Page 69 of The Last Sunrise

“I think the photos and being here is messing with my mind. I swear I saw my mother walking there.” I point to the cornerof the street. It’s empty and she’s not there… of course she’s not. I definitely imagined it.

There’s a bed next to the window, a small desk, and a few stacks of schoolbooks. I walk over to the desk and trace the thick, curved wood. There’s something carved into it:Iz i Mateois etched deeply into the desk. I open one of the books, again, no dust to be found. I’m a little nervous to tell Julián what I’m thinking, but it comes out anyway.

“Imagine how much happier they would have been if they stayed together. I know we wouldn’t be here, but take us out of the equation for a moment. Neither of their lives has been the same since. My mom is miserable and doesn’t so much as look at a man. Your pare has been cooking her favorite foods, keeping memories and photographs. How is it possible they were so in love, but separated? It seems cruel and like their lives after are a punishment from the universe.”

Julián sits down next to me on the bed and takes my hand in his. “Let’s never find out how that feels, okay?”

I nod, knowing it won’t do any good to remind him that our time has an expiration date and not only the end of summer. Something more infinite. I send a silent prayer to the universe to punish me for all eternity for the pain he will feel when I’m gone.

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 meto 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 severethan 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 ifI 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, myschoolwork, 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.

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