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HAND IN HAND their fingers entwined, the two ambled without care through the lush trees and green bushes. They picked the blueberries along the way and wildflowers now adorned Lana’s thick brown hair with sun-kissed amber highlights. She’d straightened it for Mickal. Mickal had picked each flower himself and carefully placed them over her ear.
One yellow for hope.
One white for innocence.
One red for love.
Lana blushed, her smooth clear cheeks suddenly showing pink, when he’d put each in her hair. As he’d come across the right colors he then told her why he picked each one. Lana wished the moment could be paused, and the perfection in it captured. She was sure her own parents didn’t have memories like this.
As they continued their carefree walk, they stopped to touch the different trees and foliage. They would pause so that the crackling of their feet against the woods droppings on the ground wouldn’t disturb the songs of the birds that made their home there. Lana thought about how loudly the birds chirped as they cried out to each other in warning. All the while, they talked about their love for each other.
The blue sky with swirled cirrus clouds dotting the heavens above their head was the perfect backdrop as the sun’s rays splattered through the leaves. Their rolled jeans were dusty at the hems like their bare feet from the dirt path worn down but now abandoned.
It was almost September and school would be starting again for both of them, driving a wedge again between their love as they were forced to part.
Lana would be a junior in high school and Mickal was starting his sophomore year of college. Mickal had missed Lana terribly last year when they were forced to only see each other during the few breaks they had.
He’d even played with the idea of transferring back to a school closer to her so they could really be together. She, instead, had insisted that he finish up where he was.
After their lazy walk through the woods the trees pulled back and opened up to the beautiful park-like setting by the water. They’d reached their destination. It was a mostly forgotten man-made lake by the woods. The brush was overgrown and Lana guessed someone only came out two or three times in a year to tend to the area but that didn’t matter. To her it was beautiful, peaceful, their special and secret place.
Flowers, flowers by the lake
Pick them. Let us know our fate
Hold me, never let me go
Flowers, flowers. Where’d they go?
Lana and Mickal sang their short song with arms wrapped around each other as they looked into one another’s eyes. Lana couldn’t believe she’d landed Mickal. That he’d actually fallen for her.
She’d never meant for it to go this far but it had. They’d literally bumped into each other at a movie and he’d accidentally spilled half of her popcorn on himself, on her, and on the floor.
She wanted to be mad but then she looked up at him and his smile. She saw that dimple an inch to the right of his lips, those soul stirring crystal blue eyes, and his all-around good looks and the only thing she felt was mesmerized.
She wasn’t supposed to be with anyone like him. Not according to her parents. He was everything she wasn’t and everything her parents didn’t want for her. But she didn’t care.
