Chapter I
The dashboard scalds my jaw, heat radiating off its unforgiving surface. It’s nearly unbearable. Nearly. Surely the pattern has been imprinted on my face by now. I pray it will never leave me. For one, blissful moment, I exist in a bearable world of mild darkness. Safe. Alone.
A sigh.
“Birdie, we’re here.”
My eyes flicker, too afraid to take in everything all at once. Good thing too, as the bastard sun just decided to burst through the soaked sky. The sharpshooter beams make even the asphalt wince… The car windows are still down, letting in the smell of desert rain, engine fumes, and…
Emberwood. I turn towards her.
Two brilliant brown eyes peer down at me from outside. I stare right back. Half my head is still smushed against the dashboard, but I can see plenty with one eye.
Oh.
She is more than a lifetimes of wonders, and I will never grow tired of devouring her beauty, her humanity. She has pulled her dark cinnamon hair into a ponytail, the kind she wears dancing. Tendrils escape, brushing gently against her face and neck as a hot breeze lazes by. Tentacles, vines, snakes- she is Medusa reborn. How else can she turn my breath to stone?
Her chin rests on lithe arms settled on the frame- or is it a window? I never know what to call car windows when they are down. Shit if I know my thoughts.
A tiny crease appears between those large, startling eyes. Just above the loveliest nose, even though she always bemoans that it never heals right after a spar. I don’t believe her. It’s bewildering and wonderful, all these bumps and scars and laughter marks that tell me it’s her. By now, it has become as battered as the moon- and what poet would never sign of the moon? It’s her face, her arms, her as she stands against the early afternoon sky.
She tilts her head to the side, scrutinising me as well. Mapping out the familiar lines and edges that make me in her mind, the things only she can know. I will never see my eyes from this distance, I will never hold myself in those arms. I only hope it’s kinder than the view I usually get in the rearview mirror.
“Howdy.” For fun, I drawl it out just a second longer than she likes.
She smiles a little, which is a lot for anyone else but us. “Get enough beauty rest? Also, isn’t that my sweater? Please tell me there's not any oil on it.”
I roll my eyes, but only halfway. Not when every thought hinges on That Thought. Not when even breathing feels timed, a luxury, now. “No. Yes. No. What time is it?” The console clock is literally a few centimetres from my head. But as life is today, moving appears mountainous.
She responds by opening the door. I lean into her finger tips as she brushes stray locks of hair from my eyes. The gentle, lighter than lemon-puffs touch makes me yearn, makes me forget. Makes me remember.
I am no longer protected from the world. The Outside is Inside now.
The vast, furious, beautiful, fever dream that is Dryred Valley is posed to strike. After all, what power can a pitiful little meat sack have against this blinding sun-scorched land? It sprawls, languid as any forgotten Demiurge- hell, how it sprawls!
"Shit."
"What did you say?" Those eyes, heavier than the earth combined.
"Nothing." I look away. The peppered road stretches into the distance, naked poles littering the side like trees. They are stark black against the pale grass. They are few and far between, the wire long scrapped or whipped away by a sandstorm. Strange things, old things, damned things that lead no where at all.
But any existential fears dart after them as well, when Layla finds my hands and pulls me back into the world. I grasp on tighter, a drowning dog, and she lets me. Her hands are so, so warm. Warmer than the dashboard. Warmer than the sultry heat caking my lungs. I anchor myself to those hands, amidst the rolling, dry grass and dryer dirt and maroon winds. And sky. Blue, blue, grey, a little orange in the far west- So much. Too much.
Never enough.
I lock my eyes to the ground. A pedestrian black beetle climbing a golden stalk. A fist-sized bird hops on under a creosote patch. Cheerful notes fill the burning air. But then the beetle leaves, buzzing away, away like-
A steady hand cups my cheek. My face is still sore from sleeping on the dashboard, scolding me for using a sorry excuse for a pillow. “Let’s just sit?”
We do. She drops down to the dirt with an elegant sweep of her legs, while I crouch, wary of scorpions and snakes the Elders back in town love to warn everyone about. Even if the ground is covered in our old picnic blanket. She snorts at my caution. I stick out my tongue- but quickly pull it back in. I want to eat, not get fucked in the middle of a damn desert.
Shockingly, she lets it go and opens the cooler. "I'm hungry." Her eyes go wide, innocent as a doe. "Come closer, birdie."
I've never trusted that look. Still, I laugh and sit down. Unsurprisingly, she immediately tackles me and we fall to the dust.
We are filthy in moments.
___
The growl of our bellies stops even the first button from being undone, but we don't mind. We just laugh at the red dirt on our skin, staining us like demons. Stripes and smudges and kisses from the earth. She leans in to nip at my neck again.
"Layla-" I'm giggling too hard, the sky spinning like a toddler. "Layla, I'm so fucking hungry you horny idiot."
Her barks of laughter split the birdsong apart. "Fine, fine. I'll get the food, birdie." God, I love it when she drags it out like that.
At last, she finally opens the bloody cooler. Like a magician flourishing a top hat, out parades the ham and cheese sandwiches, tequila to share, cheap salad packets from the store, apples for her and oranges for me. I watch, mesmerised by the way her hummingbird hands leap, as if the universe itself was directing her movements in some grand play.
“You painted your nails.” A luxury people like us only afford with pretty lies, quick fingers and knives.
She doesn’t look up as she puts everything in its place on the chequered surface. Layla dips inside the car to change the station to her favourite- soft rock. But always that smile echoes on her lips, even when she isn’t. Even when she’s out of view. “I have decreed red is my colour.”
It is. “It looks amazing.” She looks amazing. She settles back down next to me and pops open a can in toast.
"Happy birthday, birdie."
For a while, we dine in contented silence. The station plays in the background, notes from a heartbroken steel guitar lingers in the air. This desert slowly warms up to me, just like every time we come here. It is no great enemy, but only a slumbering god, oblivious to the desires of mortals. Neither friend nor foe. But a beast to be discovered and appeased, celebrated. I’m not safe here- I am safe nowhere- but I am in no danger.
Not while Layla is lays in my lap. Not while my hand is tangled in her hair. It is free now, spilling over my frayed shorts like rain-soaked earth. The tiniest moan dies somewhere in my chest when it brushes my skin. Snow to a witch burning at the stake.
I fold over slightly until I know she can hear my heartbeat through my stomach. She hums to its rhythm, and all at once the afternoon loosens to a pleasant golden haze. She eyes the scattered clouds with half-closed eyes, a million other memories between them. My other hand traces secrets under her shirt, against her ribs. I don't know or care to learn its language- it kills the art, the craft, the innocence of never understanding Why.
Emberwood fills my lungs again, each breath smouldering, resinous, and wonderfully earthy.
Each breath filled with her.
“I see a swan.”
I look up to where she’s pointing and have to bite my lip to keep from laughing. That cloud is clearly a goose. But that would be against the rules of cloud watching. I nod my head at the horizon.
“There’s a herd of giraffes over there.”
Her laugh shoots from her heart into my lap. “What? You’ve never even seen a giraffe.”
“I’ve seen some old nature tapes. Books, too.” I shrug, unruffled. What difference can it make, anyway?
She just shakes her head in disbelief, scouring the sky for new formations.
I take another swig to wash out the dirt on my tongue.
