Falling for Forever by Caitlin Ricci Page A

thought to herself.
    She lifted a slender hand out of the water and watched the streams cascade off her fingertips like millions of tiny blue diamonds. Mariah had been so good to her over the past few days. She wanted to repay her, but all the ways she knew of were too disgusting to think about, even if she had done them many times before. Mariah made her feel flustered, giddy, and exposed all at the same time. She felt naked in front of her, completely vulnerable and blushing from head to toe. Just one look, one glance even, was enough to send shivers up and down her back. Bryn thought of her pale blue eyes. Mariah had eyes like the sky on a pale summer's day. They were the color of the calm before a storm, when the world felt safe and wonderful.
    Bryn kept expecting her human to snap, to lose it one day and turn on her like all the others had. They had all turned on her at some point, even the ones that said that they wouldn't. Mariah would try to break her down, just like all the others. But even as the thoughts clouded her mind, she didn't believe them. Mariah was nothing like the other humans. Mariah was good and gentle and kind. She trembled slightly as she thought about how much she wanted her touch, how much she wanted to be near Mariah. As long as she was close to her, Bryn felt safe. Never before had she felt safe around a human. She hadn't allowed herself to feel anything besides numb in over six years. Not since Sage. He had been her first real friend. He had been human, but that term was used loosely around him. Sage was a child of the forest. He had known every tree, every rock and every flower. He knew all the animals by name, and he had shown her how to speak with many of the ones that she couldn't already.
    A few years with Franklin changed all that. Sage eventually turned angry and resentful. In the beginning, when Franklin first allowed him to stay at the manor, Bryn thought he had been a playmate for her. She had found him in the woods outside of Franklin's home. There used to be woods there, before Franklin cut down the trees to make fires in the winter. Sage told her that he could hear their screams. He had cried for hours that day, huddled into a ball in the corner. He had never forgiven Franklin for killing the trees. They were his friends after all. Franklin didn't care much though. Sage was only a child back then. Furthermore, he was a child afraid of violence that would have never gotten revenge, even if the idea had come to him often during those years. He was innocent, even more so than she. Franklin only wanted him for his connection to the woods and all living creatures, she thought bitterly. Sage's first hunt came only months after his arrival. Bryn would never forget the look of sheer terror that played in his eyes that day. He had never lost that first shock, even as the number of hunts grew into the hundreds. Sage never killed any of the animals, of course, but Franklin used his abilities to find them. He had never forgiven himself for any of it, and he died with that anger inside of himself, festering there like an old wound.
    Bryn sighed sadly and forced herself to think of something else, but Sage's gentle face continued to dance through her mind, causing a soft smile to go across her lips. She put him out of her brain and opened her eyes to the early afternoon sun. The river was cool against her body, and it felt like a wonderful release from the heat of the day. She slipped up to her ears in the cool water and looked around the riverbank, her eyes slowly adjusting to the small amount of light that trickled down from the canopy. A yellow butterfly landed on a flower near her, and she smiled at it. There was so much life in the forest, much more than she had even seen before.
    Even in Franklin's gardens, she had rarely come across anything besides insects. Birds were scarce, and she had rarely ever seen a butterfly. The life she had known for almost her entire existence was turning into