Fever

The letter sits flush against her bedside table. It is two a.m. and May can hear the ocean's waves splash against the shore. Her bedroom feels heavy, as if a murky gas is entrapping it tightly, making it as if no one could escape. The clock on her computer ticks. She knows who sent the letter, of course she knows. But it is almost inexplicably impossible for her to believe that the letter is real. She can touch it. She has many times. By this point, she could not forget about the buttery, expensive feel of the paper, of the way that her address and name are embedded with a fine ink. She could not forget even if she wanted to.

May turns over, stares at the yellow wallpaper of her room. Her mind goes off on a tangent of what-if's. What if he wants to see her again? What if something happened? What if?

She becomes angry with herself. May knows that, perhaps, her heart should not rise at the thought of his name, and that, perhaps, her skin should not pucker with a pink flush when others speak of him to her. But her heart does rise at the thought of his name and her skin does flush when others speak of him to her. It is an inescapable feeling, an insurmountable feeling, that stalks her through every corner of her life and every adventure that she embarks on. It has entranced her ever since she met him on a rainy day before the world crashed before her feet.

Her memory flashes. As slowly as one may remember a past love, her heart's pulse rises as the tide falls. She remembers his - Steven's - silver hair, his stony eyes, and of his tender prowess of keeping Hoenn intact. She remembers the color of his sheets, a dark navy, and the way that the sun highlighted his skin in the early waking hours of the morning, the way those aforementioned sheets lay messily across his lean legs. She rolls over and sits up, places her bare feet onto the cold, wood floor, and her fingers flicker over the letter. After a few seconds of debating, her hand grasps willfully and opens. May's eyes pour over the ink, her mind ruminates over each syllable. Her heart feels like it's escaping from her chest. Her feet tap against the ground and she leaves her home.

Unabashed and unashamed, she runs.