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You keep walking, the path taking you adjacent to the built-up creek nearby, surrounded by maple trees in the last throes of autumn, leaves burning with the scarlet rage of sunlight, coupled with tiny seedpods, miniature casings containing the potentiality for more maple trees, and the sight mesmerizes you, lulls you into climbing the gentle hill, clouds the knowledge of the sign near the creek warning wary transgressors away, and you don't care, caught up in this moment of luminous beauty, your worries and cares melting away in the face of such gorgeosity, and so you hardly notice your proximity to the creek itself, to the enormous stones cut and shaped and implanted in its deep sides, and you don't even perceive the strong velvety vine that emerges from the creek water until it travels up your leg, rubbing and caressing, up over your waist and your arms, whispering all the while, consoling, telling you that you are beautiful, that you are not fat at all, that you are just the right size and shape for who you are, that you deserve more, oh so much more, the tip of the vine strokes your cheeks and the tiny hairs tickle, its embrace encompassing all of you now, and the relief rushes out of you, a lover finally, releasing pent-up desire and frustration and shame, to evaporate in the air until all that is left is love, all you need, and so when the strong arm of your lover pulls back into the creek, you almost follow willingly, obligingly. Almost, because then you remember your brother, alone in his own head, depending on you, needing your companionship, your sisterly love, and who will take care of him when you are gone? Most likely he'll be locked away in an institution, surrounded by white walls and other inmates of their own minds, and you can't even imagine leaving him in a place like that, no matter how reluctant you are to continue playing parent, and so you halt your steps and whisper to the vine, thanking it for the kind words but you'll have to decline, so it detaches itself and slinks slowly, sadly, back into the creek.

There is a kind of bounce in your step as you exit the park, a newfound confidence; if love could happen once, it could happen again, you just need to keep looking and hoping and not giving up. It's out there, waiting for you, making its way, ready for you to make itself complete, to feel whole. In the meantime, you'll take a class in nature photography, come back here and capture it all in halide silver.

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