The familiar emptiness inside my chest that always gets the better of me in these moments starts creeping in. It’s slightly different than other times, though. I don’t know why. Less intense. And not nearly as suffocating.
“You’ve got such a lovely smile,” James says.
I turn my head slightly in his direction. “I… I was just replaying a memory in my head.”
He moves over on my lounge, his blue eyes searching me, not in a lustful way, but in a warm, reassuring one. “Can I lie next to you?”
I hesitate for a few seconds, then shift a few inches to the right, turning on one side, to make space for him. The mattress caves in as he lies down on his side, and then we are face-to-face, our lips almost touching.
But I don’t lean in for a kiss, and neither does he. We lock eyes for a long, long time before I huddle against his chest. And as he kisses my forehead in one soft brush, putting an arm around me, I know what’s different. I know what makes the emptiness more bearable and the memories sweeter.
He does.
Tears appear in the corners of my eyes, and I let them fall, one by one until I drift off to sleep.
I wake up covered with something soft and warm up to the tip of my nose. A blanket. I sit up, pushing it away. Goosebumps appear all over my arms and legs as the night breeze chills me. It’s still dark. I press my palms on my temples, my eyes closed. My head feels lighter than before, and the sensation of nausea at the back of my throat is gone. It’s only after I open my eyes that I realize I’m alone. The portion of the mattress where James lay is completely cold-a sign that he left some time ago. My insides start quivering. Maybe he went to his room. The lounge chair isn’t much of a bed. The stiffness in my neck is proof of that. Or maybe he left for good, a small voice whispers in my head. I shake my head, attempting to chase the thought away, but only manage to stir to life some of that nausea I thought was gone. I take in a mouthful of air, pondering for a few moments what woke me up when I heard the call.
“Serena.” It’s James’s voice.
I spring to my feet, wobbling a little on my sandals, and looking to my left and right.
“Where are you?” I call, grinning.
“I’ll wait for you to figure it out,” James says, and I can tell by the way he sounds that he, too, is grinning. “It’s more fun.”
The sound doesn’t come from the bedroom, but inexplicably, from the edge of the terrace, so I walk toward there and b
end over the railing. Sure enough, James stands on the ground, leaning with one shoulder against the wall and beaming up at me.
“You sleep like a rock. I’ve been calling out for at least ten minutes,” he says.
“What on earth are you doing down there?”
“Pondering whether I should bring a ladder or…”
I gasp. “You want me to jump down there?”
He grins, unhitching himself from the wall, hands in his pockets. “Correct.”
“You’ve got to be kidding, right?”
“Come on. It’s not that high.”
Truth be told, it isn’t that high. But I’ve never been much of a climber or jumper for that matter.
“Whatever happened to just walking down some stairs like a normal person? There must be other ways to get there. ”
“I picked the least boring one.” James winks, holding his arms up. “I thought you’d find it romantic.”
“It kind of is,” I admit with a giggle. Unless I break a leg, or my neck. I bite the inside of my cheek, eyeing the wooden railing for a few seconds, then swing a leg over the railing, careful not to damage my pink dress in the process. The edge of the terrace on the other side of the railing is just wide enough for me to stand on my toes. I bend my knees, holding onto the railing as best as I can. The ground isn’t that far away. I could almost touch James’s raised arms if I extended one of my own. But the sinking feeling in my stomach refuses to let go.
“You’ll have to let go of the railing to be able to jump, Serena,” James jokes.
“You don’t say.”
I slowly release my right hand from the railing, holding tight with the left one.
“That’s it,” James says, touching the tip of my fingers. “Jump, baby. I’ll catch you.”
Gritting my teeth, I let go of the railing completely and leaned forward.
“Aargh,” I yelp, as I crash into James’s arms, almost knocking him over. My feet land with a thump on the ground. The heels of my sandals have sunk almost an inch into the soft earth. “My shoes are so not right for this,” I say.
James laughs softly in my ear, his arms wrapped around me. My heartbeat picks up. “That’s a cheap way of tricking me into carrying you.”
“I swear I wasn’t-” The rest of my words come out in a howl as he lifts me in his arms again, like earlier when he took me to my room.
“Better?”
“I can get used to this, you know.”
“Good,” he says, looking me straight in the eyes. “That’s what I want. No actually, I want more. I don’t want you to only get used to me. I want you to be addicted to me, like I am to you.”
His lips are so close to me now. So, so close. It would be the easiest thing in the world to lean in and kiss him. It’s also the hardest. Because I am addicted to him already, in ways he can’t possibly imagine. But it’s best if he doesn’t know that yet. So I lean back, pretending to scrutinize our surroundings. “Where are you taking me?”
“You don’t think I’d tell you, do you?” he says, though his voice lacks the spark it usually has when he’s hiding his plan from me. It’s strained, and I’m at fault. He climbs the slope parallel to the waterfall, and, as we make our way through the dense trees, I wonder where his game will take us this time. The options aren’t as vast here. Just as I consider the possibility that we’re going to his car, the trees become scarcer and I see a clearing not far in front of us. There is light in the clearing, which is odd, given that it’s in the heart of the forest. When we get closer, I narrow my eyes, staring at the lighting device-a huge thing on the ground, like a giant turtle whose grotesquely deformed shell is made up of what appear to be fluorescent ostrich eggs.
But as we step inside the clearing, I get to see what it is. It’s not a lighting device at all. It’s a stack of white balloons tied to a stone on the ground. They are somehow lit up on the inside. Next to them is a picnic blanket.
Balloons. Eight of them. One for each one of Kate’s anniversaries since she died.
My throat is dry as James kneels and puts me on the blanket, next to the balloons. My tear ducts, on the other hand, aren’t. James sits by me, on the blanket.
“How come they’re glowing?” I ask, fighting very hard to keep my voice from shaking.
“They’ve got LEDs in them.” He interlaces his fingers with mine. “I thought it’d be good for you to do this again.”
I tilt my head to the side, wiping a tear away with my other hand. “When did you do… all this?”
“After you fell asleep. I was afraid you’d wake up before I returned, but the champagne knocked you out all right,” he chuckles, squeezing my fingers gently.
“What time is it?”
“Two o’clock.”
So it’s her birthday already.
I reach out to the balloons, barely touching them. I don’t know why James thinks it would be good for me to release them up into the sky. Seeing them already brings the familiar suffocating lump in my chest that I know will grow and grow until I end up in a breakdown, as usual. But I start untying one of the balloons, with trembling hands, if only to get rid of them, so I don’t have to keep looking at them.
The moment I untie it, the balloon soars up. I untie two more before James says, “Don’t let them go all at once. Take your time.” He’s propped on his elbows on the blanket, staring up at the sky. He motions for me to lie next to him. I hesitate, looking from him to the remaining balloons in the stack, then lie back on my elbows too.