Aspen

         She stood there between the trees. All around her long think trunks stood reaching for the sky wanting to grow taller and taller. Aspen stood among the long rows of bark hiding from the sun, tears streaming down her face.
         He was gone. The reality crushed her heart, crushed her soul, she felt nothing left inside her. Her chest was empty. The trees gave her company though. They greeted her with a wave, hugged her in their shade and protected her from the rain that was sure to come if she’d just let it. In the home of the trees Aspen felt safe.
         She felt loved.
         She spent every day in their shade hiding from the rest of the world.
         She spent every night in their branches high from reality has they rocked her to sleep under the night sky. She was safe. She was loved.
         But slowly the trees started to feel different. As she sat in them daily, Aspen felt the trees pulling away, reaching for something more. They were reaching for something bigger; something better than this lonely girl standing among them.
         Aspen sat down between two trees, a space almost too small to fir her body. She put one arm around the pole on her right and then did the same to the one on her left. Maybe if she just held onto them they would stay with her. She could get them to bend down to her rather than reaching up for the birds.  Maybe they wouldn’t feel so far away but feel close like they did just the day before.
         Hours passed and Aspen felt the trees sway in a whisper to each other. Tighter she pulled her arms in around the small bodies. The trees reacted to the tug on them and swayed harder to pull away. Startled Aspen let go. All around her things started to more faster. Her eyes darted to the trees, their leaves, the grass, the dirt, and the invisible force pulling them all up around her like a hurricane.
         “Stop,” she whispered softly. But nothing ceased. More and more things stated to swirl around her.
         “Stop,” she spoke a little louder, tears starting to fall from her eyes, but it didn’t work. Her hair flapped behind her begging to be let go by the ribbon she had placed around it. Harder and harder the wind forced itself around Aspen. Harder and harder it was for her to breathe, to see, to feel anything but ambushed. The dirt hit her face. The leaves twisted themselves in her hair as it worked it’s way free from the ribbon’s hold. The trees started to bend and touch her face.
         “Stop!” she screamed as she jumped from the two trees she perched herself in earlier and landed on her feet.
         “Stop!” she yelled as her feet took flight int eh direction of the wind that taunted her, the wind that ruined the comfort of her tree shelter.
         She ran. Her feet weaving in and out of the trees. “Just stop,” She yelled to the sky. “Stop it,” She cried out.
         But the further her feet went, the more the wind pressed into her body. She found herself ina battle, a struggle to run into the force pushing her back threatening to crush her lungs, her heart, her bones.
         Aspen kept running. Her lungs screaming for her to stop, she kept running as her heart kept pushing her on. The trees didn’t look like her friends anymore, instead they looked wicked, twisted, uncomforting shells of what they used to be.  They kept reaching down to bite at her face, but she kept running. She pushed through their snickers and painful lashes. Nothing had ever hurt her more than him leaving, nothing had hurt that bad until this moment right now. She just had to keep pushing through.
         She ran and ran, the tears streaming from her eyes and the breath struggling from her lungs. She kept running through every tear of a muscle, every threatening break of a bone, and every piece breaking off from her heart. She kept running.
         Her feet kept going even as her mind started to shut down. She didn’t know where she was headed to or what any longer. All she knew is that the trees couldn’t touch her if she kept running. Nothing could ever comfort her and turn its back on her again, as long as she kept moving.  Slowly her eyes started to recognize a clearing around her. The trees had started to fade, but the threat kept alive in her head. She could just keep going.
         “Stop,” a voice called out over her. “Stop.”
         Aspen’s feet halted at the command and in one small motion her knees gave in as well and to the ground her body went. On the ground Aspen didn’t feel the wind, but instead a calming warmth from the sunlight above. A calmness from the silence all around encompassed her and soothed her rushing mind.
         “Just stop,” the voice called out again.
         Aspen opened her eyes and rolled over in the clearing to find herself alone. She sat up looking at the edges of the forest behind her scanning to see someone walking towards her.  Looking back down to her hands, she felt a tickle on her cheek from the sun. She looked up towards the blue sky, so empty and inviting, no wonder the trees longed to grow closer to it.
         “Stop running Aspen,” the voice whispered in her heart.
         “Okay,” she replied. “Okay.”