Sunset
“What do you think?” he asked.
“What do you think?”
“I think it’s a sunset.”
The two sat on a rock out in a field, two fence-hops away from a road the lead into the mountains. Winter clouds posed in the distance, threatening an early end to autumn.
It would rain tomorrow, he decided. Or snow, he couldn’t really tell. She pushed her red-fleece-wrapped self against him and smiled.
“Of course it’s a sunset, you goose.”
One sunny day in the relative warmth of fall in the mountains had passed, the afternoon had passed, evening was coming as quickly as o could usher it. The lower the sun, the brighter the leaves, though. The bright reds were all that remained on the trees, and they were spectacular in this light.
“Some day, we’ll bring a tent,” he said quietly, and kissed her. They were young, and the kiss reflected it - urgent and clumsy, and bashful. They jerked away when footsteps sounded on the path below them. An evening jogger passed them, and two girls walking dogs. As they finally moved out of sight, the blonde girl stood up on the rock and stared after them, her face set earnestly.
“Do you think we’re alone now?”
“No,” he smiled, “we can’t be alone. That’s the point of we.”
She lifted her chin into the breeze and smirked.
“Aren’t you the arrogant bastard?” she said.
The sky had faded to a soft gray-blue, with a rush of dull pink flowing from the horizon. The girl grabbed his arm and hauled him up on the rock with her.
“Gorgeous,” she said.
“Yes.”
He wanted to look poetic and grim, but smiled broadly in spite of himself; he couldn’t stop it from happening, she had a way of making him smile. They stood there for a few minutes - maybe ten, maybe less, and the failing sunlight made its last triumphant charge over the mountaintops. Everything was suddenly cast in a vaguely ruby light. It washed over her cheeks as she closed her eyes and kissed him - but not for too long. Sunsets like this were one-in-a-million.
After that brief moment, she rested her head upon his shoulder and stared into the distance at the lovely blush in the sky.
He exhaled into her ear, and she giggled.
“You know, red is my favorite color,” she said.
“You tell me every day.”
“You know that everything will be okay, right? With us?”
“Yeah, I know,” he said. They stood there until the sun dipped below the mountains, and the world was plunged into eerie blue twilight.
“Huh,” she said, “I kind of believed that was going to last forever.”
“Me too.”
She kissed him on the cheek and he jumped down to find her coat. The wind was colder, had a terrible edge in this kind of light.
“I’m almost ready to go, my mom is probably waiting,” she said.
“Wait here for another minute, and I’ll walk you there.”
He stared at the until the light finished its retreat, arms tight around her. In this darkness, even so close, he could hardly even see her anymore. For a moment, it seemed that she had never been there to begin with.
I am working on this writing habit, but it's slow going. Poring over pages and pages of terrible handwritten notes and ideas I still can't quite follow. Working on it, though.