Page 98 of The False Flat

“Not just fly.” I pointed into the distance, where dark-gray wings caught the wind. “She can see everything. The big picture. If we could fly, we could see it all at once. We could know outcomes, be sure we were taking the best path because we wouldn’t be limited to only a few feet in front of us.”

I sounded like Philosophical Grant, which I wasn’t sure worked on me. “You make me this way,” I said, responding to his smile. “Somehow, I see life differently because of you. A year or two ago, I would’ve looked at this same view and appreciated it, but not in the way I do now.”

I couldn’t quite meet his eye when I said this, but I reached for his hand, squeezed, then grabbed the other one. Our joined hands were continuous, like a Möbius strip, with the inability to tell where one ended and the other began.

“You saying that makes me feel like I can do anything, like I will do anything.” His voice was low, rolling in his throat, overcome by an emotion I couldn’t quite read.

“I want to be as free as that bird.” I unlocked our hands and threw my arms into the air. “Living life like she does, like you do.”

“Then do it.”

“Then do it,” I repeated, inhaled, and then looked up at the sky and let the breath go.

“Penelope.” I rode on the way he said my name.

Slowly, I let my head drift back down from the sky.

He pulled my arms around his back, bringing us closer, and then he bent to my mouth, letting his lips move in a tantalizing caress. I pushed into his body, each curve of mine pressed into each curve of his.

Somewhere in the distance, our bird friend let out a congratulatory screech. Consent. It was okay to let go, and from all appearances, that was exactly what we were going to do. This was what we’d been waiting for.

He brought his hands down to my thighs and lifted me, pushing my back against a tree trunk. I wrapped my legs around him, feeling his outline so hard against me my body ached.

He pulled back, looked into my face, and whispered, “I love you.”

My breath came faster; my head got lighter, like it was disconnected from my body for several seconds.

And my mouth clamped shut.

I couldn’t say it. I physically couldn’t get the words out. I couldn’t tell him that I loved him back. I didn’t want to be in my head then, surrounded by uncertainty and apprehension. I wanted to keep doing what we’d been doing before he’d said the thing. He’d simultaneously ruined the moment and made it perfection.

I put my mouth back on his and slipped my tongue past his teeth, not to ignore the words, but to thank him for loving me. I didn’t hide the urgency in my tongue. I let the feeling course through us both. Maybe it wouldn’t matter that I couldn’t speak.

He shoved his hands into my loose ponytail and cradled my head. I massaged the back of his neck, wanting to pull him through me. We were caught up. Neither one of us noticed we were falling until we hit the ground in a tangle of entwined body parts, landing hard on the twigs, leaves, and dirt below us.

On our backs beside each other, staring past the kaleidoscope of hues on a web of branches and into a sky that was beginning to darken, I giggled. Before long, Grant joined in, and we laughed so hard we couldn’t get up.

He reached over to brush something out of my hair. “Are you all right?”

I let out a satisfied breath. “I’m more than all right. Life with you is always an adventure.”

“Not all adventures are fun.” He brought my hand up to his lips. He’d gone pensive again, like he was falling inside himself. It was a shift, anyway, and it changed the mood. I wondered if he was upset that I hadn’t told him I loved him.

I let out a groan as I crunched up to a sitting position. “They don’t all have to be, as long as they teach you something.”

His forehead rippled. “And what did you learn from this fall?”

I stood, dusted my hands off, and looked down at Grant, who was still sitting on the ground. “To stop kissing you in the woods.”

He threw his head back. “It’s one data point! You need more than two to draw any sort of conclusion!”

“Well, I have at least two.” I held up my pointer and middle fingers. “Two months ago, the first time you kissed me in the woods, we both were drenched to the bone and nearly caught our death of pneumonia.”

He stood, inched closer, as if prepared to defend his ability to kiss me anywhere and everywhere.

“If I recall correctly, you kissed me. How was that my fault?”

“Because you insisted on being a wackadoodle in a torrential downpour, while every other sane individual had run for cover.” My voice elevated until the last word was punctuated with a tone he could never hope to reach.