There’s a slight breeze making the weeping willow leaves brush along the grass I lie on—some a hair’s breadth away from touching my forearms, although I can feel the tickle of it. I close my eyes in delight, taking a deep breath and releasing it a few seconds later. A new touch joins the leaves, soft fingers attentively mapping out the moles on my right arm. I keep my eyes closed and let it continue, a soft blush reaching my cheeks as the person beside me hums a soft tune. 

Her fingers travel up my arm, reaching the sleeve that begins at my elbow. She mindlessly plays with a loose thread there—the humming continues as she lightly tugs on the fabric, making it slip from my shoulder. This makes my breathing pick up, and I hope to God she doesn’t hear it. The fingers walk up my arm in slow, tantalizing movements that force a small gasp to leave my lips when I feel a cool touch on my now bare shoulder. I can hear the swaying of the leaves, and I focus my best on that, tethering myself because the shapes that are being drawn on my skin are making me feel floaty—like an out-of-body experience. 

With my eyes still closed, I turn my head to the other side, baring more of my neck when I feel the warmth of her fingers rest over my pulse. I should feel embarrassed that she can feel the rapidness of it, but when she strokes once, twice, I melt. I should be stopping this, but I feel a tenseness that I hadn’t even noticed was there dissipating from my body, rendering me speechless. Not that I was saying anything before, but now my throat feels dry and my body aches with want. 

The other hand joins, this one carding its fingers through my thick, wavy hair. She drags her nails along my scalp, and a soft moan escapes my lips unwillingly. I cover my face with my left arm out of embarrassment. I hear a ‘tsk’ and the hand in my hair leaves, now placed around my left wrist to bring my arm away from my face. 

“Don’t,” she whispers in my ear. “I love seeing and hearing your reactions.” My eyes open wide as I turn my head toward her. 

“That’s right. Let me see your pretty face.” And if the blush there wasn’t already a deep red, well, now it is. She takes her hand that was resting on my throat and begins to trace my mouth. Once she’s made a full outline, she leaves one finger resting on my bottom lip, slightly pulling it down. I look up at her, nervous of what’s to come, but all I see are her eyes focused on her finger. It’s almost like she’s in a trance, and all this does is give me courage. Without thought, the tip of my tongue reaches out, and I lick. Testing something. Her eyes snap to mine, and now I can see the desire that has settled in them. She begins to push her finger until the digit slips into my mouth; my eyes shut, heat pools in my stomach, and another finger is added. My mouth gets to work. Her fingers pull out slightly just to push back in, pressing down on my tongue, making me suck harder. 

Seconds or maybe minutes pass like this when I hear her sweet voice reach my ears again, “Stella.” My eyes stay closed, enjoying the weight of her fingers on my tongue. “Stella, darling. Open your eyes.” The weight is gone, the digits slipping free from my mouth, and I try not to let the disappointment show on my face. 

“Mmh?” I don’t open my eyes, I stay blissfully still. 

“Your mother is probably worrying by now. We should pack up and start heading back,” she says, and my head spins with the topic that we’ve landed on. 

I don’t reply, but I slowly open my eyes, squinting at the sunlight that shines through the branches. I hear her hum in question, so I turn to lie on my stomach and rest on my arms, the blanket rumpling beneath me. Like this, I am much closer to her. I can feel my heart rate pick up; the steady beat she helped me reach before becomes rapid out of nervousness once more. She truly is the only person who can render me speechless, to cause a pause in my mind when I stare at her beauty. The way her dark brown, almost black hair rests effortlessly at shoulder length. Her pouty lips, the mole that sits right beneath her left eye, her soft voice. All of it pulls me in, like a siren calling in suitors. All of it makes me nervous because she is the one person who brings out a side of me that is pure want, pure need. 

“We haven’t been gone for long, and we aren’t that far away either. Besides, she knows where I am,” I tell her, reaching a hand out to play with a strand of her hair. “Come on, let’s stay longer, please?” I practically beg, and it’s pathetic, really. A lazy smile stretches on her lips when I say this, the sunlight hitting her face perfectly; the thoughts that run through my head make me dizzy. I want to kiss and trace where the sunlight reaches her skin. I want to lie here with our hands intertwined and forget that this is something I cannot do, regardless of what just happened. 

“What are you thinking about?” 

“You’re beautiful, Evelyn,” I say without hesitation. We stare at each other for what feels like an eternity; I probably have a silly smile on my face, but it falters involuntarily when I see her face flash with an emotion I’ve seen from her before but haven’t been able to pinpoint. It doesn’t make me feel good; it makes me rethink what her feelings toward me are. 

Before I can decipher it, she steels herself, and I have to break eye contact first when I don’t get a response. I focus on the way the leaves sway in unison. I listen to the birds that are chirping, hidden in the tree branches that surround us. The green field that we’re in is the most beautiful spot in Concord, but people here don’t bother seeing the beauty that I do. I sit here trying to will away the redness crawling up my neck because she still hasn’t responded, and an aggravating, itchy feeling is starting to settle in my skin. 

I take a chance to look at her, and what I see makes me internally shut down. Here in front of me is a blank face of indifference, like she’d rather be anywhere else in the world but here with me. Thinking back on it, there’s always been a moment when she gets like this. At the start, she’s sweet and gentle, touchy and bold. Somewhere during that time, she pulls away, and the indifference settles on her features; it makes me want to curl in on myself, to pretend that I never saw it. And it’s always after something like that happens. 

The realization trickles into my mind of just how she acts when she’s with me. For months and months, I have been pushing it aside, chalking it off as her being nervous. But Evelyn is not a nervous person. And I am a woman whom she cannot love, should not love, and apparently does not love. But I was holding on to hope that she did. The way I do. 

“I think-” I take a deep breath and start again, “I think I should go, actually. You were right, my mother is probably worried sick.” I don’t dare look at her; instead, I focus on fixing my dress, a rule from my mother echoing in my mind: A lady must be put together at all times; that means not even a loose thread should be visible. I already broke that, so when I look down and see the wrinkles from lying down, it makes my right eye twitch. My mind latches onto fixing the way I look. My hands roam my dress haphazardly, trying to get rid of every noticeable wrinkle. If my mother were to see me this way, walking through the town, she would be livid. I feel livid, and this dress—with its tight restraints and layers and expectations—is making it hard for me to breathe. But I have to get rid of the wrinkles. 

“Stella.” 

I reach the sides of my dress, patting it down and straightening it out, when a strand of hair falls into my vision. I freeze. Another rule that I broke echoes through my mind: A lady’s hair must be curled, braided, or both, and out of the face at all times; a suitor must be able to see your face, Stella. When Evelyn and I got here earlier in the afternoon, we were both presentable ladies. When we got comfortable on the blanket, however, she reached over to take the pins out of my hair, despite my protests. Now, the aggravating itch courses through my arm, and my body snaps up. I walk over to the basket where she placed my pins and grab them, reaching up to pull my hair back in an attempt to redo the style it was in before I left the house.

“Stella.” 

“Why won’t this stay?” I can feel my fingers start to tremble when the pins don’t hold. “Come on. It’s not that difficult.” The hair doesn’t want to stay. My right eye twitches. Out of frustration, I began to pull at my hair. 

“Stella, what are you doing?” Hands curl around my wrists as my hair falls down my back. 

“What am I doing?” I yank my wrists from Evelyn’s grasp and hold them close to my chest. “What are you doing?” I ask incredulously, my eyes going wide as I turn to stare at her. My chest falls up and down and up and down. My eye twitches again. 

“I’m trying to make sure you don’t rip your hair out.” She takes a step toward me, and I take a step back. 

“Stella, please. Tell me what’s wrong.” The indifference is wiped from her face, now replaced with what I would assume to be worry. “You rushed to get up, and you, you–I don’t even know what you were doing, fixing your dress? Stella, you looked crazy.” 

“Excuse me?” I can feel the frustration building in my stomach, clawing its way up. “You have no right to say that to me!” I move to grab the blanket, but she places a hand on my shoulder, stopping me. I can’t help the shudder that runs through my body, so I shrug it off, grabbing the blanket to keep my hands busy. 

“Okay, you’re right. I’m sorry.” From the corner of my eye, I can see her standing there, not quite sure what to do now, but she still speaks, “That was inconsiderate of me. Can you please just tell me why you’re acting this way? We were having a good time, weren’t we?” 

The blanket seems to feel a lot heavier than it was a second ago, and my hands tighten around it to make sure it doesn’t fall or drag me down. We were having a good time, weren’t we? The words slam into me full force, and the frustration reaches my throat. 

“A good time?” I can’t help the scoff that leaves my mouth as I fully turn to look at her. “A good time, Evelyn. Yes, we were having a good time.” I step toward her. “You were talking to me in such a sweet way, treating me in such a gentle way.” 

I make sure her eyes are on me when I use my finger to trace the path she drew on my arm, up and up. “You started here. Did you hear the way my breath caught when you did that?” I move up to my sleeve, pulling it down to expose my shoulder. 

“Did you hear the way I gasped when your fingers touched here?” My other hand goes into my hair. “Did you like the moan I let out when your fingers scraped against my scalp? You had to, right? After all, you told me you liked hearing and seeing my reactions.” I step closer to her; the confusion is clear on her face, and that makes me angrier. 

“You really don’t see the problem here, do you?” I raise my sleeve back on my shoulder, waiting for an answer that I know won’t come. My fingers go to my lips, outlining them the way she did, keeping my finger on my bottom lip as I say, “What did you feel while I was sucking on your fingers? Tell me you felt something, anything.” My voice trails off at the end, almost like it was meant for myself. Shock crosses her face, and it’s obvious that she wasn’t expecting me to say this—any of this, at all—like she was hoping anything we do together would never be spoken of. And it usually isn’t; sharing smiles, legs intertwined, our moans blending together—all of it is kept hush, especially between us. It’s not something I can handle anymore.

“Evelyn, you had your fingers in my mouth. And then you what? You say we should go back because my mother might be worried.” Without thought, I push at her chest, making her stumble back. 

“Stella, I was only-” 

“No.” I hold a hand up to stop her. My breaths are coming out in uneven puffs, so I close my eyes, breathing in the smell of the grass, grounding myself. This field has always been my safe space, but now it feels tainted. I was stuck in a dream with Evelyn, and I had to wake up at some point. Oh, how I wish it weren’t here. I squeeze my eyes tighter and let out one final breath. 

“I love you, Evelyn. It hurts loving you. Do you know that? My heart aches when I see you, knowing that you are everything I want but someone I cannot have. And you play with that sometimes. You treat it like a game; you treat me like a game, Evelyn.” The last bit of frustration turns to resignation. “I’m tired.” Tears are threatening to spill, and I hate it. I hate how this is affecting me because I have known deep down that this is a love I was never allowed to have. A love we were never supposed to have. 

“I never meant to make you feel this way.” 

“But you did, and I know you knew what you were doing. I can see it in your face any time you touch the way a lover does, the way a man and a woman should. But I am not a man, Evelyn. I can see the way your face turns to, gosh, it turns to disgust, doesn’t it? The thing is, I can never tell if you’re disgusted by me, yourself, or the thought of us.” 

“I thought you knew.” 

“Knew what?” I drop the blanket, the heaviness daunting, the thickness too hot in this afternoon sun. 

“Stella, I’m getting married. I don’t know what you thought was happening between us, but I thought we were both having fun before I wed.” 

And the world around me comes tumbling down. The branches around me stop swaying, the tether broken, and it leaves a void of emptiness behind that makes me wish the aggravating itching feeling was back. How absolutely foolish of me. We spent weekdays, weekends, any time we could together, and never had there been any mentions of a man. And I know what is expected of us, of women, but I still foolishly thought…well, I’m not too sure what I thought. I was being delusional; maybe Evelyn was right to call me crazy. 

My knees give out, and I surrender to the fall, my head hanging low. I can hear footsteps coming toward me, the light crunch of the grass reaching my ears, then there are arms engulfing me. 

“Let me go.” It comes out as a whisper, and I’m not sure she heard it until I hear a sigh and the arms around me loosen. 

“I’m sorry, Stella.” She sounds tired, and it makes me laugh. 

I lift my head to look at her, a smile on my face, and say, “Leave, Evelyn. I never want to see you again.” 

“But–” 

“Go.” I lower my head, my fingers reaching to grab at the grass. I hear another sigh, and my hands tighten, ripping fistfuls from the ground. After some time, after it’s gone completely quiet save for the swaying of the leaves that have returned, I raise my head, and everything around me is so green.