When Gina woke, the air around her was thick and heavy with the dewy summer evening, and the first firefly was daring to flit about the rosebushes, casting a new, more intimate light on the shades of pale pink and vibrant red. For a moment, she followed the blinking light of its tail, transfixed, as it moved onto the grass next to her to rest as though it were her closest companion. As she stared, the events of the day came back to her in a dull, steady succession.

She had left the house just after noon, in the heat of the day, searching�searching for something, anything that felt normal in this new life that she should have been getting used to by now. Whatever it was that she�d needed, she hadn�t had to travel any further than the extremities of her own backyard, where she now sat, shaking off the remnants of a nap that had wasted away her afternoon.

The air was heady with the smell of honeysuckle and moist earth, and Gina found herself thinking of him again, being reminded by the very air she breathed, the grass she lay upon. The vivid green of her surroundings, though not present in any of his fair features, brought back to her the starkness of his eyes, the soft tapered ends of his blonde hair, the beauty in the contours of his face when it flushed as he smiled. This place, wild and ordered, dangerous and peaceful all at once, embodied the very core of what she had known to be Taylor�s spirit.

As she stood to stretch, loathing the moment that she would have to step back into the whirlwind that was life without him, she couldn�t help but wonder why this place so akin to her beloved could continue to flourish when Taylor himself could not�