Page 7 of The Embrace of Evergreen
“Surely every human in this bar wants to buy your hot ass drinks. Is there a reason you need to spend my money on them?” I don’t even finish my sentence before I signal the bartender to make Gabriel another.
“You’re the only one who really loves me.” He sighs dramatically.
“That’s probably true.”
“Hey!” As his voice rises in pitch, his hand slides up my belly.
I smack it back down before he can pinch my nipple, eliciting a growl.
“You know me too well,” he complains as he pulls away from me and spins to lean back with his elbows behind him, propped up on the bar.
“Agreed.” I grin.
His perpetual smile falters slightly as he searches my face. “You okay tonight, sweetie? You’ve seemed a bit off for a couple of weeks.”
Observant bastard. “Just tired. Maybe I need to head into the woods for a while. I haven’t been in a month or so, and it is prime outdoor weather season. You know how I get when I don’t spend enough time hugging trees.”
“Maybe that’s where you should take tonight’s conquest. Nothing like cleaning dirt and creepy little bugs out of your bits for a week to remind you why humans invented the great indoors.” He snickers.
While Gabriel likes the sun and the sky as much as the next guy, he prefers to enjoy them lounging next to a pool or in a lush rooftop garden, preferably with a drink in hand and a hot man to lust after fetching him towels and snacks. He is definitely a domesticated cat. He’ll let me drag him on hikes and beach runs on occasion, but his endless whining makes it brutally clear that he accompanies me only as a friendship favor, not because he feels the same connection to nature that I do. And the less said about his constant tree-hugger jokes, the better.
“Na, that doesn’t sound like a good time, even to me. I think I’ll just head out to the peninsula next weekend and wander for a while. You want to come?”
“I’m meeting up with Charlize to get started on the choreography for the boat festival thing. You want me to reschedule and come with?”
“Nope. Thanks though. I’ll just head over and spend next weekend recharging, I think. Remind myself that there is more to life than work and fucking.”
It’s so easy to get sucked into the daily grind and forget that one of the reasons I love living in Seattle is the fact I can easily reach a plethora of overgrown forest trails and relatively deserted sandy beaches in under an hour. I just need to spend a day or two listening to the sound of leaves and birds and skittering little fuzzy creatures bouncing through dense undergrowth. The forest has always been able to soothe my soul in a way nothing else has ever managed. Even as a child, I spent every free moment I could lost in the embrace of evergreen.
The town I grew up in was small and poor. Really poor. The entire town barely clung to life thanks to the handful of jobs at the nearby paper mill. Work at the mill was hard, and the whole place stank like rotting wood pulp when the winds blew inland and the cloud cover prevented the steam’s escape. It’s not the kind of place anyone ever dreams of working. It kept people employed enough to survive but too destitute to leave in the hopes of building a life somewhere better. The single grocery store was small enough that it might have been called a convenience store in other towns, and I spent my teenage summers bagging groceries in a building filled with dingyfloors and flickering lights, my lungs saturated with the scent of lemon detergent and overripe produce. There was an old, run-down diner that employed one cook and three waitstaff, all dressed in stained uniforms that had seen better days. The school was entirely publicly funded, and every year, it barely managed to maintain enrollment levels high enough to avoid being shut down. There was no such thing as extracurricular activities because no one would have been able to afford things like football uniforms or band instruments or art supplies.
People got up, went to work, and came home exhausted and barely able to glance at their kid’s homework while heating up a dinner filled with too many preservatives before drinking just enough to make it to bed without crying, only to get up and do the same thing the next day. Once or twice a year, someone would host a neighborhood BBQ that served only hot dogs because they were cheaper than hamburgers, store-brand soda, and nearly expired beer. Everyone would laugh and talk and drink just a bit too much, and for an instant, they'd remember that maybe there was more to life than the monotony of their everyday existence. Then Monday would come, and they'd move on as if it had never happened. Maybe they needed to forget about the brief moments they felt free in order to survive.
The only thing that made the place bearable was the old-growth forest that surrounded us. The town itself is still there, tucked in near the edge of the Pacific Ocean. It’s a place so small that it’s easily missed by most,nothing but a speck on the side of the road, nearly hidden by endless stretches of towering trees: hemlocks and firs and spruces, pines and redwoods and cedars that extend farther than the eye can see in every direction save one small glimpse of grey sand beaches and endless turquoise waves that peeks through the tightly packed branches along the narrow main street exit.
The trees stretch up and up and up, creating canopies that nearly obscure the sky with only narrow rays of bright golden light reaching the earth. Their branches hang heavy, draped with arching ropes of stair-step and spike and clubmoss that connects them in a way that feels as if each tree is silently reaching toward the next. As if they’re clinging to one another, locked in a tight, immortal embrace. The forest floor is cut through with footpaths, some created by man, wide and studded with plaques filled with information about the flora and fauna that call the forest home. Others created by the creatures the plaques speak of. Swatches of warm, dark earth and nearly red fallen bark and pine needles cutting through the endless maze of sage and emerald. Their long, twisting routes are speckled with mushrooms and flowers; tiny white trillium blossoms, patches of pale-pink budded clovers, and clusters of heavy purple foxglove tucked cozily in together, all reaching toward any small streaks of sunlight they can find.
The forest’s scent is wild and heavy and green. The humidity is cloying, the temperature always slightly too warm, even during the colder months somehow. The dense air seems to absorb any sound that isn’t the trill ofa bird or the snapping of a branch. It's thick and untamed and overwhelming. It’s peace and life and the whispering of magic and old-world gods.
A handful of tourists would drive through every summer to wander along only the carefully cultivated pathways and take a few photos before quickly escaping back to civilization to enjoy dinners at restaurants none of us could afford. But for those of us who lived in that small town, the forest was life. Life away from responsibility and obligation and thought. It's where we would escape after school to find sticks for sword fights and chase one another with the hollowed-out claws of Dungeness crabs we’d found along the shore where the ocean kissed the tree line. It’s where we built campfires and had our first beers. It’s where I stole my first hesitant kiss as an awkward fifteen-year-old and where I went to stare into the edge of the universe the first time my heart was broken.
The woods help me find serenity, not just moments of silence outside of work and the city, but real peace with myself, with my past. Some choices we make, and some are made for us, but they shape us either way. It's so easy to forget that we have the ability to think and change and adapt. So easy to get lost in routine and circumstance and forget who we really are.The forests don’t forget. They've been through hail and hurricanes and droughts and fires. They've withered and wilted and been burned to ash. But over and over, no matter what they've endured,they always return to emerald. They may have to work harder during some periods thanothers, but eventually, they always find their way back to their true form. They inspire me, and somewhere along the line, the sound of rustling leaves and the heady scent of green became my compass, and my solace. It became a part of my soul. Surely all I need is to lose myself within a boundless maze of evergreen boughs, and I’ll find myself again.
“Sweetie.”
Gabriel’s voice pulls me back to reality. Back to loud music and laughter and the scent of alcohol and sweat. His voice is gentle and his expression almost one of concern as he slips his arm through mine to drag me back to our table by the stage with a quiet sigh. He knows me too well to believe that nothing is wrong, but for the moment, we’re both content to lose ourselves in a night of karaoke and distraction and pretend that everything is okay.
Chapter 4
Ethan
It’s the first time I’ve seen the man with the bright turquoise hair in the coffee shop even though I’ve been here every morning since I arrived in town nine days ago, not that I expect to see the same people every day. Most people aren’t as regimented as I am. That’s a kind word; perhaps compulsive might be a bit more accurate. Once I find a routine or café or restaurant or band or basically anything else I like, I don’t deviate much, and both the coffee and atmosphere of this small shop have been perfect from day one. The blue-haired man clearly knows the beautiful barista whose name I’ve learned is Gabriel. There are only a few people in line when he walks through the door, but he doesn’t fall into place behind them. Instead, he walks straight over to the café table nearest the gap in the counter that employees use to move between the front and back of the house.
Five minutes later, Gabriel slips into the chair across from him and settles two mugs on the table. Gabriel’s is a tall, pale, frothy-looking thing, while he places a single espresso cup in front of the blue-haired stranger. They fall into conversation easily and without hesitation, and it’s obvious they have an intimate relationship of some sort. Are they husbands? Boyfriends? Brothers? They laugh and snicker, and Gabriel reaches out to touch the stranger from time to time. Are they in love? What would it be like to have someone like that? Someone whose company is so easy and comfortable. What would it feel like to find someone I can be myself with like that, someone who doesn’t reject the scared, anxious, neurotic parts of me that I try to hide from even myself? What would it feel like to be accepted? To be loved. The way they interact is everything I long for during sleepless nights when I’m unable to successfully distract myself with work. It’s why I keep going on dates, even though I know they’re going to end horribly. It’s why I tell myself that I feel some sense of attraction for the men who find themselves sitting across from me even when I don’t.
I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like to feel that way. What it’s like to share secrets and whispers, laughter and inside jokes. How it feels to reach out and let the warmth of someone else’s skin sink into mine. I’ve forgotten how to speak without censoring myself, without replaying every conversation in my head again and again after it’s over to see where I may have gone wrong. I barely remember the joy of the company of friends or what it means to have family. I’ve forgottenwho I am without work and silence and emptiness. I’ve lost what it means to be whole. I’ve lost myself.
The man with the blue hair is stunning. He’s likely a bit taller than I am, as he appears to be about the same height as Gabriel, who is probably around six feet. He’s neither thin nor bulky, and he has the strong shoulders and lean, narrow torso of a biker or rower. His body is attractive, sure, his face is, too, but that’s not what draws my attention.
