Paradise Forbidden

by Natalie E. Wrye

  In all actuality, there is no comparison. I’ve never even come close to lusting this badly for any man… let alone one I’ve only known for six days.

  I sigh, holding myself tighter, attempting to banish an insidious chill. It’s a different type of cold, one that stems from the icy void of having a Trevor-sized hole between my arms. I’m so royally fucked.

  And since I’m so hopelessly far gone, I might as well give into it. Let the spark between us blaze… and say to hell with the goddamn ashes.

  There’s only one secret left to share. And tomorrow morning, it will be his to own.

  Trevor

  My body tingles from a tickle on my arm. It wakes me up. But I am not bothered… because the first thing I see is Kat.

  She’s leaning over me. Her expression is intense; her eyes are excited. “I have something I want to show you,” she says.

  She stands and when she does, I realize how dark it is in the room, how early it still must be. She helps me up, raising a small finger over her barely visible lips. The message is clear. We’re sneaking out… and suddenly, I feel an adrenaline rush at the thought of doing something illicit.

  Kat leads the way, and we maneuver our way around Ama’s living room until we reach the front door. We shut it silently behind us, treading softly on the dewy grass that sits wetly in Ama’s front garden.

  The darkness is deeper than I expected, made so by the forest’s dense, tree cover. I follow Kat into thicker thickets that threaten to swallow us whole: never asking a question, never whispering a concern.

  When you’ve been faced with the very real prospect of pain and death, everything else seems immaterial. At this point, I can honestly say that nothing scares me anymore.

  And for what it’s worth, I now know… for certain… that I will follow Kat to hell and back if she asked me to.

  Especially when she’s holding on to me like this.

  I’m sure she hasn’t noticed that she’s still clutching my hand, but she is, and every tiny tug she gives, spurs me forward.

  The exuberance is coming off of her in waves, and each hobbled step she takes is more sprightly than the previous. I can’t see her face; I can barely see her figure, but there’s something child-like in her demeanor: bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. She has that recognizable flounce of a kid in a candy store.

  Her excitement is infectious, and with each inch of ground we cover, I feel myself becoming more and more eager. What does she want to show me? Is it what I think it is?

  It seems as if we walk forever. My shoulder starts to throb again: pulsate from the pain. I am too anxious to think twice about it. We’re almost there. I can tell by the way Kat has quickened her pace.

  We make a turn through compacted undergrowth, and then we are accosted.

  Assaulted… by light. The heavens have parted, and we have suddenly cleared the condensed woods. It’s a ray of sunshine, borne out of the depths of a seemingly never-ending black hole. That beautiful yellow star has finally arisen… and its beam is suddenly so bright.

  I shield my eyes from its onslaught until they adjust and look further out into the area we have just entered so ceremoniously. I’m completely shocked by what I see.

  It’s a hidden alcove in the woods: a lake… surrounded by some of the most lush greenery that I have ever laid my eyes on. Berry-colored flowers flank the entire perimeter of the water, and they blaze against the lake’s surface with a glow that would make neon jealous.

  The colors are so vibrant, so rich that it is hard to imagine that everything here could bloom in such an early time of year… but here they are: painting my world with hues that I’ve only dreamed about.

  I’m speechless.

  I scan our surroundings: my head moving on a pivot while my body stays motionless. I let my enlarged pupils gobble up every sight: afraid that any movement or speech will make the fantasy disappear.

  Skimming. Scanning. Absorbing all of its breathtaking beauty, all of its unimaginable majesty.

  At last, Kat speaks up. I don’t know how long I’ve been standing there like this. “It’s called the Oasis,” she states, startling me. “It’s a sort of hidden secret of the Cherokee: a paradise within a paradise. These forests here are beautiful, but nothing compares to this.”

  The Oasis. I mouth the words silently, feeling the weight of them on my tongue. I’m a man hypnotized: drugged by its splendor.

  The Oasis is mind-bogglingly beautiful: enchanting. This really is paradise.

  In my periphery, I hear her. “Over there are Catawba rhododendrons. Aaaand to your right, if you look, you’ll see some bright purple Dwarf Larkspur. Beautiful, aren’t they? Watch out, though; they’re poisonous.”

  I’ve never seen such a dark violet color in the wild. It is the second most gorgeous thing that I have ever seen. I finally turn my head to look at the first: Kat.

  Dumbfounded, I declare to her: “You were right, Kat. You were right. It does exist… and it is… fucking unbelievable.” I shake my head: incredulous, not even noticing the frown that is now forming on Kat’s face.

  The motion of shaking my head is unsettling. It makes me feel nauseous. My entire world weeble-wobbles dangerously into a full tilt, and I reach a hand out for balance.

  I grip nothing but air.

  I feel as if I’m underwater and haven’t been turned upright. Grasping and reaching out should save me, but it only sinks me deeper.

  Whoa. What is happening?

  Kat is calling out for me, but nothing helps me focus. I am drowning in air, and I can’t stay afloat. I sink painfully to my knees, crushing my back against solid ground as I collapse backwards.

  My thoughts are shiftless, running rampant through the agony. I can only seem to make sense out of one; it is the loudest of them all.

  All of that traveling to get to this point… and now I’m going to die in paradise.

  What a way to go, Trevor Cassidy.

  ***

  Kat

  Hospitals have always made me nervous. I’m sure they make everybody nervous. Nothing good happens here.

  Bad. Bad. It’s all fucking bad.

  Disease. Sickness. Blood. Anguish.

  It’s the worst sides of humanity: everything that you fight not to become. Each tiled hall is a reminder that we are supple, weak and dying with every breath we take.

  I stand before Trevor’s hospital room, mustering up more rigidity than I feel, trying to keep my countenance strong so that the cracks in my armor won’t show.

  I’m worried.

  Worried that he won’t be alright. Worried that the situation is more dire than I previously assumed. Worried that he will see… how much I’m worried.

  When Trevor fell, he fell hard. The blood that gushed from the resulting gash on his head freaked me out. And then I freaked Ama out. I know she must have been panicked because she drove. She hates driving.

  I take a deep breath, throwing my shoulders and long hair back: bracing myself for what is to come. I enter the room, and my eyes find him immediately. His own eyes are closed, and he is lying on his back in a blue-ish hospital gown: a sling on his arm, a strap across his chest, and a bandage on his brow.

  He’s not as pale as I presumed he would be. In fact, he looks fairly healthy: breathing calmly and steadily as he sleeps. His hair actually seems longer than it was, the strands almost tickling the tips of his eyebrows.

  I cannot help it. I reach out towards him and brush a finger along their edges, my fingertips feeling the heat of Trevor’s skin. It’s not cold or clammy: more like hot and tanned, and it contrasts nicely against the light color of his mane.

  His jaw is so rigid, so strong; the hair that’s grown there over the past few days has done nothing to lessen its severity. The scruff is dark blonde: deeper than the hue on his head, and it is surprisingly soft, having outgrown the stubbly phase and journeyed right into beard territory.

  He has a chiseled face: a manly face… which is almost funny, considering how dece
ivingly long his lashes are. Why do guys always get the good lashes?

  There’s a small mole near the corner of his right eye. It’s almost like a beauty mark: brown in color, seemingly strategically placed. My fingers descend. They nearly brush over the spot as well.

  “I’m actually ticklish, you know.” A voice pipes up, and I snatch my hand away. It’s Trevor. He’s awake.

  His eyes are still closed, but his mouth is definitely moving, disproving his appearance of being asleep. How long has he been aware?

  He opens his eyes and discovers mine staring back in shock and dismay. Mirth lies in his cocoa irises, but he never cracks a grin. He smiles with his eyes, and I smile back with my lips, covering my now-red face with the hand that just touched him.

  He blinks sweetly as if he’s oblivious to my shame.

  “Hi,” I say, laughing shakily to brush the nerves away. “Did you know it was me?”

  “Of course,” he replies, straight-faced, his eyes never leaving my own.

  “How?

  He pauses before answering, a smirk finally drawing on his seemingly soft but firm lips. “I can smell you from a mile away.”

  I freeze.

  “I mean that in the best possible way, of course,” he continues, his voice lowering seductively. A shiver runs down my arms, and I fold them, pretending that the chill has come from the A/C and not Trevor’s loaded suggestions.

  All of a sudden, a news report comes on the vintage TV screen above our heads. I watch Trevor’s eyes go wide. I turn to see what he is looking at, and when I do, I almost believe for a second that my own eyes will pop out of my head.

  “Turn this up,” he says to me. His voice is stolid: completely emotionless.

  I reach around for the remote, pressing the volume button with quivering fingers. From the TV, the reporter starts commenting, and my heartbeat thunders in my ears.

  “In local news today, the search is still on for some of the missing passengers of a cross-state transit bus that is said to have deviated from its normal travel route and crashed in a large lake outside of the Tennessee River Valley area Tuesday night.

  “Divers recovered only one body from the submerged wreckage as of this morning. Driver, Vincenzo Ferrero, was pronounced dead at the scene, and local police authorities are in desperate search of any other potential victims of the crash.

  “Police officials are taking critical measures to get in contact with passengers of the bus from Tuesday night. So far, only a few passengers have gone unaccounted for. Local authorities ask that if you have any information about the details of this accident, please give them a call at…”

  The reporter’s following words fade into a white noise of oblivion. I cannot think above the roar that’s in my head.

  Trevor speaks before I’m able to.

  “The hospital has already connected me to the flare, Kat. I didn’t tell them about the crash…”

  I nod, hanging my head. “I didn’t, either… but we’re going to have to tell someone, sooner or later.”

  “I know,” he responds gravely. “I’d just rather it be later than sooner.”

  We look at each other then, our eyes intense: sharing a solemn understanding. We both recognize something that no one ever could. We empathize with one another without passing a word.

  Revealing what happened to us in the hospital would thrust us smack dab into places we don’t want to be.

  Right into a frenzied spotlight. Right back into the lives we left behind.

  I can feel us letting it go already, dropping the subject only to let it be picked up at a later point in time.

  Trevor’s stare shifts from the TV back towards me. His gaze drops, focusing on my feet and staying there.

  “So,” he states, “how long did Ama have to harangue you before you saw one of the doctors about your ankle?” He chuckles softly, motioning toward my newly wrapped ankle.

  I look down at it, then back to him.

  “About twice as long as it took to convince you to allow the doctors to hook you to an IV.”

  He laughs harder, lifting his casted arm. “I knew the shoulder was going to need work, but honestly didn’t see the vertigo coming. Not sure if I needed an IV for overheating and dehydration, though.”

  “Sure… because your suggestion of guzzling a few water bottles would have reallyyy gotten the job done.” I roll my eyes exaggeratedly, cutting my eyes at his earlier ridiculous remarks.

  “Hey! Don’t mock me, woman,” he jokes in fake outrage. “I’m a professional.”

  “A professional what? Lunatic?” I scoff.

  “Look who’s calling the kettle black here, Carmen Sandiego. I didn’t go off missing on some crazy mission like someone we know,” he implies, raising his eyebrows.

  “Ok,” I exclaim laughingly, raising a hand. “Pick a nickname for me, and stick with just one, please?”

  “Suuure. Which do you prefer? Princess? Sandiego? Maybe ‘El Sur’?”

  “‘El Sur?”

  “Yeah.” He waves a hand. “It means ‘the South’ in Spanish. It’s a magnet… thing… look, how about we stick to Kat then for a while?”

  “Fine by me. I mean, that is my name, Trevor. I don’t go by other names, and I certainly won’t respond to any others, if you keep at it.”

  I grin, giggling a bit at our back-and-forth… but he doesn’t join me. His face falls a little flat, and he swallows harshly. His Adam’s Apple bobs ever so slightly.

  He seems strangely uncomfortable, so I drop the subject. I turn and leave shortly thereafter. I’m tempted to look back at Trevor, but I don’t; I head directly out of the door to hit the waiting room to find Ama. She was our ride, but I don’t know where we go from here.

  I finally found the Oasis. We survived the wild.

  So –why do I feel so much dread about what the future may hold?

  Trevor

  The woman at the front desk is quite hefty and quite unfriendly, I might add. She looks at us as if she doesn’t trust a single word we’re saying.

  Luckily, she’s not making the call; she defers solely to the judgment of her rail-thin husband: a slim jester of a man with a Cheshire smile.

  “This is for room 212,” he says, slapping a bronze key on the counter. “And this right here… is for 214.” I smile widely, reaching out to shake the gracious man’s hand.

  “Thanks. We really appreciate this,” I say, motioning towards Kat at my side. “I’ll have the money wired to you as soon as possible. It’s just been a long ordeal.”

  “Hell, son,” the middle-aged man states, leaning in. “I’ve been out in them woods. They’re no goddamned picnic.”

  I shake my head ruefully, pumping his hand even harder. “Believe me, sir. You have no idea.”

  I grab the keys to our assigned rooms of the bed-and-breakfast, throwing an appreciative wave at the married owners of the inn. Ama is long gone, probably back at her own house by now, if she actually made it in the piece of tin that she calls a car.

  She took us to the hospital in a small nearby town called Madisonville when I fainted. She pushed Kat and I to get the medical attention that we’ve been denied for far too long.

  Though her customs are heavily steeped in the traditions of the old world, she and Viho maintain a few “New World” items: one of them, fortunately, being a rickety, old wood-paneled station wagon.

  We had the option to return to Ama’s, which would have been easiest, but surprisingly, Kat was begging for a hot shower and running water. And I must admit: so was I.

  We climb the stencil blue stairs of the bed-and-breakfast, in the same sweat-soaked clothes we borrowed from Ama and Viho earlier. We are newly bandaged, recently fed, and completely wiped from our short hospital stay.

  We stop directly in front of the doors. I turn to Kat.

  “Ok. So… room 212 or 214 for you?” I ask.

  “212,” she says, shrugging shyly. “I like the symmetry of the numbers.”

  I scoff, flipping the
key to 212 in my hand before turning it over to her. “You writers. Always fretting over what looks pretty in print.”

  “Of course,” Kat responds smugly, opening her door with the new key. She takes no pause, lugging her small black backpack inside. I call after her.

  “Kat.”

  She sits the bag down into the room, pivoting toward me. “Yeah?”

  “I’m… I’m here… if you need anything, ok? All you have to do is knock.” I capture her eyes, not letting them go.

  She nods, her brown waves gently bouncing up and down. She shuts the door behind her, and I retreat to my own room, feeling a sense of loss I dare not even attempt to explain.

  ***

  Kat

  I fall down face first into the cushions, riding on a wave of ecstasy as I sink into its confines. Finally, a bed. A real bed. Comforters and pillows; foam and fluff. Sheets and springs and bed skirts, oh my!

  I’m in a heaven that I had forgotten existed: something I’d only dreamed about after days on forest floors and Ama’s carpet.

  The robe from the inn is too big. My hair is soaking wet. There’s an old, weathered smell in the room. But nothing else matters. In my mind, this is five-star luxury… and I’ve never been more grateful.

  It’s early (only 9:00 PM here), but I’m so exhausted: tired with the type of all-encompassing drowsiness that I’m sure only narcoleptics experience.

  I close the neck of the robe tighter, bunching it, sealing in the remaining steam from my hot shower. I’m cocooned in a layer of deliciously warm comfort, and my eyes slowly drift close as I lay. Mmmm….

  Knock knock.

  I roll over, looking at the front door to my room. I could’ve sworn I heard a tap-tap. Maybe I’m dreaming….

  Ugh. No. There it goes again. I trudge reluctantly out of the bed and towards the knock, wishing death upon the person behind the hollow wood.

  I crack the door open and find Trevor there, a strange expression on his face. I’ve never seen him look like this. It’s like a splash of cold water in the face.