I returned to reality as I walked outside to the garden, and I heard a crunching sound by the back fence. I froze as the world quieted. The gate door creaked open, and the first thing I saw was her golden blonde hair. Her ocean blue eyes stared at me as I ran at her. A sultry smile spread across her face as we collided. The wave of cinnamon vanilla hit me, and I sank in it. Her warm embrace felt like God had sent an angel down. Her laughter was like honey to me, so sweet and good for me.  She pulled away gracefully before clasping our hands together and led me out of the cage. 

We wandered together into the woods until energy was not our friend, and we laid back against a tree. She huffed a sigh as her head landed on my shoulder and her arms wrapped around my slim waist.

 “I’ve missed you so much,” she whispered quietly as if the trees would send us to Hell. 

I smiled for the first time in months. “I missed you too, Mari.” I gazed at her as if she glowed like sunshine in a rainstorm. “I’ve got a couple months left until I’m free.” 

“I wish it’d come sooner,” Mari said as she snuggled herself closer. Her heartbeat pounded in time with mine. A combination of excitement and fear. Both our fathers would persecute us if they found out. Her father was serving in Europe fighting the Germans while mine was forced to stay here. Without mom around anymore, Junior and I had no one to take care of us. Father’s temper shattered like glass when he realized he wasn’t able to fulfill his manly duty. He forced me to become a mother at seventeen. 

“Soon,” I promised her. I held her tighter as if she was floating away. If I lost her, I’d have nothing. I have felt so deeply about her since that day we met each other. I remember how golden she was the day she moved in next door. Her first smile threw at me as she introduced herself unknowingly about what would become of us. My mind became meddled as her name replayed in my mind for days until eventually I worked the nerve up to ask her to hangout. Only then did the raging storm in my mind quieted. Years of confusion and passion passed, and now, we sat under the stars together. Hoping one day we could be under street lights together. The embrace lasted until an orange glow began to show as fog flitted around us. 

“We have to head back.” I rose onto my feet and held my hand out to her to help her up. She gladly took it as we merrily ran through the woods giggling. We froze by the gate of my fence. I took a deep breath.

“I love you, Marigold.” Her face softened. I thought my heart had fallen out of my chest, and the world seemed dizzy. She placed her hand against my cheek. Her hand felt like the sun as she grazed her thumb across my almond soft skin. She pulled me in and our lips met. Those rosy pink lips were just as soft and perfect as I had thought. I dreamed of a moment like this for as long as I could remember. I grabbed her waist and pulled her closer. She broke away in a smile as she spoke, “I love you too, Zena.” 

She stepped away and disappeared into the woods, leaving me there to pick my heart up and lock it up again. Marigold held the key to my heart, and without her near, I was a depiction of stone. 

I walked into the house with my fingertips tracing my lips from where she had been. Desperately, I wished for her. I longed to hold her under the sun and not in the darkest parts of the night.

“Zena Ann Russell.” I jumped, startled as father sat lounging in the dark red armchair in the family room. One singular lamp was casting a shadow against his gruff slightly rounded face. His caterpillar brows were furrowed. I felt my throat close up, my hands shake uncontrollably, and my heart screamed at me to run. My familiar bones told me they did not want to be here. 

“Sir?” I stuttered. He stood towering over me, and when he breathed, his chest rose miles high, and he exhaled like a train. His steps to me felt like a giant walking. His hand collided with my cheek where Mari had made it safe. Father scoffed, as I collapsed on the floor. Touching my cheek gingerly. “Get up.”

He was stern as he yanked me to my feet. A shiny glimmer of the top of the barrel of a shotgun peaked out beside the armchair. "I did not raise some gay sinner." He cursed me out in slurs as the tears fell in waterfalls. "You are to never see her again lest you want to get help." “Help” meaning sent away. To an asylum where they’d scramble my brain and call me “cured.” Away from my precious Marigold.

"Father, please," I begged as he moved past me, shrugging me off like dust. I inched towards the gun slowly. The cold barrel shocked my senses as I lifted it up. Heavier than I imagined it felt, familiar and oddly comforting in the crook of my arm. 

"What are you doing girl!" Father blankly stared as steam erupted from his ears. He snatched the shotgun from my hand easily. "You are ill. Something is messed up in that brain of yours. You are no daughter of mine." I reached for the gun, and feebly, I pulled at it in his hands. He resisted, and the gun went off. 

I jumped back, startled. I stared as father lurched back a couple steps before he fell flat faced on the now crimson carpet. Little Junior stood in the door frame of the family room holding father’s hunting rifle that was twice his size. He bore no emotion through the fog of the gun. 

Father croaked and coughed more blood up until he lay still. A silence lay heavily between us, as reality sank in, and we enjoyed what I imagined would be the last time we saw each other. Our wrists free of the shackles.