HYSTERICAL || observations [Kheft]

[Kheft]

And she did…

Not because she’d made a study of him, or because she’d grown up along side him. Saamina knew Gage in a way she couldn’t explain or even fathom at times. Somehow when he’d passed her his father’s sweater on that frigidly cold beach nearly two years ago…he’d tied their lives together, bound them up in something neither had any way of anticipating. Perhaps it was fate, inevitability, predetermination…and even the barest hint of such thoughts made her grin unconsciously, because she could already imagine Gage’s mind spinning away to unravel the mysteries such considerations would present if she proposed them aloud.

Her Gage.

Because that’s what this was, wasn’t it? Revelation, realization. Like that first outing at Mangrove cove. Gage had accidentally set his foot down, splintering a shell he’d been admiring, only to discover the opalescent glimmer of a pearl…one that he’d given to Saamina. She had it still, wrapped in a bit of fabric and tucked away for safekeeping. Their friendship was broken, damaged, she knew instinctively that they could never return to the way it had been. Instead, they had something infinitely more valuable to wrap in delicate touch and admire for as long as it lasted.

Forever. That was how long it must last, because there wasn’t an option for no Gage. Her life had caught him and enfolded him so irretrievably into its core that to cut him away was impossible. Unthinkable. It all seemed so simplistic to Sam. They would always be together, there was no other way. Gage was perfect, her adoration allowed for nothing less. He was brilliant, gentle, and so good. Maybe if she was a little older or a little wiser, she might have known that to place someone (particularly an adolescent boy) onto such a pedestal was to set them up for failure, because no one can forever uphold the rose-tinted expectations of a thirteen-year-old girl in her first blush romance. If someone could have told her that it would only lead to heartbreak…? But likely she would never have believed, as no girl has before her. Is it not the human condition to be eternally doomed in repetition of our failures from one generation to the next?

Until some unwitting person with enough stubbornness proves fate wrong.

Saamina curled her small body into Gage’s, dress long since crumpled in disastrous creases and baring telltale marks of dust and a few gathered splinters from the floor. It didn’t matter, nothing did except enjoying the moment as thoroughly as she could manage. Before tonight she’d never kissed a boy…never given it much though. Now, all her mind could focus on were his kisses, and the way they turned her stomach inside out. She tried to clutch at the sensations, but they were illusive, trickling like sand through her grasp and begging for more. More. More.

Her mouth forgot that this was meant to be a peaceful moment, a contented and relaxing end to the evening. It returned Gage’s touch in fierce responses, as though the flame had only just been touched, and it roared to life eagerly. Saamina had one clear moment to realize that nothing could ever be partial between them; they could never test the waters or settle for just a taste. Once the coal was breathed into life, it would birth a forest fire that threatened her very way of life.

And she was happy to let it burn her. Not just happy, blissful, she could be consumed by the thirsty, scorching heat that rushed across her skin with every soft stroke his fingers made, and she could imagine nothing better. He was her friend, her very best friend, and she was lost to the utter perfection of finding this with him. Her fingers trekked a path around his cheek, tracing one delicate line from angled jaw up to his forehead, and back down. As she drew away from his mouth, her touch memorized the course, marveling in just how many details of his face alone were previously unexplored.

“When’d you get so handsome?” And though she smiled with the words, they weren’t entirely a joke. When in the last two years had he grown into this almost-man that even Charissa was taking notice of?

When had he become the person she loved? And though the shy, frightening thought lingered for a moment, it disappeared beneath more pressing matters, such as the fact that a footstep creaked at the bottom of the staircase.

[Kheft]

here are shadows in the sky
Dancing in the air
Calling to my heart
Saying, "If you dare,
We're running fast
We're running far
Trying to catch the morning star..."

Footsteps, and Gage was shifting beneath her, snatching them both towards a side window. His arm flung it wide open, letting in a slap of brisk air. It tasted of salt and rain, the fresh, cool scent making Sam all the more aware of how musty and close the attic was. Not that she’d given it any attention before. They could have been lost up there for hours or days even without hardly giving it mind. Whatever found its shimmering, effervescent creation here in the last passage of time was so scorchingly embedded in Saamina’s awareness that it was doubtful a bomb going off would have registered.

And that’s precisely what it felt like, a bomb exploding, and now this hazy scene was the aftermath in which they staggered around, senses impaired, while the enemy snuck up behind. Despite its stale odors, she was loathe to leave the little nest that would now foster toe-curling memories, but leave they must…and quickly. Gage’s hand ushered her more firmly towards the opened exitway, its gaping mouth overlooking…nothing, just a black square of night sky, dark clouds masking even a glint of starlight for guidance.

Something about this second in time was familiar, and even as Sam reached for the window sash, dragging herself upwards, a ruddier and thinner visage supplanted itself over Gage’s own, one with a sly smile and copper hair. A face so familiar, and yet one that had slid back into the dim recesses of her thoughts…but not forgotten. Not ever.




“Pip!” The harsh exclamation was accompanied by a lanky arm reaching out to snatch the little girl back from the roof’s edge. “You do that once more and I ain’t ever bringin’ you up here again.” Brooke’s brow lowered in mock severity, an expression only met with the most impish of grins that the eight-year-old could manage, her freckled and sunburnt face creasing in laugh lines.

“You wouldn’t really do that, you’d get bored up here alone.” Her piping voice was highpitched, like the trill of a fledgling bird just finding its throat. She moved like one too, scampering along the edge of the barn roof as if she was daring herself to fall off. Brooke only shook his head helplessly; watching as his little sister flirted with the danger, eyes sparkling in a way that only her avid curiosity managed. Of course, if she fell, it would be his fault. He’d been the one to find the patch of shingles and decking lifted off by the last storm, and swing her up into the rafters to clamber on the cedar-clad expanse. They’d come to watch the stars…and to get away from another of their father’s drunken rages, though that part he’d sheltered her from, easing them both out the bedroom window when the slamming door heralded their sire’s return home.

Saamina seemed to finally content her thirst for exploration, and returned to perch beside Brooke on the ridgepole, craning her neck to take in the spangled velvet sky above. He couldn’t resist a light tug on her carrot-red hair.

“That’s better, you gotta stick closer, Pip. You might fall without me here.”





You might fall without me here…

But Brooke hadn’t know that she’d have Gage, and Gage would never let her fall.

Sam stepped out the window on that security, swinging one leg over the sill and kicking the shoe off, its shadow spinning away into the darkness. Her toes freed, they now grappled in the open drop, searching out a foothold that the invisible trellis finally provided. Regardless of the footsteps that creaked up the stairway (he must have been old, as the tread made an almost painfully slow ascent), she risked a second to lean back in and plant a kiss on Gage’s downward bent face with what amounted to a mischievous smile.

Her frame disappeared then, skittering along the shaky wooden frame with the agility of a small cat. The dress proved to be some hindrance, but once hitched up around her thighs, it was even easier going. So much so, that it was only a few moments before the tug of cool breezes at her back turned into the caress of damp grass between bare toes and the small squelch of muddy ground. The creaking above signaled Gage’s own descent, slightly less nimble than Saamina’s, but he had a good deal more weight to wield than she. Fortunately the wooden lattice held fast against the brick siding, or events might have taken a turn for the worse, but it was only a few added seconds before they both stood on the lawn. Above them, the window snapped shut with an irate grumble from whomever had nearly discovered them. Another five minutes ticked past in breath-held silence—when no further commotion was heard, Sam released her pent up breath in an explosive sigh, and then a giggle.

Adrenaline from scampering down the outside of a building in the dark, escaping caught detection by parties unknown after having your first kiss in the school attic during a dance…it was enough to have her jittering in place, the largest smile tugging her mouth into an outrageous curve. She wanted to throw herself back into his arms and cling tightly, reassure herself that it all indeed happened and would disappear once the warm, small space of their hidden room was abandoned. But the wind picking up was an untimely distraction, it rose to an ominous whine, and then as if acting as formal herald, the crescendo met with a shuddering clap of thunder splitting open the sky above and setting the earth into trembling motion underfoot. Emptying from the mass of clouds above, sheets of torrential rain slung down to meet them, whipped horizontal by the mercurial whim of breeze and billow.

Saamina had time to blink in shock before the onslaught soaked clear down to her skin, dress sticking to the narrow curves of her frame, and small cataracts pouring off the tip of nose, chin, and eyelashes. It was much too late for protests and hurried retreats towards the dry schoolhouse…besides, something in the very wildness of the abrupt storm appealed to her mood. So, abandoning any scrap of shelter under the overhung eaves, she sprinted into the open and made a laughing pirouette, arms out flung and face tilted back to drink in the pelting drops. She spun like that in a circle, pausing only to open her eyes, swipe at sodden cheeks and hair. It was a moment of sheer abandon, letting the elements beat down against her, and dancing through it with peals of giddy laughter weaving a harmony through the thunderous notes and dazzling lightning blasts.

One hand stretched out, beckoning…wanting Gage beside her.

And time and space
Our only sheild
keeping secrets
Unrevealed
Falling night
Breathes in the dark
Trying to catch the morning star...

[Kheft]

Gage’s kisses were liquid heat, scorching her mouth like a single point of fire and electricity, like a bolt of lightning that had landed its blow and burned fiercely on her skin. With rain falling in sheets about them, chilling their limbs and raising goose bumps along Saamina’s arms, it contrasted so sharply with the personal furnace they were creating where lips met and melded. Her tongue made a soft sweep along the curve of his mouth, tasting the coolness of rainwater and the sweetness of punch, and drawing a small whimper that spurred her forward. As if the storm had infected her own inhibitions, breaking them loose and setting hungers free to ravage like the tempest was ravaging the small harbor-side village, she abandoned caution.

Arms circled Gage’s neck, fingers catching sodden strands of his hair and winding them about her knuckles. She stretched up onto her toes to meet him, and then launched her body into his arms, trusting implicitly that he would catch and hold her aloft, locked safely in those arms that could block out even the howl of wind as it shook the tree branches.

This is what we were always heading towards…this is what I need…more than anything else on earth…I love you…

And somehow those words, once admitted in her mind, wouldn’t stay inside. They singed her tongue and demanded to be spoken. They burst out as undeniably as the white light piercing and stunting her vision. Sam squinted her eyes up in reaction, the sentiment spilling free in that blind moment, nearly drowned by the trail of thunder that reverberated in her chest.

“I love you, Gage Bystrom.”

I love you…

It hung in the air sizzling with current and tension--thickened by a haze of cold water meeting parched earth to bloom in humid clouds of fog--and burgeoning needs coupling with newly recognized sentiments.

*CRACK*

As if the elements themselves heard the words and chose to punctuate them with the most emphatic form of approval or condemnation, a spear of energy ripped its way through the atmosphere and struck the tree beside them, sheering with massive power through the thick trunk and slamming into the earth to dispel with a hiss of extinguished flame.

In the dazzled aftermath, Saamina stared in astonishment at the blackened spot where a tree once stood and now shattered and scattered bits of wood and foliage lay in twisted heaps resembling some vanquished beast. Wide eyes blinked back water that threatened to obscure them, and she released one arm’s grip to swipe at her face.

“Holy smoke! Maybe we better get out of here.” Despite the words, her grin was alive with animation at their narrow escape, “That was bleedin’ close!” She licked her lips and angled her face back towards his shoulder to rest forehead momentarily and murmur closely enough that yelling wouldn’t be necessary, “I don’t want to go home yet…I’m not ready for tonight to be over.”

[Kheft]

Gage was trembling, and not from the cold rain alone, there was some stark quality to his face that left Saamina frightened and bewildered. He was strong, always so much stronger than she, and calm in the face of all their adventures. He had stood up to her father's towering rage without once going pale like she now found him. Wide eyes couldn't seem to latch onto her own, even when she framed his face with her hands and yelled close to his ear, “"Gage? Gage!" It was like a daze that drew a veil down between her friend and the scene around them. She didn't like this at all, and her fingers wove between his, wanting to share warmth with his suddenly freezing cold skin.

He was scared. Gage Bystrom was afraid, and Sam shook her head in confusion at the reason, but the reason didn't really matter. Lightning or rain, whatever had been the catalyst, it was her responsibility to make it better. Laden with this new realization that love for a friend was accompanied now by love for him as something that was wholly more significant, she clasped his hand tighter and tugged at it gently.

“"Okay, we'll go, Gage...dunno where, but we'll get out of here." The question of where to go wasn't an easy one when your world is comprised of family, and that family represent the greatest threat to the integrity of your friendship. Where else was there to go late at night in a thunder storm? And then she knew, because there was one place that was always safety and comfort, one place she could run to when nothing made sense and the rest of her world was caving in. She'd never taken anyone there, not even Gage in all their time together...but now she turned in that direction. Shoes lost somewhere in the dark, wet grass behind the school, Saamina padded along barefoot, fingers still wound with Gage's as she guided them unerringly towards the beach and then out onto the cliffside that hemmed in the harbor.

Down between the rocks, she picked her way in the blindness of night, the path known well enough to be followed even without sight. She slowed now and then to ensure that Gage didn't trip over something or lose his grip on her. Rocks made fuzzy shapes against the horizon, and then they were both sliding to a stop at the very, dizzying edge, and she had to let go of his hand long enough to lower herself over the edge until a hidden bit of scree that sloped down to where a formation of rock left a small gap open. Saamina waited long enough to ensure Gage was right behind her, and then she ducked into the opening, blinking blindly and groping for where she knew a pouch of flint and tinder was tucked. Once struck, it cast a blue glow of sparks in a flashy shower, and her breath wafted out, coaxing one into life amongst the pile of dry twigs that she scraped together. A fire now flared up, fed with larger sticks until its warm light echoed back in shadowed patterns from the walls of the small cave they occupied.

"Welcome to my pirate cave."