Chapter Twenty-Eight
We walk hand in hand, as we do each day now. The sun is low in the sky, and the birds have begun to quiet down, the city rolling itself into a slumber. The reflection of the sun on the glassy ocean surface illuminates the calm beauty of something so massive, so welcoming. Julián sets a blanket down on a dark rock big enough for both of us. There’s no one else at this beach, only us and the sea. He packed our dinner inside a basket, a simple woven thing, romantic and so Julián to not realize how adorable it is. As we eat our sandwiches and rice and fruit, he tells me about how he can’t stomach the taste of oysters because they remind him of his mother as they were her favorite food, about his childhood friend who moved back to Bangladesh when they were teens, about how he used to never wear shoes around the town until he was seventeen and got a nail stuck in his foot. He shows me the scar and I run my finger across the bubbled-up little dot.
We talk about anything, everything, and nothing as the sky grows darker. Purple-edged clouds slowly roll past as I stare up at the sky, tilting my head back. I hear the click of a camera and look over at Julián with a smile. A small sense of ease settles over me, knowing he will at least have photographs of me to look back on. Then again, they may end up like the stack of my mother’s, shoved into a box, hated and unwelcomed but always kept. I wish I could just have the beginning of a thought like that and cut it off before the cynicism pushes its way in, but here we are.
“Let’s walk a bit to digest?” he suggests as I groan and rub my hand over my stomach.
I’m so full I could burst, so I gladly accept.
As we walk, I decide to tell him about one of my most special but buried parts of me that I never share with anyone. The one that brings all my fears to the surface.
“I also had a friend who was so, so dear to me. She was my best friend.” I pause as we walk, wanting to share her with him but afraid I won’t be able to handle saying it out loud. I haven’t tried since it happened, but if I’m capable, it would be Julián who could make me able to finally share her with someone.
“Her name was Audra, and she was my age. We had the exact same birthday, even. We became friends by a chance meeting at the hospital where they accidently scheduled our EEG appointments and hospital stays for the same time but only had one tech and one room. My mom was pissed off, of course, and refused to be rescheduled, and her mom was just as feisty as mine, so our only option was to take the appointment together. We shared a room and bonded with these little wires stuck to our heads. It ended up being so fun, and she had tuberous sclerosis too.
“We became friends outside and inside the hospital. Her TSC affected her in different ways, more intense ways than mine. She had mild autism, and her epilepsy was more severe than mine, but we had so much in common. She loved to watch me dance, I loved to watch her paint. We became inseparable, and she was truly the only friend I’ve ever had. My mom paid for her to go to my private high school, and we did everything, I mean everything together…”
Flashes of her big smile as I twirled and whirled around the empty gymnasium after school, the sound of her voice cheering my name, her paintbrush dancing across the stretched linen surface of a canvas flash through my mind. I’ve been trying so hard to keep her out, to avoid the pain, that I haven’t allowed myself to think of the joy she brought. The Cheeto-dust stains on our fingers, the way she cackled when she laughed, the way she always, always made me feel less alone in the world. She was like a homecooked meal, a warm bath when my life felt like a constant icy lake.
“We were only friends for two years, but it felt like a lifetime. Our bond was…” I clear my throat, willing myself not to cry, not until I finish the story at least. “Strong. The tubers in her brain shifted, like mine, and I’ll spare both of us the details, but the choice she made to try to save herself was to get them removed. At this point she was having over one hundred seizures a day. It got to the point where she couldn’t leave the house anymore. Removal was the only choice, they said. With where they were located, it was risky. Beyond risky, but she, the doctors, and her mom were adamant that the surgery would not only remove the tubers that were causing most of her seizures, but improve her overall quality of life. We were so enthusiastic, positive that this would change everything…” Julián squeezes my hand as he listens to me. His way of letting me know I can stop if I want to. But I don’t want to, I want him to know why the only thing that might save me is not an option for me and never will be.
“I was at the hospital waiting for her to wake up and when she did… her entire memory was gone. Not like in a movie where they forget who they are, and they don’t recognize their family and loved ones…” Hot tears fall down my face remembering the pain in her mother’s and sister’s faces as we all realized what happened.
“Every memory, including how to talk, how to walk, had to be retaught. Her mind was wiped clean, she was back to infancy. She couldn’t paint, she couldn’t even hold a spoon to feed herself. It was devastating. It… her mom… her life… my friend was gone and wouldn’t return. I waited, hoping that the neurologists were wrong, that one day she would wake up and my sunshine of a friend would remember everything. But she stayed that way, trapped in a familiar body but no memory or understanding of how she got there. She’s alive, and it’s not my place to decide if that’s better or not for her, but I wouldn’t and will not make the same choice she did. I’ve tried to completely erase her from my own memory. My mom stayed in contact with hers for a while, but it just became too hard on everyone when she never came back.”
“My god, Ry. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” Julián pulls me into his chest, hugging me fiercely as if it were possible for him to hug me hard enough to transfer my pain to him.
My voice is hysterical, and my chest is caving in, the grief threatening to swallow me right there on the shore.
“The only sunshine never came again, and I stopped looking for it. I obsessed more and more over my dancing, my schoolwork, never wanting to allow myself to become emotionally intimate with anyone, this damn condition or not. I did everything my team of doctors and specialists told me to, but here I am; the same thing happening to me.” His hand wraps around the back of my neck and he holds me tighter.
“I can’t get that surgery, Julián. I’m sorry that I dragged you into my life knowing we wouldn’t be able to have a happy ending, but we won’t and I’m sorry. I didn’t know I would love you. I’m sorry you fell in love with someone like me.” I sob into his embrace.
Audra, as painful as the loss of her was, deep down I knew that my avoidance of her name, her memory, was rooted in my own fear of having the same fate as her. The irony is not lost on me that I came to Mallorca hoping to have an exciting summer and bond a little with my mom’s past, but instead I’ve found my other half, and our fate is decided. Torturous and melancholy.
“Oriah.” Juliàn sucks a breath through his teeth. His face is blotched with emotion and tears as my eyes meet his. “I love you, every part of you. From your charm to your intelligence. Your sense of humor to your empathy. Your way of drowning out the noise in my head when I’m desperate for silence. I love every.” He pauses, kissing my chin.
“Single.” His mouth lifts to my mouth.
“Part.” He sweeps his lips across my temple.
“Of you.” His mouth lands on my head, behind my ear, where the biggest cluster of tubers are located.
“I would not change a moment with you, knowing what I know now. Nothing would have changed.” He lets a moment pass. “Except I don’t think I would have been so quick to put you on the back of my bike.” Julián tries to make me smile, and it works. “If I had to do it over, I would love you again and again, even if it meant losing you again and again. In this lifetime and the next, and the next, I will find you and I will love you.”
“I’ll be waiting for you. I’ll wait at the door of every lifetime for you, Julián. I never dreamed that I could feel this way, know what it’s like to love and to be loved, and I’m so grateful that it’s you.”
The sun is fully down by the time we break away from each other, repeating our endless love, our devotion. Our tears are long dried.
Tucking ourselves away into the inside of a rock that looks like a tiny cave, the perfect size for two people, we sit down on the sand, both out of exhaustion and the need to be close to each other. It’s shallow enough that it doesn’t freak me out.
“There’s no monsters inside.” Julián scoots closer to me, draping his arm around my shoulder.
“How do you do that?”
His head tilts. “Do what?”
“Always know exactly what I’m thinking. Even about monsters in a cave.”
With a shrug of his shoulders, he pulls me closer. “I told you, I’m observant. Especially so when it comes to work or something I adore. Which, funny enough, is only you these days.”
“Same here. I haven’t found myself able to adore something for a long time.” A yawn escapes my mouth, and I stretch my arms above my head. The blanket he spread out beneath us is so comfortable, inviting me to lie down, to snuggle closer.
“Your place or mine?” he asks, noting how tired I am. From the long day in the sun, from the full-body crying.
“Hmm, could we sleep here?”
Julián looks around. “Are you asking about comfort or safety?”
“Both?”
“Safety, yes. Comfort… it’s a far cry from your suite bed. Even my shit mattress is softer than the sand.”
“I don’t mind. Do you?”
A proud grin covers his handsome face. “I’ve slept on the sand more times than I can count. Our bodies weren’t originally made to sleep on fluffy mattresses, you know. As a society we’ve become so disconnected from nature that we pay for the experience. I heard a tourist from France asking Amara where he can buy something called a grounding mat. When I looked it up online, it was the artificial version of lying in the damn grass! I couldn’t believe it. Same with these cold-plunge bullshit wellness scams. Yeah, it’s good for our bodies to experience shock and it can help with recovery, but have these people never heard of jumping in a lake or cold sea? Consumerism is the doom of humanity, truly.” He rubs at his temples.
“Sorry, it just drives me mad how far from nature we’ve gotten. Sitting in little boxes the entire day with screen light on our faces, going to work before the sun is up, coming home after it’s down. No family meals and if there are, everything comes from a box. No one cares about the quality of our natural water because they’d rather just spend a few euros and drink it out of plastic. Amara spent like hundreds of euros on a red light for her face, when red light comes from our natural sunrise and sunset.” He shakes his head. “I was born in the wrong time. The modern world makes me crazy sometimes.”
“I get it,” I tell him, meaning it. He’s so right and he would have an absolute heart attack if he got wind of the wellness industry in the States. I decide to wait until another time to tell him some of the craziest things I’ve seen and heard even my mother do and buy.
“So, are you really okay to crash here?”
I nod at his uncertainty.
“If you’re uncomfortable or can’t sleep, we’ll go. Just say the word. Deal?”
“Deal.” I smile and scoot my body against his. I’ve never felt more comfortable, safe, and at home than in his arms.
I wake up to the sound of the waves crashing. What a perfect alarm clock. The sky has just started to turn orange, preparing for the rising sun. Julián is asleep behind me, his arm draped over my body, hugging my waist. I try to wriggle out without waking him, but his eyes softly open.
“Everything okay?” he asks in a raspy, sleepy voice.
I nod. “I just wanted to see the sunrise.”
He sits up, situating his body behind me so I can lean my back against his chest. “You know, I’ve never watched a sunrise,” I tell him.
“Ever?”
Shaking my head, I turn to face him. “On top of my epilepsy medication, I usually have to take sleeping pills, too, and they knock me out and keep me out, so I’ve never been awake early enough.”
“Thank you for saving your first sunrise for me.” Julián’s mouth meets mine and it’s a gentle touch that whispers against me.
“You can have all my firsts and my lasts,” I promise him.
“Is that a promise? I’ll do anything and everything to make sure we have many, many sunrises together, deal?”
I nod. “Deal. And I’ll do anything to stay here with you and this breathtaking sunrise.”
“I’ve always loved watching the sunrise from my boat. It sounds cliché, but it’s such a good reminder that every day is a new start, every sunrise is a new beginning. No matter what happens during the day and night, we get another chance, another beginning each time it rises.”
It’s hard to remember what my life was like before I met him, how empty my heart was compared to now when it feels so full it could burst. We sit in near silence as the sun rises, filling the shore with its spectacular light, starting a new day, a new beginning like he said.
“What does it look like to you?” I ask him, wondering how muted the tones of red, yellow, and orange are.
“Mostly gray… I can tell the differences in light reflection, though, so I know that it’s bursts of color, and even though I don’t see the same sunrise as you, I know it’s still just as beautiful, and now my view”—his eyes meet mine—“is even more incredible.”
My eyes sting with emotion and I look back toward the horizon. The feeling washing over me is all the proof anyone needs that we are meant to experience life, sunrises and sunsets, laughter, birds singing in the sky, waves crashing against the coastline. I’m overwhelmed by the beauty, by the years I’ve wasted sitting in my room, in my bed, with the curtains drawn shut. I promise myself to never close my curtains again.
“I love you, Oriah. Insanely so.” Julián’s lips press against my shoulder just as orange bursts across the sky. The sun is flaming yellow, no clouds obstructing its full glory.
“I love you, Julián. More than the sun.” I face him once again and throw my arms around his shoulders, causing both of our bodies to fall back onto the blanket and the sand.
The light reflecting on Julián’s face takes my breath away.
“Déu meu ets tan bonica, Ry. So, so beautiful.” He lifts his chin to reach me, licking softly at my mouth, and I straddle him.
A hiss of pleasure comes from him, and I swivel my hips, settling in, enjoying the feeling of his hardness between us. Julián’s hands grip my hips, digging his fingers into the bone, nearly shaking to keep himself under control. One of his hands moves to my belly, and it aches as he makes his way up my chest, palming my breasts as they tighten and he runs his thumb against a peak, flicking the sensitive bud, making my eyes roll back, friction growing between us as I move slowly. Every groan he makes, every quick breath from him has me high, so high. I cover my mouth as he sucks on my nipple, one then the other, his palm spread across my spine to keep me upright. When I can’t take it any longer, I shove him back, yanking frantically at his shorts, and move to ride him. He gently stops me, and confusion rolls over my mind.
“Look at the sunrise while I fill you,” he orders. My mouth goes dry, and I turn around on my knees, the morning air caressing my bare skin as he licks and kisses down the length of my spine. My back arches, a cry falls from my parted lips. The wetness pooled between my thighs is dripping between them. I feel it run down my skin as Julián’s tongue catches it, licking all the way to the apex of my thighs.
The pleasure ripping through me makes it so hard to hold myself up on my hands and knees and just as my climax gathers, the warmth of his mouth disappears and he fills me with a low growl, his hands holding my hips in place, his cock filling me to the brim. Stillness, the stillness and feeling of being so incredibly full of him with the sunrise and sea in front of me, is pure ecstasy. As he begins to thrust in and out, I clench around him, saying his name, telling him how much I love him, how good he feels, matching the rhythm of his free hand between my thighs, pinching and circling my bundle of nerves as I come, losing all sense of whatever blissful reality he’s created for us. He continues to move his cock and hips, dragging slowly, gripping one of my breasts in his hand as he reaches his own climax, shouting my name as the warmth fills me. His body goes rigid, and his chest falls against my back, heaving slightly as he catches his breath.
I turn and fall onto his chest, our bare skin on the sand and each other’s bodies, and the light of dawn washing over us is better than any dream I’ve ever had, any imaginary world I’ve fantasized over while reading my favorite novels, inserting myself as the main character. To be loved is to be seen, and to be seen is to be loved. I’ve heard and seen different renditions of the quote throughout my life, but I never fully understood it until right now, in this moment, with this man.
Eventually we get dressed and make our way to standing. I wipe and swipe at the sand stuck on my skin as Julián helps adjust my bathing suit top.
“Do you want to swim?” he asks, nodding toward the ocean. The sun has taken her place high in the sky now and the idea of the warm water washing my body is too good to pass up.
He leads me to the edge of the water, and we walk into it, side by side, soul by soul, heart by heart, the warmth of the water kissing my skin matching the warmth inside my chest.
Nothing could be more perfect. Nothing will ever take this memory from me. The sea will remember us, the imprint of our bodies in the sand, the whisper of our promises made and love shared. I won’t be forgotten, and that gives me unexplainable peace.