Now, I just let him go in silence. Nothing would change his mind. After twenty-two imprisonments, I'd learned my place.
I still didn't know why. I just didn't care anymore.
Looking around the room, I fiddled with the necklace that rested on my collarbone and studied the pictures on the walls, absently wondering if he even noticed them anymore.
Did he remember when he'd proudly hung each black and white photo around the room? I'd been highly embarrassed to see myself everywhere, but he'd just held me from behind, his hands moving up my body as he studied each of his masterpieces.
"I wanted my queen to be well represented," he'd whispered.
Did he remember how much he'd once loved me?
"Rise and shine!" An annoying voice rang out through the foggy haze of sleep.
"No," I whined, shaking the tormented dream from my memory. August was no longer a ghost of my past. He was here. And he was mine.
"It's not morning," I mumbled.
"Oh, but it is," August chuckled-a dark mischievous chuckle that made me want to punch him.
Hard.
"It is not. Mornings involve sunshine and bird calls-coffee and happiness." Lifting my head half an inch off the pillow, I peeked out the corner of my eye, seeing nothing but blackness. "And none of those things are occurring right now. So, there will be no rising … and definitely no shining. Go away."
My head fell back onto the squishy pillow in victory.
"You should know, early riser, as well as I do, that mornings do in fact frequently happen in the dark."
"But those are work mornings." The more I spoke, the higher my voice got. Its current pitch was somewhere between that annoying girlfriend Chandler had dated on Friends and Miss Piggy. "Work mornings don't count."
"Will this conversation be any shorter if I mention I have coffee?"
"No you don't," I said, my voice growing grumpier by the second.
"How would you know that?"
"Because Einstein-I would smell it. I work in a coffee house and-Is that coffee?" I asked as the vibrant aroma of coffee beans filled the air. My eyes flew open to find a metal travel mug held out in front of me.
"Sneaky," I said, "Hiding it behind metal. But why is it in a travel mug and why are you waking me up at the ass crack of dawn … on my birthday, I might add?" I flipped the lip to the mug and took my first sip of the morning, preparing myself for black sludge, considering the man who had made it.
"Wow, this is actually good!" I exclaimed. I looked down at the cup in awe.
He laughed. "I'll try not to be overly wounded by your shock."
"Sorry! It's just really good! But it doesn't explain why I'm not sleeping in right now."
"It's your birthday," he said, as if that were some sort of explanation.
"And?"
"I promised you the best day ever."
"And that day begins at six in the morning?" I said, glaring at the clock by the nightstand.
"Yep! Now get your ass in the shower!" He swatted my ass and grinned. "We leave in an hour."
"Damn it! Why are there already so many people here?" August asked as we made the last turn into the Muir Woods Redwood Forest parking lot.
Which was completely full. At eight in the morning.
"Because it's Muir Woods," I said, a small smile creeping across my face.
"I know, but I thought by leaving at the ass crack of dawn-as you so elegantly put it-we'd avoid the tourists."
I shook my head, trying to keep from laughing. "Nope. You just joined the other crazy ones who rushed up here at the ass crack of dawn."
"Well, shit."
"There's more parking along the street if you keep heading down there." I pointed along the long curvy street that we'd been on before turning into the lot.
"Hope you don't mind a walk," he frowned.
"Here? Absolutely not," I smiled. He continued down the road, finding a small spot a ways down. He parallel parked with little effort and within minutes we were hand in hand on our way to the entrance, August's trusty camera around his neck.
"Thank you for this," I said, taking in a deep cleansing breath.
"I know you love it here, and I said it would be the best day ever," he reminded me with a smug grin. It tugged tightly at the corners of his eyes, creating the tiny little creases I loved to stare at. Gazing at these, combined with his hazel irises and chiseled jaw, I was nearly walking into oncoming traffic before I righted myself and began walking in a straight line again.
"You got a bit of drool … right there," he laughed, commenting on my absentmindedness.
"Shut up."
We made our way to the rustic little welcome center to buy tickets. I'd been here so many times with him, it seemed like our place.
Like coming home.
But to him, it was as if he was visiting for the first time.
So many good memories lost.
It hurt. The knowledge that in order to make new memories, he had to first lose every single memory from his past-a cleansing of sorts I guess. The guilt that he'd lost every single memory from his childhood-his parents, and family … it hurt. It all hurt.
Had I known that this was the only way to bring him back to the man he once was, before money and power had corrupted him, would I have chosen this life for him? Would it be so selfish of me to wish this existence on someone-just to have the man I remembered?
It was one of those questions I asked myself, but already knew the answer.
I had once been hopelessly in love with a monster and yet I'd gladly become one to bring him back.
Loving someone was easy. Life was the chaotic mess in between.
"Tell me what you like about this place so much," August asked, after we'd purchased our tickets from the elderly man behind the ticket window. August held on to the small map that plotted out the various trails and sights along the paths, while I just breathed it all in. I didn't need a map to tell me where I was going.
I'd been down these winding paths more times than I could count.
"The smell," I answered.
"You like the smell?"
"Yes-take a deep breath," I instructed, looking sideways to wait for him to do so. I watched him shake his head in amusement as his eyes met mine, but he did as I said and took a solid breath into his lungs, letting the mountain air fill his airways.
"What do you smell?" I asked.
"Air?" he answered, giving me a sideways grin.
"Seriously? That's it?"
"Mountain air?" he specified, watching as I did the same, breathing in deeply as we walked down the shadowy path. "What do you smell?"
"Everything," I answered. "The crisp woodsy smell of the trees, the rustic flavor of the earth, and that clean feeling of the water rushing through. It's like the best air freshener money can buy, but it's impossible to bottle, because there is no way we could replicate this."
He didn't say anything, as we continued to stroll along the wooded walkway and he snapped a few pictures. Others walked around us-families, couples and even a few school groups pointed toward the heavens as they looked at the giant redwoods. The drive out from the city was only about thirty minutes, but stepping out here was like visiting another world. So vastly different from the hustle and bustle, the forest breathed solitude and serene tranquility. Even as the school-aged kids ran up and down the wood walkway, nothing could sway the sense of peace I felt when I came here.
"What else?" August asked.
"What?" I asked, looking up at a piece of sky through the trees.
"What else do you like about this place?" he asked softly.
I looked around, trying to pick just one thing. I loved everything, really. The solitude. The way I felt when I was here. The time I'd spent with him in this place so long ago.
"Oh, here-let me show you," I said, pulling him along the path. We came to one of my favorite markers. So many trees had fallen over the years, whether due to drought or storms, and rather than trying to move them the forestry department usually left them where they fell unless they interfered with a path or caused a safety hazard. In this spot, they'd cut one of the oldest fallen trees in half to demonstrate the incredible lifespan of a giant redwood.
"Here," I said, pointing to the many rings within the tree. There were several markers there, designating historical events which went back nearly a thousand years.
"When I look at this tree-stand in this place, I feel almost insignificant."
"What?" he said, confusion crossing his face.
"Let me continue." I grinned. "Before this tree fell, its life span was over 900 years. You and I would have been a speck of time-a blip, barely noticeable to its existence."
"This is depressing."
"Shut up. I'm talking." I laughed. "Sometimes, when life is chaotic and intense, and I feel like it just can't possibly be any worse, I like to come here and remember that I'm not the only one in the universe. That in the nearly ten centuries of this tree's life, hundreds of thousands of people lived and died feeling exactly the same way I did at some point in their life … and chances are their lives were worse than mine because I at least have indoor plumbing and a blow dryer."