54 | Here we are, at the place where I get to beg for it | Flashback.
Dorcas wandered down the garden behind her parents' house, trailing her fingertips lightly across the tops of the flowers as she did. It was the middle of a lazy summer, and she was heading down to the tree house that her dad had put up at the end of the garden when she was a kid. She hadn't been too bothered about it when she was younger, but now it had become a safe haven for her and Evan.
Her hand fluttered upwards at the thought of Evan, as it so often did, and brushed against the raised skin on her ribs where his name was etched. She could feel it through the thin fabric of her shirt.
She shimmied up the tree, her bare feet barely touching the nailed on ladder steps. At the top, she pushed aside the curtain that hung over the open doorway and took a deep breath in.. They had spent most of the summer so far in this tree house, and she could still smell him in the air. She tiptoed across to the sofa and lay down on it.. There wasn't long until the new school year started and she lost this freedom. The freedom to see her best friend whenever she wanted, so they could do whatever they wanted, away from the prying eyes of their fellow students.
She arranged her hair over her shoulders and grabbed a book off the end table, opening it at the last page she read.. She licked her lips and adjusted her skirt around her knees, trying to make herself look good, without letting him see the she’d made an effort. He would only tease her for it. She heard him climbing over the back fences that separated their gardens and looked down at the pages of her book, pretending not to have been waiting for him.
