Rising Sun Valley Dear Fellow Traveller

He scampers away and on the opposite side faces her. Two cornered beasts.

In her youth she was too wild to feel regret. Somewhere along the way she’d begun to grow in self-awareness, and there were opinions she’d come to value above even her own. She hated how she couldn’t go back, and she couldn’t rip from her skin this roiling shame hot as blood no matter how ardently she insists he is only a boy, and what does it matter anyway?

She hides away her eyes as Louis speaks. “Look- can we just forget this happened. Please?”

He sounds so controlled; forgiving. For some reason that makes her feel all the more pathetic, like a reminder that she should know well enough at her age to exercise equal restraint.

But she is a jagged cut of lightning- striking solid ground only in brief moments before returning to the storm. She chances one small peek at Louis.