meadow of my heart..."

The opening line of the tale of loss encapsulated in "Stardust" partnered with the sky before her in a beautifully painful way.

It's too much to handle... It feels like my heart is burning inside my chest...

Her eyes erupted in trails of silent, bitter tears.

With the line, "Sometimes I wonder why I spend the lonely night dreaming of a song..." she truly wept and allowed herself to release a loud sob that she had been containing.

No sooner had she lost control of her emotions than she heard Evan.

"Oh God Emily! Are you okay? What's wrong? Has something happened?" He knelt beside her with a blanket in his arms.

This is so embarrassing...

Emily wiped the cuffs of her sweater across her eyes and nose. "No... Nothing... It's nothing... I'm fine," she mumbled through her frantic face wiping.

Evan set the folded blanket in a heap on the ground behind them. "No, you're obviously not fine. Even an idiot like me can see that."

His brows dipped into his eyes as he fretted. His hand lifted, then hesitated a minute before finally reaching over to pull her onto his lap for an embrace.

Emily protested, "Really... I'm okay..." But she couldn't say it without a small hiccup in her voice and another trickle of the damnable tears that wouldn't abate.

Evan made soft shushing sounds into her hair and rubbed her back. Emily could feel that his gestures weren't born from lust but rather from his desire to comfort.

Yet this still feels strangely passionate...

He didn't press her to talk, but after a few minutes when she was finally quiet, he did.