Henry breathed deep of the woods and scooted further into the bough of the tree. Autumn rain poured without warning these days. He liked sitting in the cocoon of the giant sequoia and watching the world growing wet, the scent of the woods rising. If he waited long enough, she would soon come running through the downpour, laughing and shaking her hair free of the rain drops. 

“Hey Henry!” Her laughter was like no other in the world. Against the rhythmic pelting of the rain, the silvery peal reminded him of wind chimes.

“Hey Amber. Come sit.”

Patting the space beside him, he took off his shirt and began rubbing her hair dry. Amber wrinkled her nose and peeked at his face, her enormous eyes twinkling. 

“You stink Henry.” Amber shoved the shirt away and made a disgusted face, somehow managing to laugh at the same time. 

“I do not!” Henry tried to look affronted, only to turn to the side to discreetly sniff his shirt. It smelled – maybe just a little. But it smelled mostly of himself, and he warmed to the idea of Amber smelling like him. So he looped the shirt around her shoulders, patting the small of her back in assurance. 

Amber rolled her eyes a little, but let the shirt stay in place. She glanced at his torso and cast him a dubious look. 

“Aren’t you going to be cold? It’s not chivalry to offer me your shirt and catch a cold, Henry Lau.”

She liked using big words these days. It tickled him that she tried to sound smart, but it unsettled him, too. She was growing up, and growing away. She was more curious, and bolder, in exploring world’s facets. He liked his violin (sometimes he hated it), and he liked playing basketball. The world was not so complicated in his view, and he liked it that way. With Amber, everything was complicated. 

“I’m fine, don’t worry about me,” Henry smiled and reached out to tap her lightly on her nose, “worry about yourself, llamaface.”

“Hey! Only my sister can call me that, I told you –“ before she could finish, he kissed her on her cheek, and for a few protracted moments, Amber felt him breathing against her ear, before she shoved him away. 

“Stop being stupid –“ Amber half stood, half sat in the round space, turning as if to leave, the beating of her heart loud in her ears. But his bewildered look stayed her, and this was Henry, her best friend since she had memories. She hesitated and settled on sitting again, and placed her hand against the gnarled tree, willing its cool surface to calm her while she watched Henry fiddle with the loose threads at a corner of his shorts. 

He had been kissing her since they were in diapers. It was his favorite trick to puff out his lips and offer them as if he would kiss everything and everyone in the world. When they were six, it became her favorite trick to slap at them. That had stopped him for good from kissing her.

Now that they were in high school, they were close as ever, but Henry was a couple of grades ahead of her and preparing for college. She was still trying to figure out what days to avoid the cafetaria for the dreadful soy burger. She sensed that he was growing apart from her, his eyes on the horizon for bigger things. They were confidantes still, but she found herself preparing for the days when he would no longer be there. It grieved her, but Amber did not understand the feeling. She knew it only as a kind of heavy greyness whenever he mentioned the different colleges he visited, of performing in different cities, or the other people he had met on those trips. 

The sequoia bough was theirs, and they could say anything in it without the world knowing. It was their secret safe arcadia. When Henry went away on his trips, Amber came alone and listened to the woods playing its ‘symphony of life’, as he called it, finding solace in the space they shared.

So after his trip to Boston, when she found him waiting for her in the sequoia tree, when he kissed her cheek again after so many years, she had turned her head to meet his lips.

She had never kissed a boy before. They were mostly gross creatures, even Henry, and they smelled like sweat and shoes. 

When she drew back in surprise at herself, he had followed, pressing kisses on her face, her nose, her ear, the side of her neck — and Amber had felt her breathing change, as if something stirred alive inside her. It was the most unsettling experience. So she had pushed him away, eyes rounded, but Henry’s eyes were heavy-lidded and intense, and this scared her a little.

“Henry I think –“ Amber did not know what she thought. 

This was Henry who had spent an entire month farting to cackle at her disgust when she was five. When he had that huge zit on his that no one could know about, it was Amber who had squeezed until something bloody burst onto her face. When he had his first crush on an impossible upperclassman, she had helped him write his love letter decorated with hearts and apples. 

Inside the great tree, Henry had taken her hand to draw her close, and nuzzled the crook of her neck like a small child. He said simply, “it’s alright, Amber.”

That afternoon as the sun waned, they had lain together on his jacket, while he told her about his trip. If Amber noticed the taut tension ading his body, she did not say anything. Eventually her breathing quieted, and he was her stupid best friend once again. 

But there was a swelling in her heart that was new. Lying beside him, and listening to his voice as he wove his tales, she wondered at the new feeling that was between soreness and longing.