“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.”