Jess had found out she was pregnant two months after her sixteenth birthday. In a highly-religious, gossip-driven community, the figure of the young mother birthing a child out of wedlock was a social pariah. Amidst the atmosphere of rumours and tension, Jess' family consigned her to the hidden torture of a Home for Unwedded Mothers, the last, dying vestibule of the dying religious conservatism in England. Separated from friends and family, Jess gave birth alone and was cajoled into signing her child into the fostering system. Finally, on her seventeenth birthday, she was allowed to return to some form of normality.
The long, dark grass grazed against her billowing dress as she fought her way through the overgrown field, comprised of tall, wilting flowers and the crumbling remnants of stone walls that had once split the earth into carefully measured allotments. The daisies blossomed against her hand, reminding of her the warmth of spring, the freedom the month brought. Of course, it was almost late summer now, July in its last fleeting moments, but to a girl who had spent the last four months bolted inside a decaying stone structure, the feeling of the dappling sunlight on her skin brought that feeling only spring could.
She hadn't spoken to Roger, but she knew he would be here, seated on the precipice. They didn't need to talk these days - perhaps they never had - to tell how the other was feeling. It was his birthday, and on the rare occasions he couldn't spend it with her, he opted to spend it with his mum.
Roger's mum had passed when Jess was ten, after a short battle with cancer. True to her carefree spirit, Mrs Taylor hadn't requested a final resting place, a sombre slab of stone in the ground under which to sag for all eternity. She had wanted to be spread to the wind, to spend her netheryears following the birds wing. It had been on this field, across from the grim Church, that Roger and his father had laid her to rest, releasing her ashy remains from an ornate China jar into the wind; the edge of the field held a steep drop overlooking the valley, the place Mrs Taylor had requested the ceremony to be held. Some years later, Roger had marked the place with a make-shift wooden cross, obscured to all but them by the wild undergrowth. This was the place Jess suspected he would be.
Perhaps it was that that had bonded them, rather than their shared birthday. Sure, the shared date - coincidentally, the same as the one they first met - helped guide their acquaintance to the point of friendship, but it was their shared beginnings that really cemented that connection. Two young, motherless children being brought up by authoritarian, conservative-Christian parents in a deeply religious village, their fathers a pastor, and a headmaster. They helped each other avoid the beckoning insanity.
The desire to grow up, to run away, to never look back, these were the sentiments shared by Jess and Roger. Those whispered promises, of a better life, a different future, had been the only thing that had kept Jess sane these past few months, as she collapsed sobbing in Roger's arms.
As she turned the corner, she could spotted his silhouette, his back to her, as he perched on the cliff edge, staring wordlessly into the valley. She followed the beaten path to his worn, brown leather jacket, her feet light despite the twigs underfoot. He made no sound at her arrival, his eyes trained on the horizon. She had the horrible feeling he wanted to be left alone, until she spotted the two sandwiches carefully wrapped in tin foil besides him. A spare jacket lay on the ground, to protect her from the mud. Even though he had no way to know for sure whether she would return today, he had still prepared a place for her.
Jess sat herself down nervously, avoiding eye contact with the burly blonde as she played with the long grass, stealing glances at Roger every now and again. His hair was cropped shorter than the last time she had seen him, and his temple was a mottled purple. A small cut decorated his upper lip. The left side of his face was still puffed up, as though the damage was yet to properly heal. Jess looked away, before the sight could move her to tears.
