As I go half-stumbling, half-tripping over the gravelly rocks, there's smoke in my lungs. It clouds up my throat, mixing it with the faint taste of blood in the back of my mouth. Every breath is painful, but I suck it in anyway.

I don't know how long I go on like for. The beast in my stomach seems to drive me, urging me on. It was useless separating myself from her, a pointless move. Now I must find a way to correct it.

I call her name from time to time, feeling the way it forces itself out of my mouth in a hurried, shrill sound like it must get into the open as quickly as possible. I imagine the words spiralling into the trees, trying to find their meaning, trying to find the black-haired, sullen girl.

My mother comes back into my head again; I don't know why. It seems I can only plague myself with images of her misery. If only she were here right now. She would talk to me in that disapproving tone, but like always, I would love her all the same.

I go racing along with the river, trying to catch up with its rapid speed, its impossible grace, its soft tinkle.

My body hurts. Staggering to a stop, I lean against a tree trunk to the side of the path. The roughness of the bark alleviates the pain somehow, and then I'm off again with my irregular gait and desperate cry.

The landscape is much the same; moss that climbs the trunks of huge, ominous trees; leaves that rustle ever so slightly; the loose pebbles under my feet that threaten to make me stumble.

And the pain is still there. The pain in my stomach.

My eyes graze the trees, but there's nothing save for the bounding of branches as a squirrel darts into hiding. As I train my eye deeper and deeper into the forest, I see nothing but damp leaves littering the forest floor and shades of green and brown.

A flicker of black.

I stop and strain my eyes harder. Then, I see it again; a dash of black, of pink, a hand trailing among the leaves.

"Bea?" I call out, uncertain, heart thumping. "Bea, is that you?"

The figure comes into view. That slim body; the combat boots that are tied up to her ankle; the few strands of shocking pink hair that swing with every step.

"Jules?" calls a voice.

I'm smiling so hard that the world seems to burst with light. It spins on its axis, tilting, stuttering like an old film.

Before I fall to the ground, I say, "Julian, not Jules."