Chasing Rainbows

Brownie

Yeah, that high. 

"Here's your s'more," Liam announced. 

Oh shit. I had completely forgotten about the s'more. But this was definitely a welcome surprise. 

"Oh my god, I love you," I blurted out, reaching out and taking it from him. 

All of my neck muscles tensed as I realized what I'd just said, but Olivia had already jumped to cover my ass. 

"Marley loves anyone that gives her something with chocolate," Olivia said. "Once a cashier at Noodles and Company gave us a free chocolate chip cookie and Marley gave her a hug." 

I don't think I'd ever actually done that. That I would remember. Olivia was just really good at making up stories on the spot. 

"Sorry to disappoint, but I was actually just talking to the smore," I told Liam, shrugging my shoulders. 

He just smirked back. 

Suddenly overwhelmed by everyone and having everyone's attention on me (or that could have been a streak of paranoia that I went through on and off the entire evening), I stood up abruptly and started walking into the forest. 

"Marley!" Olivia called. "What are you doing?" 

It was so weird having our usual roles switched and having her keep and eye one me instead of vice versa. 

"I'm going to...explore," I told her. 

Explore? What was I, five? Or on acid? I thought it sounded too weird for it to be believable, but no one else seemed to be thinking about it twice. The truth was actually that I was trying to get away from Liam. All evening I had accidentally kept making eye contact with him and it was giving me jolts every time. Plus, I didn't want to embarrass myself again. 

"Stay close," she called out to me. 

"I will," I lied. 

I wanted to get as far away as possible. Maybe I would even walk all the way back home. Might take a few days, but was that really worse than going back and having to make eye contact with Liam again?

There was still a lot of light left, but the tall pine trees blocked a lot of it. I wasn't just going anywhere all willy-nilly, I was actually following a trail. There was steep hillside covered in Indian Paintbrush. We had hiked up to it a couple times that last few visits up here. It only took about ten minutes to get up here. 

Every time I saw the hillside, it always took my breath away. This was probably one of my favorite spots in the world. By some miracle the smaller hills surrounding this one hadn't built on it so it probably looked just like it did a thousand years ago. Now the colors were brighter, more vibrant. The golden tint from the sun still peeking over the hilly horizon gave the flowers a glow, almost like the flowers had flames burning on the inside. 

The first time I'd saw this landscape, the person I wanted to share this view was with June. This most undoubtedly be one of her favorite spots as well. Now that feeling was swelling into my throat, forcing me to swallow so I could breath. 

A twig snapped under the weight of something, making me whip my head around my shoulder to see if it was a bear. While rare, it wasn't completely unheard of in these parts. But no, it was even scarier. 

Liam. 

I crossed my arms, partially mad at the fact he had caught me in such a private, vulnerable moment, partially trying to pretend that he hadn't scared the shit out of me. 

"Were you following me the whole way here?" I asked suspiciously. 

"I tried to catch up with you but gravity got stronger so I couldn't walk as fast," he tried to explain. 

Any thoughts of June immediately scattered to the depths of my brain as I giggled at Liam's high. He couldn't walk fast because of gravity? At least I wasn't the only one stoned as fuck. 

"Dude," I muttered, clapping my hand on his shoulder like I was about to tell him the secret to life. "I think you're high." 

He raised his eyes brows and chuckled. "You think? Well, at least I'm still in this dimension." 

I'd been in this dimension the whole time, I was just operating on a different frequency. I had tried to communicate that to everyone telepathically, but like I said, I was on a different frequency. What was so hard about that to understand? But how could anyone know if I was the only one on my own wavelength? I cringed as my own thought process gave me a brain freeze. 

Now I was Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz in that scene right before they get to Oz and my eyes got droopy. The flowers looked like a lovely bed. Collapsing down into the field of flowers, I laid back and put my hands on the ground under my head. I tilted my head up to look at Liam, who's face I could tell was befuddled with the little light left in the sky.

"Come on, Marley," he said, with the tone of a mom in the grocery store trying to negotiate with a toddler. "What are you doing?" 

"Looking at the stars," I told him. "You don't get a view like this at home with all the light pollution." 

He was hesitant, but he was easily convinced to also come down here with me. At this point, only Venus and Jupiter were actually visible, but it wouldn't be too long until the rest of the stars would dot the sky. Unfortunately, the effect of the absence of a ball of fire in the sky was beginning to be noticeable as little goosebumps were starting to pop up on my arms. I glanced over at Liam, who actually had a hoodie jacket. 

As if sensing me looking at me, without missing a beat or looking away from the sky he asked, "what?" 

"You look...warm," I admitted. 

"Only one way to find out," he quipped. 

When I didn't respond, he attached the body part of his coat to his hand like a vampires wing would be attached. At least that was the best analogy I could come up with while stoned out of my mind. He managed to slide under my shoulders and roll me towards him so I was now somehow inside his jacket now. Despite my initial reluctance to be in this position, I was too warm to care anymore. 

"Oh look, you can see Andromeda from here," he remarked. 

I lifted up my head from his arm. "Chemistry? Astronomy? I think you're officially a nerd."

"Gary's big into astrology, so he taught me all about it with his telescope when I was a kid," he explained.

I couldn't quite make out the constellation when he pointed it out to me, but I remembered the story from a Greek Mythology class I'd taken as a freshman. Perseus, the son of Zeus and a mortal woman, saved Andromeda from a monster and they fell in so in love despite many obstacles that Athena placed them in the sky as stars so they could be together for eternity. 

While he continued point out constellations, I drifted off easier and quicker than I had all school year.