Aurora
Aurora was born on June 6, 1985 in a small suburb in southern California. Throughout her life she never felt like she belonged anywhere. She dreamed of a feeling of home that rang through her bones and into the deepest parts of her soul. She strived for perfection. She struggled to never fall behind and do the most with what she was given. She was pretty, but not beautiful, smart, but not too intelligent, funny, but not hilarious, and had an awkwardness that was too human. She felt unremarkable in every way, except for one. She had ambition. Her taste for adventure was as strong as the ocean’s current or the wind atop the highest mountains.
She fought every ounce of who she was told she was and where she was from knowing that her life would not be that of her parents or neighbors. She wanted to be good enough for the life she envisioned. She traveled, but her taste for adventure was never quenched as she roamed the Earth. She was a wanderer. With never feeling a sense of belonging anywhere she went everywhere she could.
Aurora longed for the feeling of someone finding her and feeling at home wherever she was. Instead she settled for her cravings in life such as the sensory of nature: the smell of the earth, the wind in her hair, the sound of the ground under her feet, the way the light shined through the branches of the trees, and the sounds of the creeks as they raced against the rocks.
Throughout Aurora’s travels she had learned to love many things. Although she had never loved a man she did love her morning coffee, her books and the connections she felt to the characters, happy music, drifting with no destination, and most of all the outdoors. She hiked mountains as often as she could and got on a plane as often as she could afford. She worked to live the life that she wanted, because she never saw anyone else’s life she could begin to yearn for. She was adventurous and bold. She promised herself she would never let anyone tell her how to live her life according to theirs, and that was the most important thing she lived by.
Charles
Charles was born on January 3, 1985 in the same small suburb in southern California. He was an attractive man, but lacked confidence. This lack of confidence kept him a hidden treasure from the world for when he chose to, he shined brighter than the sun. It was his best kept secret and he also kept it from himself. He was shy and didn’t like most people. He didn’t understand the pain people caused each other and instead found himself slightly angry with the world.
Throughout his early life he followed his father’s footsteps, a man who continued to live the same year 40 times and called it a life. At the age of 15 Charles had learned the most valuable lesson from his father- to view the world the same at the age of 40 as he did when he was 20 has learned nothing. His father taught him that he did not want to live like his father. He wanted more, but he never knew what more was.
Charles loved the outdoors and didn’t care which way he got there. He loved the smell of campfires and how the desert felt under his tires and his feet. He loved the mountains and the views where he felt alive. He dipped his toe into these feelings two weeks a year. He tried to get away more, but rarely flew and he had never been further than Mexico.
Charles was grounded, but not as fixed and steady as the boulders he climbed. He was stuck temporarily as he knew one day he would find out what more was. Charles had never been in love, but like everything else he wanted in life, he hoped it would be as great as his dreams. He had many hobbies and kept himself busy with tinkering with anything and everything. His mind worked in a way to find out how things worked. He had a drive to put things together better than they were, but keep the best parts of them whole.
They Meet: Charles
October 5, 2007- I’ll never forget it. How powerful her gaze as she stared up at the sky. Her presence and the way she fought to hide in the corner, but instead commanded every piece of my attention. Her unmatched clothing and tomboy appearance was meshed with feminine features that couldn’t be hidden. It was the most put together mess he had ever seen.
“Beautiful night,” he said as he stared up at the sky.
“Yes it is,” she replied without moving her gaze. “It’s that perfect feeling you know? It’s not quite autumn so there’s no season to fall in love with, but you fall in love with it anyway. It takes your breath away for that moment where you realize summer is almost gone and your recent sun kissed skin now has the cool crisp air pressing against it. Your bare feet that burned from the heat was just earlier in the day fuel to run from outside. Now all that remains is the longing to sit out here just a few minutes longer. There’s a desire to grab a coat because you’re chilly, but you don’t because you want to feel the cold of the season change in the not too distance future. Soon there will be longer days with rain against the window, a good book, and the unnerving frightful desire to be right here again under the blanket of these stars on a perfect clear night.”
Upon her first words he noticed the openness to her. Her confidence and appetite for life. Standing on top of this mountain he thought about her words. How he agreed that he too had many desires and wanted to go camping, fish and hike as much as possible, but at this moment knowing the change of the season was upon them he desired nothing more than the feeling she just laid out for him. He saw how the moon illuminated everything and he never saw anything so clear.
“Do you feel it?” she asked as she took her gaze off the stars and her eyes fell upon him. She took a deep breath. “A longing to do more than just exist in life? To live a truly beautiful life?”
“With more truth than you could imagine,” he said as he dropped his gaze too. She was dazzling. She spoke more about love and life. She was smart and her dry sense of humor was also quick witted. Each smart-ass comeback and humor drove him further to the conclusion that he knew he was in the best kind of trouble. With each breath she seemed wilder and freer. Is this what I’ve been looking for he thought? Or is this more? He asked her about her desires and she got excited. She giggled when she talked about books, hiking, camping, the mountains, and the comfort she found in nature. She also found love in freedom and it was so beautiful to witness her passion for life. She had a wild soul and the disarray made a difference he had never seen.
“How often do you hike the moonlight hike,” he asked as she paused to take a drink of her IPA.
“This is my first time at this one, but I’ve done a few over the years. I always stick to a trail when I hike, but at night it’s like the path is gone and the lonely feeling that captures you is overwhelming and guides you to yourself,” she said as she finished the beer.
They Meet: Aurora
There was an inevitability to him. He looked at her in a way that no one had ever looked at her before. It wasn’t just sexual, but it awakened her in a way she had never felt. How wonderfully chaotic she thought? A look that can send a sensation to parts of her body she was barely aware of? She smiled embarrassed by the thought.
“Why do you hike,” she questioned. She was so curious about this man. Did he find peace like her? Was he as lost as her? Did he also dream in experiences that haven’t happened yet?
“It calms me,” he said.
Her gaze shifted. “Seduce my mind and you can have my body. Find my soul and I’m forever yours.” she said.
“Excuse me?” he said as turned a little red.
“The post there. Someone carved that in,” she smiled. Fitting she thought.
Love
November 24, 2007- Charles and Aurora sat on top of the mountain after 7 miles of grueling switchbacks and ups and downs. “It feels like life sometimes, doesn’t it?” Aurora questioned taking another bite of her peanut butter and jelly sandwich. “The ups and downs, the journey, and how much we look forward to the destination? But here we are with this sense of accomplishment and gratitude for meeting our goal, only we still need to walk 7 miles down this mountain because this is just the high point to our journey?”
“We loved with a love that was more than love,” Charles said as stared off into the valley.
“What?” Aurora said confused, but very intrigued at the same time.
“It’s Edgar Allen Poe,” he said as he gazed back at her unable to hold it back any longer.
“I know the quote,” Aurora said sternly. Then a half smile creeped across her face waiting for the next response. Could this be it she thought? Are they finally going to say what she knew the day they met?
“I don’t like the word love,” he said. He looked sadly at his sandwich with no desire to eat it. He wanted to shove the whole thing in this mouth so he could get something in the way of what was about to say. He wanted a distraction from his brain, but as he glanced up at her once more he saw that sideways crooked smile that he adored and couldn’t hold it back any longer. “But it’s the only word I know of to describe you.”
Her smile widened. “Why don’t we just go with it?” She asked.
“I don’t want to just go with it. I don’t know what I want, but I know that I don’t want to end up without you,” he said angrily. I want more than this, but I don’t have the word. All I have is some look that you give me, what I can only describe as a longing that we have never talked about, a look you’ve given me since the day we met.
“Why would you end up without me?” she smiled. His anger was cute to her like the Hulk comic books she read as a child. His frustration with others, himself, and the world drove him to be a better man and the man she fell in love with. “You already have me,” she said.
“We are too rare for love,” he said louder knowing he was losing his temper with his own feelings and emotions. He glanced at her and calmed down a little. He looked at her somewhat shyly, “Your heart is mine and mine is yours.”
“I know how rare our love is,” she whispered as she gazed into his eyes. “It gets stronger each day and I treasure it.” She touched his hand knowing how to calm his mind. It comforted her to care for him like that. It untangled her to love like that. All too often she craved roots like trees to feel something that made her stay when all she needed was this.
“I want to make you happy,” he said as he took her hand.
“You do,” she smiled.
“No,” he said, “I want to make you so happy when you lay in bed at night you think of how amazing your life is and how you didn’t know it was possible to be this happy.”
Aurora scooted closer to him and stared at his lips. “You do.”
“What do you want?” he asked as he stared back at her lips.
“A bed,” she stated so obviously it struck him by surprise.
“OK,” he said. He desired confidence but instead he was scared and wondered if he was shaking. Could she tell?
“I want to lay my head on your chest and spend the day there.” She came in closer. “I don’t want an agenda or a time frame for anything.” She came in so close her lips almost brushed his. She took both his hands in hers. “And your hands, I want your hands all over me.”
He leaned in the millimeters they were apart and finally kissed. And it was everything they had both been missing their entire lives.
Friends
August 1, 2008- “Please understand,” she pleaded with Charles. I can’t be stuck here. I fear for my life and my very existence if I stay here.”
“I’m not asking you to stay here,” Charles said softly as he stared at his empty hands. “I’m asking you not to leave me.”
“I’m not leaving you. It doesn’t matter where I am, I’m yours. I’m just yours in a different way,” she said tearfully with a smile. “You’re my best friend. That doesn’t end. I need you.”
“You don’t need anything,” he said sadly.
“That’s not true. I need you. Not in the ways I need my supplies when hiking, not to survive in life, but I need you to make my life worth living,” she said as she moved closer to him.
“My life is better with you in it,” Charles said as he glanced up at her. “There’s no way around that. I’m better with you.”
“We will always love each other,” she said. “We will probably fall in love 50 more times with each other. That’s the way we are. We will fall in love again and again, with life and with each other every time we look at each other.”
“I’m scared,” he admitted.
“Why?” she questioned. She was scared too. She had told him things she couldn’t even tell herself.
“There are only three things I have ever wanted in this world,” he said.
“What?” she asked as tears started to form in her yes.
“You and us,” he said.
“That’s only two,” she cried.
“Those are the only ones that matter right now,” he said.
“There are two things I am sure of in this world. The sun will continue to rise and fall each day,” she said. She paused staring at him considering her choice in her next breath. She wanted to be honest with him, but she needed to make sure she didn’t leave hope that could ruin him. Deciding honesty is best she said, “I will continue to rise and fall each day for you. You will always be a part of me. You have a piece of my heart that I cannot get back.”
“You don’t have to leave,” he said. “You can be the masterpiece you are right here. You can be the work in progress you are right here with me. I want you. Have I told you that? I want you. I want all of your jokes, flaws and smiles, and sarcasm.”
She stared at him for a moment reconsidering everything. She knew it was now or never. She knew if she didn’t take this moment of bravery she never would. His eyes would keep here forever. If she stayed she would grow to resent him and she couldn’t let her love for him die like that. “No matter what happens you will always have me. No matter who I fall in love with or how many times my heart breaks, there is quiet place that will always belong to you.”
“Who you fall in love with?” he asked with sorrow in his eyes.
“Who or what. Please understand that it’s not that I love you any less, but I love freedom more,” she said. That was the statement. That was the honesty she was holding back. And with tears in her eyes, she left on her one year excursion.
As she walked away he realized that she deserved better, but he wondered, couldn’t he have just been better?
Charles Falls in Love
September 5, 2009. “Does she look good by the campfire?” she questioned as she turned away from him towards the flame.
“She doesn’t have freckles that glimmer like stars against it,” he said as he admired her.
“It’s fair for you to break my heart,” Aurora said tearfully as she gazed upon his sad eyes. “I broke yours. It’s been a long year for both of us.”
“It’s not that it’s fair or not fair,” Charles choked back. He recognized the pain and turned his head to stare at the fire. “I am not trying to hurt you, I just have to do this.”
“Of course you do,” Aurora smiled. “How else will we know what we have been given unless we break each other’s hearts?” She smiled forcing the smile she had learned to display so well she might just believe it herself. “I just want you to be happy.”
As Charles glanced her direction he saw the smile he knew she practiced for years. Today was the first day she ever used it on him. “Please don’t,” he said softly and he tucked her hair behind her ear, “I can’t take that look.”
Aurora smiled for real this time, softly and slowly gazing at him. “You have always known me better. When it comes to you none of my bull shit works, but it’s required now. You call out my defense system and bring my walls down. You break my heart, you take away every shield and you ask for what? You ask me to just walk away? Our lives have been fate since the day we met and you won’t even let me have this moment of grace and kindness to hold my head up as you leave? We have been on a collision course since the day we met and as we head to our inventible crash site you are choosing to unbuckle my seat belt? Do not try to take away all that I have left.” She looked at him with sorrow. She wanted so much out of her life and to be so much in this world. All she wanted in that moment though was to be his.
Their Twenties
Throughout the next 3 years Charles and Aurora continued to find each other. The world continued to try to come between them, but every few month late night phone call in tears, needing advice from the only one who ever understood each other, or a memory that needed a hello to go along with it occurred. In the middle of all of the chaos of their lives there was each other. They longed for each other, but as they grew up they grew apart. Everything shifted and the life they both ran from was far in the distance. They didn’t overlook the same things they used to. They were less fragile except when they thought of each other.
As Charles thought of Aurora, as he often did, the image was always the same. It was that look in her eyes. That desire and wanting that always drove him crazy. He loved the way she had stared him all those times. He loved the way she tasted him the way she tasted whiskey, how she bit her lip, then rolled them together to savor every last drop. The way her eyes closed and she smiled. He thought of how she walked, slowly enjoying everything around her, but with purpose.
Aurora also thought of Charles often too. There were moments when she longed for him. She longed for his hands and his touch. She longed for the way he stared at her when she didn’t think she noticed. She thought to herself, we can always be better. Those were the moments she would pick up the phone. She wanted to be better for him. She yearned for him. She was had a distant memory of a feeling where her body was loved and soul was understood, but she knew her life needed more adventure. She called him to tell him hi and catch up. She cried to him when things were hard. But she always chose wanderlust. It consumed her as did the vibrant hope for the unknown. Every time she considered running back she walked further away. She chose exploration to cleanse her soul.
Aurora and Indiana
July 23, 2010 - “Honestly it’s unnerving. I am still trying to love the pieces of me that no one else does,” she said as he sat across from her at the table. The basket of bread might as well have been an ocean with the distance it put between them. She kept it there knowing it was best to keep everyone at a distance. “I am so many things. I am what has built me. I am what has broken me. I am the experiences I have had and I am even the places I haven’t seen.” She had never met a man like this. He was so insightful and worldly. He listened, but he had so much more to say. She was exhilarated by what he talked about and his past. She found his maturity intoxicating. How long had she been at this restaurant? It seemed like a lifetime ago she was walking through the streets of Los Angeles when she ran into him earlier that week.
June 10, 2011 - As time passed she became restless, but Indiana always had a way of reasoning why she should be where she was in life. She would get bored and have a crisis of what she was doing with herself. She was consistently trying to live the life she wanted, but managing to not give up on love again. She would fall apart again and put herself back together. Between these periods she found daily joy in time with Indiana. She fought with herself to be happy, always trying to guess which way to run.
Indiana’s heart seemed as wild as hers. He didn’t want to catch her and keep her in a cage. He wanted to run with her and free each other. Their love was as out of place as the moon during the day. As more time passed she realized how imperfect he was. He was not for everyone, but he was for her. He looked at her as she crumbled and he never blinked. He always stood there, strong, ready for anything.
Indiana loved her. He loved her scars that she had from the battles she had won and lost. This made Aurora love Indiana more. She was scared, but moved toward him anyway despite that fear. She knew what it was like to lose everything and she didn’t want it to happen again. She kept striving for tomorrow. She liked the idea of tomorrow. No mistakes had been made tomorrow. Tomorrow was unknown and exciting.
December 1, 2011- She had given up beer at this point. He preferred whiskey and she liked going between whiskey and strong coffee depending on her mood. She sipped both with a smile behind her cup depending on the time of day. Their love was strange. She knew it was too wild to last, but she worked so hard for it not to break.
Charles Falls Out of Love
November 17, 2011- “Aurora?” It was the middle of the night and he knew she fell asleep early, but he didn’t know who else to call.
“What’s wrong?” she asked hastily looking at the clock.
“Nothing. Well nothing important,” he said.
“What’s wrong?” she asked calmer. Is it campfire girl?
“I hate when you call her that. She didn’t even like camping.
“Didn’t? Oh no. What happened?” she asked. She knew this tone. She was expecting it. After 2 years of phone calls every few months she saw them deteriorating. She couldn’t tell him though because she didn’t want to cause more decay. She held him up and pushed him along instead. She kept his hopes up for a girl that she never understood why he is was with her since in the beginning. She never saw how amazing and rare he was. She never got him.
“We fell apart and I didn’t try to put it together again,” he said. It was difficult for him to admit these things. He loved to take things apart and try to understand how things worked. That’s what drew him to her. He didn’t understand her and wanted to see what made her. “I guess I finally figured out what made her who she was and there was nothing else worth learning.”
She stayed quiet. She wanted him to get it all out, but he said nothing. Perhaps that was it really. There was nothing else to say. When you decide and you know you’re done, you’re done. “So why the late phone call,” she asked?
“I need a drink,” he said.
“I’ll be right there,” she said.
Aurora and Indiana
March 3, 2012 – Aurora cried more lately. She wanted to travel more, not to just escaper her life, but to escape what her and Indiana had become. She knew she had to move into the life that no one else understood once more.
“I wasn’t born the way I am. I have fought for it over a long period of time. This road has been treacherous, but it’s what I’ve had to do,” she said. The day had finally come to take that difficult step. She finally blindly trusted who she was.
“I can’t ask you to stay,” he said.
“I don’t want you to ask,” she said. She realized she was one foot out the door already. There was nothing else that could keep her there. Indiana realized the same.
“Then sit with me. Watch the sun as it falls on today and us.”
The Final Chapter
May 20, 2012- Hiking had always linked Aurora and Charles. She invited him this day because it was a perfect day for a hike. The weather was cool in the morning and the sky was a perfect shade of blue. It had been years since they had hiked together and she thought back to the journey she had gone on and the summits she was yet to see. She smiled.
“Something on your mind?” Charles questioned as they stopped for water.
“There’s a lot of my mind,” said Aurora.
“What’s on the top?” he asked.
“Seduce my mind and you can have my body. Find my soul and I’m forever yours.” she said.
“Done,” he said confidently.
“Then let’s go,” she said.
“Where?” he asked.
“To begin our love again,” she replied. And there it was. She was homesick for him.
“Our home was the third thing I wanted that day you left,” he said. And that was all that mattered.
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