[Orchard: Bea & Holly]
Bea didn't bring her phone. She felt naked without it, vulnerable in a way that could never be described to a generation that had grown up without a constant tether to all worldly importance. The distance from the device was not a distance from power or safety, but rather a decided departure so that no one could track her here without a photograph. She didn't want to be here, where the orchards played shadow puppets with the high cool sunshine, where a crazy Holly waited to explain to her why he had no responsibility for anything that happened in her life. On the way here she wanted to take no pictures, answer no texts, and ignore all her notifs.
This was an aberration. She didn't want to remember it.
Obviously, she felt safe here. It was a familiar wood, which she'd seen a hundred times. She didn't fear Holly, even a crazy Holly who had forgotten who he was. She knew him as well as she knew herself, the emptiness of the intervening years something that had to do with the funeral, and nothing else. She didn't need her phone to call 911, and she didn't have any friends she wanted to talk to about this, because she wasn't speaking to Noah anymore.
Bea moved through the trees at a slow walk. She wore a winter coat with the same casual necessity of a native, even though coming from California, she should be shivering more in the coming winter. She had leggings on under a skirt, and a layered long-sleeve with Minnie Mouse on it. Pale under a layer of protective makeup, Bea had spent most the morning wretching up her guts over a toilet. When she grew closer to the agreed point, she moved slower, to assess him as he no doubt was assessing her.
Bea put her arms over her middle protectively, but kept her expression cool. "Holly."