In her dreams, she was back there. Among the overgrowth of domestic plants and pine trees they lay, together, so close that their bare skin stuck together at the dampest points.

�One day,� he said as she smiled, fascinated by the drifts the wind made in his delicate hair, �I�m going to buy this place for us. Right here. And we�ll build a little house with open windows and a huge back yard. And we�ll live here and never have to leave.� He grinned, pulling up his trousers as he stood. �Like hermits.�

�Naked hermits?� She asked with a soft, airy chuckle as she lolled over onto her stomach.

�Yeah.� His face flushed slightly at the words, as if they were a state of taboo that he had not just been in, as if the reality of her form near him had only just begun to sink in. �Naked hermits.� He said, the blush in his cheek growing still as he turned to stroll toward the thick brush.

As Taylor rambled, Gina lay still on the grass, turning her face toward the warm sun that was licking at her ears, her bare buttocks, the back of her neck. These days were the days that defined living for her�the days when he was home, and she could be sixteen again. When Taylor was gone, which was most of the time, Gina spent her days trying to pass them, trying to get away from the parts of her that she was missing, the parts that he took away with him. As of late, she had run herself into a world much too big for her�

Taylor came back from his walk with his arms full of nature�rosebuds and pinecones and tiny green leaves. He knelt down to Gina, bringing the rosebud to her face.

�It�s the color of your lips.� He said, tracing the flower�s delicate petals down the length of her cheekbone and across her mouth before he kissed it. From there, he proceeded to showcase each of his acquisitions, matching her dark hair with the bark on the long-needle pines, her eyes with leaves off a cherry tree. They made love again on the forest, a silent celebration of their youth and the simple pleasures of the air and the dirt that so contrasted with the harsh vulgarities of their routine lives.

For months afterward, Gina had combed the woods by the pond in search of an object that carried any similarities to her lover. The only thing she ever found was the sky above her head, which, in the heat of summer, was the exact hue of the eyes so many longed to stare into. Of course, she had always expected that Taylor was not exactly of this world�

In her mind�s eye, Gina saw clouds collecting at the edge of her dream world, and with a sharp crack of thunder, she was back in her empty bed, drenched in a cold sweat, eyes flying open as the smatterings of rain outside her window quickened her heartbeat�