Quote image editor
“She smiled at him more frequently as they chatted about nothing in particular, pointing out various flowers and the occasional woodland animal to each other. They saw plump squirrels in the trees, pheasants in the brush, and a horned stag and his shy, delicate does gliding soundlessly through the shadows. On three separate occasions, he caught her gazing at him longer than she should. He felt distracted, entranced, and painfully alive as he watched her in the mellow autumn afternoon, dazzled by the coppery richness of her golden hair. Her innocence captivated him, and her guileless simplicity healed him somehow. He felt like a man whose fever had broken, flush with the euphoria of the first, tenuous return of strength- still weak, but buoyant with the hope of an eventual return to wholeness.” — Gaelen Foley