Page 84 of The Last Sunrise

I wonder if the two of them have bonded now, formed an alliance to drive Mateo absolutely mad as he tries to be the voice of reason. My Julián… has he been taking his medicine? Has he showered? Clearly not, given his father’s plea.

A machine beeps louder than usual, and I try to focus on Julián’s voice, Julián’s laughter, the tone he used when he told me he loved me for the first time. Another voice enters the room, speaking in English.

“Her vitals are great. The surgeon you brought from Madrid is exceptional. I might need to steal him for our hospital.” I know that voice—that’s Dr. Steele, the neurologist I’ve hadsince I was a child. Why and how is he here? Are we in Texas? Am I awake or is this all a dream?

“He’s an old friend,” Mateo says. “I’m just so grateful it may have worked.”

“She’s not awake yet. She might not know anything anymore; she’s probably terrified,” my emotion-ridden Julián says to the room. I reach for him, and I feel movement. Just before I decide if it was real or not, Julián’s hand clasps over mine.

“Ry, please stay, Ry.” He breathes a terrified breath to match the anxious look on his face as my eyes peel open.

He’s paper-white and in pure distress. His cheeks are sunken in, nearly black half-moons under his eyes. I consider teasing him, pretending to not remember anything, but I fear he may actually have a heart attack if I do, so instead I use all my strength to pry open my heavy mouth and try to speak.

Nothing comes. The orange glow of the sunrise shines through the hospital window, covering the entire room. It hurts my eyes, but I refuse to close them or look away. Another sunrise with Julián. I have so much to say, so much to be grateful for. He did exactly what I’d been afraid to do, exactly what I hoped, to keep me alive. I’m alive and remember everything. Every crooked smile, every kiss, every tear, everything my mother promised me while I was half-conscious. I think back, racking my memory, turning the pages like a cabinet full of folders—my fourth-grade math teacher’s name, the mascot of my high school, hospitals, the boat and lake with my mom. My mind is still here, seemingly every part of it.

The panic on Julián’s face increases by the second. I try again. I will not let him suffer; I can’t let him feel pain any longer. My throat is on fire. Will I be able to speak through the flames?

“Julián,” I manage, wondering if the words actually came out.

“Ry! Oriah.” He falls to his knees next to my bed, squeezing my hands.

“Are you okay? Do you know where you are? Who you are?”

I nod, and a thousand days of sighs pour from his body as he slumps over, the weight of the world seeming to melt off his shoulders. The sunrise out the window is deep red; the glow is so beautiful. Life is so beautiful.

“I promised to keep watching the sunrise with you,” I tell him, hot tears soaking my cheeks and his.

EpilogueOne Year Later

Mateo carries a platter of fresh fish and places it on the long wooden table. There are banners and balloons, little pieces of biodegradable confetti. Setting up was simple, a lot more fun than the charity event that brought us here last summer. Instead of tens of party planners and thousands of dollars of balloon arrangements, we blew a dozen balloons up with only our mouths; when my cheeks got sore, I bribed a few of the children playing by the water with candy to come and help me. Julián sang quietly as we worked, Mateo humming along to the song. I was becoming familiar with it, even though it was in Spanish. Julián told me his mom used to sing it to him at night. I’ve learned so much about his late mother that I miss her, even though I never met her.

Speaking of mothers, mine saunters over, dressed to the nines as if it’s her birthday and not Julián’s. Some things never change. But some things do.

She wraps her arm around Mateo’s back, helping him rearrange the food to be more to her, and my, liking. He kissesher. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to seeing that. She’s smiling the way I had always wished she would, living a real life, the way I’d always wished she would. I’ve begun to speak a little Spanish, which my mom couldn’t protest since she was the reason I never did, and she’s the one who decided we were never leaving the island again. I’ll never forget the shock I felt when she told me,This is our home.

We both cried for hours, and she finally opened up to me about so many missing pieces of her life, and mine. We have so much still to learn. About each other, about life, about our relationship, but she’s not the same woman she was a year ago, and neither am I. At first I was afraid she would change her mind; the anxiety melted away when she purchased her childhood home and the one next to it. Once Mateo slowly started coming over, and eventually didn’t leave, I was over the moon.

Julián and I haven’t spent a single day apart. I go to work with him, and he comes with me to the Arts Center for Children that SetCorp ended up opening once the deal fell through, which is now how I fulfill my love of dance and live a life with purpose. I may not be able to dance professionally, but I’m a pretty good mentor.

And I have never been prouder of my mother than when she got the local preservation committee to declare the land untouchable, meaning no one, including SetCorp or any other poachers, could build on it. Too afraid to lose my mom, their top and most irreplaceable employee, they backed off and allowed her to work from here. I constantly nag her to retire but know she never will. She works less and laughs more, so I give her the benefit of the doubt and am happy with the change in our quality of life.

I travel to my home hospital in Dallas every three months, and Julián comes with me. Of course, he dislikes nearly everything about the States, except the Tex-Mex and the size of the houses, but he gladly boards the flight with me and sleeps on the couch in the room during my routine EEGs, entertained and horrified by the local news. We buy too much candy and jerky and brisket and T-shirts at Buc-ee’s and go to the giant malls in Dallas. We take road trips to Austin and the San Antonio River Walk. In exchange, he takes me to Barcelona every chance we get, and we’ve gone to Paris twice. London is next. My mom and Mateo came along on our second Paris trip, and my mom barely touched her phone. I couldn’t believe it. Mateo balances her out in a way that I didn’t think was possible, and I love him so much for it. Julián and I try not to think about the fact that we’re practically stepsiblings; though our parents aren’t married, we both know they will be. Seeing my mother be loved and in love is another dream I couldn’t have even fathomed a year ago.

I truly can’t believe the life I’m living now. I used to think of myself as unlucky, as doomed, even. As a girl with an unpredictable condition whose life was limited in so many ways. I focused on the fact that I couldn’t drive, instead of the fact that I can walk; on the fact that I was exhausted from hospitals and doctors, not the fact that I was fortunate enough to have access to hospitals and doctors. I’m still changing, I’m still growing, but I’ve come to understand that everyone has struggles, and mine weren’t any better or worse than anyone else’s; all we can do is try each day to live.

Some days I can’t believe I’m still living. Other days I panic, paranoid I’ll have another seizure and not be able to escapedeath this time. I know my thoughts are just thoughts, but they’re still there sometimes, and that’s okay. I look around at the people I love, let my senses take in the smell of the food and the ocean, the noise from the soft waves, the sunset in the backdrop. My life is worth living, and I’m going to live it to the fullest. I do my best to take care of myself; Julián too. My phone alarm goes off daily and we toast with our coffees while downing our meds. It’s so us, and we keep each other accountable for our appointments, our health, and everything in between. I know wholeheartedly that I will spend every day for the rest of my days with Julián, watching the sun set and rise, set and rise, and never, ever take a single one for granted.

“Amor meu.” Julián’s voice finds me. “I want to show you something,” he whispers in my ear as he wraps his arms around my torso. I can feel the cold stone of his necklace, the one that matches my eyes, against my skin.

“It’s your birthday. I’m supposed to be the one getting you gifts.” I lean my head back against his chest.

“Who said it was a gift, Miss Spoiled?” His warm laughter puffs against my earlobe and I shiver, even in the humid summer night.

The table begins to fill up with our friends and neighbors. Even Amara and Prisha came back from Sweden for a week to visit for Julián’s birthday. I came here to search for a family I never knew and ended up with one that exceeded my wishes. I mouth to Amara as she looks at us, telling her we will be right back. She opens her mouth as Prisha stuffs a piece of bread into it and their shoulders touch.

He leads me over to the newly renovated boat at the dock, and the look on his face is priceless as he unveils the painton the hull. No matter how much money the now-thriving business brings in, he refuses to get a new boat, so I bought an apartment across the street and am remodeling it for when we want to live on land, when we want to have the sound of little feet running around the house.

“She finally has a name,” we say in unison.

The name is written in Spanish, in a beautiful cursive font:La meva sortida de sol, Oriah.

What I once thought would be my last summer, my first and last sunrise, ended up being the beginning of my life.

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