Touch

Every night, the forest called me. Soft, melodic, alluring, enchanting. It always started the same, with a seductive tone that only I could hear, that only I could understand. No matter what, every night without fail, it called. No matter what, I always went, unable to heed the haunting sound.

Like a whisper, it called to me, the wind was like fingers, tugging me forward, and I was unable to deny it. Not that I wanted to. Ever since I was a child, I was obsessed with the forest, long before it started to call to me.

It started a year ago, when I turned eighteen. Nineteen now, I assumed it would stop, but without fail each night it happened. Every night before I went to sleep, I’d sit on my window seat and open the window. My window seat was my favorite place, light green and plush, bookshelves custom built like a circle to mold around the window. It was peaceful there, overlooking the forest, one of the most beautiful sights I’d ever seen, especially when the sun was setting.

I’d open the window and settle down, my eyes automatically dropped and fell as I let the night air envelope me and float the sounds of the night life around my room like a lullaby all on its own. My deep green curtains would sway in the wind, tickling my cheek, and the soft satin cushion under my knees would feel like a cloud as I sunk deeper and deeper into rest.

Then I’d lift my nose, and breathe in the forest.

The best nights were the full moon, especially when it rained. Not too hard, but not a drizzle either. Such rain brushed across nature with a quiet hush that fell like a blanket across the land, making me feel safe; sheltered. I’d close my eyes like that, listening, breathing, imagining.

Tonight I imagined I was running barefoot in only my nightgown, running through the rain. I imagined the branches that slid across my bare arms, welcoming me like a parent’s embrace into the bosom they call home. My feet instinctively knew where to and not to step, nothing but the soft squish of mud and dirt between my toes as I ran like I was flying. I could almost feel my long hair as it stuck against my cheeks flushed from running, my lips parted as if the thrill of rain was my lover and mine alone. I felt distant, as if I was no longer in my body, light and free as if all the worries in the world were gone.

I didn’t think about my problems with my parents, or how I never felt like I was good enough no matter how hard I tried. Nor did I dwell on my best friend Mason, who ran away for a little over a year, and came back as if he was another person altogether. There were no worries when I ran through the forest, nothing but the mud between my feet and the moon lighting my way.

As I ran, my breathing grew stronger, my legs pumped faster. I felt the familiar pop of my joints as they screamed to go faster, to run to my full capacity, begging me to never stop. I always could run faster than anyone else. I loved to run, and had used to be on the track team until my parents stopped me from going. It was calming, how quiet everything around me went as my blood pounded in my ears, blocking the world out around me.

Owls hooted, foxes whined, and rabbits scattered, and I felt nothing more than free as branches caressed my hair, pulling my bangs from my blue eyes. This was usually the point where I’d wake up from my dreams. Nothing but the endless speed, the serene feeling, the calm, then I’d wake and I’d be back where I came from, farthest away from where I truly felt like I belonged.

This night, however, something different happened. In a forest filled with noise, it was nearly impossible for me to hear it, but somehow the wind must have wanted me to. I heard a sound, familiar but not, because I’d never heard it before. Not coming from someone else, that is.

Feet crunched leaves, breath breathing deeply from running, soft hints of a male’s voice blended into the gasps. A heartbeat raced with speed, a sound I shouldn’t have been able to hear, but could, nonetheless, especially as it got closer. My heart raced in fear and surprise as I stopped running just at the edge of the clearing. My body stopped so abruptly I nearly had to grab the tree to keep standing, my chest rising and falling rapidly as I cocked my head to the side, and stared.

That was when I saw him. He stopped running when I did, and for a moment in time we just stared. I couldn’t properly see him, the thick trees concealed his form. He was desperately trying to calm his heartbeat just as I was, trying to call his breathing.

The trees swayed and the rain started to let up, letting the moonlight leak in. All I saw was a patch of his hair, bright white hair. We stared, two shapeless forms back and forth as if there was a way to see. I would have stayed to see more, it seemed the moon wanted me to, but every cell in my body told me to back up; turn away. To run, as fast as I could. I nearly ignored it, this instinct that seemed almost animal.

Then he stepped forward, his hand outstretched, and it snapped me back into reality. It was too human of a gesture, it startled me backward and initiated my fear to run so fiercely that I backed up into a tree. The bark was rough on my back, startling me, and with trembling limbs I turned around, sprinting back the way I came.

I didn’t remember the run home, but then again, I never did. None of it could be real, after all, so it didn’t matter, right? It was only a dream.

Though I stopped trying to convince myself that a week ago, when I turned nineteen. I wasn’t sure why that number meant anything, that age, that day, any of it. All I knew was that first morning when I woke, my clothes were saturated from when I dreamt of sitting in the rain under the moon. Then there were my ears. Without thinking, I had touched them, a bit of a heavier weight than usual, and felt tips, a tiny arc from a point.

Every day now, it got pointier, and soon enough it would be too hard to hide. Each morning I’d wake and I’d say it was a dream to keep myself sane; to hold onto the little bit of normal, ignoring the point to my ears altogether.

The ring of my alarm clock crashed around me, and thoughts of the boy and his appearance seemed to slip from my mind with a grieving feeling of the loss of the forest and the grogginess of waking. With a groan, I rolled my head to the left, blowing a bit of hair from my eyes as I glared daggers at my clock.

It was a motion, at this point. To sit up, turn off the alarm, to stand. Mechanical, not many brain cells were needed to remember this routine. I was nineteen now, second year in college, and I had this down pact. The bathroom was across from my room, the upstairs practically mine, and my parents had their own bedroom and bathroom downstairs. I liked it like this, peaceful, until Mom started to scream up the stairs asking me if I was awake.

Ignoring her, I shut myself into the bathroom and went through the motions. Towel ready and folded on the toilet seat, water on, nearly hot, more warm than anything else. With a deep sigh, I stepped in, my eyes squeezed shut so tightly it hurt. One second, two, and I looked down, hoping.

Hoping for normal legs, clean, as they’ve been for most of my life. Most of it, until last week, that is. It was a sight I was starting to get used to, but it didn’t stop the panic from welling up inside me to see mud caked on my skin, dried, pieces flaked off on the side of the tub before I had gotten in. The water touched it and made the bottom of the tub turn a murky color, and I forced myself to take deep breaths, not to touch my ears, as I stared.

It took a minute, but when I felt like it had passed, when everything was calm, when I had successfully convinced myself that it wasn’t real, I crouched down. With a handful of water, I let it trickle between my fingers, to fall against the flaked dirt there, to soak in and slide down, disappearing as if it had never been there to begin with.

“They’re just dreams,” I whispered to myself as I watched the murky water linger for a beat more, before slowly growing lighter. Sometimes I felt like if I said it enough, maybe I could will it to be true. Some people wished to be unique, to be strange, supernatural, different, but not me. I wished more than anything else that I could just be normal. I’d give anything to be ordinary. “Just dreams.”