Love and the Sea and Everything in Between

chapter sixteen

Monday morning begins with a cigarette and the sunrise. Standing on the roof of the dorms, the smoke in my lungs, the cigarette between my fingers, and the sun in my eyes, my stomach twists inside itself in anticipation of taking Liz to visit my parents.

Just then, my phone buzzes and I pull it out to see a text from her.

Her: You up?

Me: Yeah.

Her: Where are you?

Me: The roof.

Her: Of the dorms?

Me: Yeah.

Her: OK. I'll be right up. Just a sec.

Me: OK.

I smile into the sunrise, excited to see her even though it's been less than 24 hours since I last saw her. Though, I guess it doesn't matter because that's what love does. To me, anyway.

A few minutes later, she appears over the ledge and crosses the width of the roof to reach me

"Good morning," I say as I take her fingers in mine and give a slight bow, kissing the back of her hand. "It's quite early, don't you think?"

"I'm a morning person," she says with a smile. "Well, really, I'm an all-hours person, but whatever."

I laugh.

I see her eying my cigarette and I offer it to her. "Want a smoke?"

She nods, taking it from my fingers and putting it to her lips, inhaling this time with more precision than last. A few seconds later, she puffs a cloud of smoke into the morning breeze.

I sit down on the ground, crossing my legs underneath me and Liz does the same.

"It's beautiful," she says, eyes fixed on the dawn.

"Yeah," I say, but my eyes are fixed on something else.

She takes another puff of my cigarette and looks over at me. "Do you come up here often?"

"Yeah. Almost every morning. I like to watch the sunrise. Sometimes I'll come up here at sunset too and watch the light fall behind the city." I pull a piece of gravel from the palm of my hand and scowl at the imprint left in my skin, flicking the pebble away from me.

We sit here for a while, admiring the morning.

"So many people miss out on beauty like this because they're too busy doing things and racing through life without actually pausing for a second and just living life. I don't want to be one of those people. So I come up here and watch the sun do its thing. It reminds me to slow down."

She smiles at me, her hair falling in front of her face. The glimmer of the golden sun on her honey-colored hair is too beautiful to pass up so I dig into my pocket and pull out my phone. I open the camera app and aim the lens at her as she smiles at me. I take the picture, and she makes a face, sticking her tongue out at me, so I take a picture of that too.

"Let me see," she says.

"Nah." I tuck my phone back into my pocket and she scrunches her face up in mock annoyance. Then, dives at me and reaches for my pocket, but I grab her away and we fall onto our backs. After a minute of this, she concedes and rolls away, sitting up.

"Fine. Be that way." She sticks her tongue out at me.

"Okay. I will." I sit up, stretching my legs out in front of me and leaning back on my hands.