When we arrived at the field the following morning for the hot air balloon ride, nerves hit me like I was already a hundred feet above the earth. I was shaky, jittery, and I had taken two pills just to cope.

I hadn’t hidden it from Lotte this time. I’d laid them out, showed her, so she knew. Two pills would still have a minimal effect on me, but psychologically it was enough that I could cope with the day.

Or, at least, that’s what I thought. The moment we stepped out of the Jeep and stepped out onto the field, I saw the giant balloons laid out on the grass and tried to imagine that being the thing to keep me suspended above the earth, and I just wanted to puke.

There were two brightly colored balloons laid out, with workers holding open the sides while they were inflated. The baskets were on their sides, and people were milling about the field, talking to workers and other fliers.

Lotte must have sensed my panic, because she took one gloved hand in hers. “We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

“Don’t give me an easy way out, Lots. I didn’t give you one.”

“I know.” She smiled. “I wasn’t planning on giving you one, but I did want you to feel like you still had a choice.”

I shook my head at her, eyeing the balloons out of my periphery.

A worker approached us and took our names.

“I thought that the fan that filled the balloons had fire?” Lotte asked, watching the balloon we’d be riding in with fascination.

“Oh, well we actually inflate them with our high-powered inflation fan, and once the balloon is full of air, your pilot will light the burner and bring the balloon upright by blowing fire into the balloon envelope. Then you’ll get into the gondola and take off. The wind helps the inflation process, though, and that’s why it’s laid on its side for the moment.”

“That makes sense.” Lotte gave her a smile.

“Did you bring hats? The burner will put out heat during the flight, so you’ll want your head protected.”

“Yep, we brought a couple beanies.”

“Great. Don’t forget to wear sunscreen. You’ve got such beautiful skin—you’ll want to protect it when you’re thousands of feet closer to the sun.”

“Wait,” I said. “Thousands?”

“Yes. We usually go up as many as three thousand—that’s where you can start to see Earth’s curvature.”

My stomach pitched, and I clamped down on Lotte’s hand as she talked with the employee for several moments longer. Once she’d walked away, I set my jaw firm.

“It’s going to be great, Sam,” Lotte said, but it did little to settle my nerves. “I’ll be there the whole time, okay?”

I wished I had more pills and I hated that that was my first thought, my first concern. More of the thing I was trying to quit. “Lotte, I’m sorry. I’m terrified of heights.”

“I know. You said that. Remember at the park? You did so great.”

It was hard to believe that was just two days earlier. “I had you to help me.”

She turned so we were facing one another. “And you have me again. Nothing bad is going to happen. Maybe you’ll even love it.”

That was doubtful, but Lotte looked so hopeful that I couldn’t let her down. “I feel like I just need a distraction.”

She wrapped her arms around me, hug-like, and then I felt her hand in the back pocket of my jeans. “Here.” She handed me my pocket pad. “Draw something. You’ve got the balloons, the mountains off to the distance. Aren’t they stunning? Look at them.”

She was facing me, but her head was turned so she could look at the mountains to our left. My eyes glided down her neck, coming to rest in the perfect space of skin she exposed in her open jacket. The morning was cool, so we wore gloves, but the boat neck shirt she wore under the jacket exposed the line of her collarbone, the curve of her neck where it met shoulder.

“Okay,” I told her. “Sit here.” I guided us both to the ground and when she waited for me to turn to the mountains, I simply reached over and tipped her chin. “Stay like that, for just a minute.” I tugged at her jacket—not too much, but enough to expose her skin a little bit more. She had the most beautiful coloring, and I hated that I didn’t have paints with me to bring that truer to life. Shading would have to suffice, until I could get her onto canvas.

“Are you drawing me?”

“Shh,” I told her, starting with the part that my eyes always slid to first—the hollow between her neck and shoulder, where the tendon in her neck stood out proudly when her head was turned. She had perfectly straight shoulders, but light muscle along them, like a gymnast—which I supposed made sense for her, as a dancer. It was a soft triangle, the skin inside of her collarbone to her neck, and I shaded that first, before adding definition to the collarbone and the tendon in her neck. I was enamored with the shape of her, with the shapes I recognized and the colors I could mentally figure out how to create with a few different colors, blended to recreate that perfect cream.

The wind picked up lightly, sending a few strands over my view. It didn’t mar my view, and I found the added shadows they created against her skin interesting, so I incorporated them into the sketch. The ends of the hairs grazed her shoulder line, and I drew up from there, carving out her neck with my pencil, until I was drawing her chin too. With her head turned, it created this delicate, but somehow strong line that cast shadows on her neck.

This was what I found so beautiful about Lotte. It wasn’t her hair, not at all. It was in how her body told the story of who she was. The creamy skin, untouched by the sun, and the smooth, wiry muscles that wrapped her arms told of her strength. Her set jaw spoke of her pride, but her downcast eyes told me of her shyness. So many things I could glean just from quietly observing her.

My drawing was done, but I didn’t tell her that. There was such peace in just watching her, that I didn’t want to stop quite yet. Her high cheekbones told me about her family, but the three holes in her ears told me about her. Her cupid’s bow was defined, but her pale pink lips were parted. Was she nervous that I was watching her?

Like her hands, I found so much beauty in even the smallest parts of her body.

“Okay,” I said softly. “Done.”

She turned, looking into my eyes first. She looked so young, unweathered by the world. I felt a strong urge to protect her somehow, even though she didn’t need it from me.

“Oh, wow,” she said, placing her hands over mine as she looked at the drawing. “That’s beautiful.”

“It’s you.” Selfishly, I wanted to hold onto the paper—if only to have the opportunity to look at her when she wasn’t near me. But something told me she needed it more right now. “Here.” I handed her the pad, careful not to smudge the drawing.

“Is this really me?”

“It’s you.”

“It’s how you see me.”

I shrugged. “Perhaps, but I’m more into life-like sketches. You don’t get an opportunity to view yourself from this angle, but I do. All the lines, all the curves, it’s you.”

She was squeezing the mini sketchpad in her hands, staring down at it. I hoped she could see the beauty in her that I could, hoped that the drawing would make it obvious. I brought her chin forward, willing her to look at me.

“I told you, you’re beautiful.” I kissed her lips, placed my hands on the sides of her head, and then kissed her closed eyelids.

When I pulled back, she slowly opened her eyes.

“Have you ever seen The Birth of Venus painting?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“When I say you have Botticelli eyes, I’m talking about that. The goddess, emerging from the sea. Eyes soft, almost sleepy, unspoiled by the cruelty the world has to offer.”

“Sam,” she said in a way that made me want to exist in this moment a bit longer.

“Okay, we’re ready. We’ll get four of you in this side, and you four on this side.”

The lady who had spoken to us about the balloon ride motioned us over to her.

My legs were wobbly when I stood. It’d been bad enough when I’d assumed we’d be going a hundred feet up in the air, but thousands? That was a bit more than I could grasp.

“Just focus on me, okay?”

“I can’t draw up there to distract me.”

“Count on me then,” Lotte said, taking me by the hand and tugging me to the gondola. There was a pilot in the middle of the basket, separated from the two sides that flanked him. There were already two people in our side of the basket, so Lotte and I squeezed in beside them. The propane burner roared as the pilot adjusted it, and Lotte handed me a beanie, then secured one over her head. It looked so out of place in the dead of summer, but she looked adorable. That’s what I needed to focus my attention on. Adorable Lotte.

The pilot began going through the safety speech. It was about to happen.

“Don’t be alarmed by all the safety equipment in front of me,” he said, motioning to the things by his feet. “Like commercial flights, this is standard procedure to have these things.”

But it did alarm me. Thousands of feet in the air, and I was supposed to feel safe by the fire extinguisher on board a balloon? If he needed to deploy that fire extinguisher, that’d mean us or the balloon on fire, and I didn’t quite see that ending well for anyone.

“It’s fine to reach your arms slightly out of the basket for a photo, but please ensure that the rest of your body stays inside the gondola. Likewise, don’t lean over the sides.”

People actually leaned over the side of these? I found it unfathomable, but I wasn’t an expert of subjecting myself to a balloon ride thousands of feet in the air on the regular.

“If a burner goes out, don’t worry. It’ll be relit immediately, and we have a backup burner that will ignite to keep the balloon flying.”

“What if both burners go out?” asked someone from the other side of the basket. It was as if they had a glimpse in my mind as I went over every possible, terrible scenario.

“That’s extremely unlikely, but if that were to happen, you still needn’t worry. The balloon will only fall about as fast as a parachute.”

That didn’t give me any bit of comfort, seeing as I had no experience jumping out of planes either.

I could feel the tension flooding my body, turning me to steel. Lotte must have sensed it too, because she stepped closer to me. We were pretty crowded in the basket as it was, but she didn’t stop until she was pressed fully against me. “Hey,” she whispered, as the pilot went on with safety warnings. “Look at me.”

I did, but I was embarrassed over my fear of this, so I quickly snapped my eyes away. I stared at the grass around us, thinking how safe I felt at that moment.

Lotte unzipped my jacket so she was closer to me, her arms coming around my back. I felt her gloved hands go up the back of my shirt until they were pressed against my skin. I trembled a little, and I knew it rippled through Lotte.

“We’re about to go,” she said, soft enough so that only I could hear her. “Look at me.”

I peered down at her.

“Let’s adjust just a little, so you don’t have to watch us ascend.”

I didn’t argue, just turned with her wrapped around me still until I was facing the pilot. Seeing how calm he looked, how he checked his app for the temperature and the wind speed, made me feel a little bit more at ease.

Lotte rubbed gently across my lower back, never letting me forget that she was glued to me. I held her too, ran my hand up and down her back. If my focus drifted beyond the pilot, I could see the grounds beyond us disappearing from sight, so I made sure to keep my focus on him, on his steadiness.

I could feel the steady rhythm of Lotte’s heart against my chest, and that gave me more calm than anything else. She wasn’t afraid, she was completely ready for this. She was braver than I was, something that humbled me.

Over the next few minutes, she pressed a kiss to my chest, here and there, keeping me grounded and focused. She was the only thing keeping me from spewing.

I looked down at her, and her focus was somewhere beyond me, out in the distance. I could see the light blue morning sky reflected in her eyes, the way the warm sun washed her face. I could be content to experience this through her face, but watching the awe in her eyes, the slackness in her jaw, made me want to look at it.

I told myself that I’d made it to this point without falling apart, however many feet we were in the air, that I was still safe, I was okay. Lotte’s lazy back rub was proof of that.

“I think I’m ready to see,” I told her.

She nodded. “Yeah? Okay. Don’t let go of me, but I’ll turn a little so you can see. We can turn back if it’s too much.”

God, I wanted to kiss her then, hard, for the care she was showing me. But I didn’t, because I didn’t want to freak us both out from the movement. We shuffled our feet slowly, turning until I could look out the way she was.

The first thing my stomach did was flop over itself, but nothing came up in the way of vomit. In fact, I was surprisingly … okay. I could see for miles, and our ascent wasn’t terribly fast anyway. We were moving slowly, enough that it didn’t make me feel like I needed to sit down and take this in. In fact, it was a view that was in every definition an awe-inspiring one. There were the mountains, the lake, the city, and beyond that, the haze of the orange sunrise blurring the horizon. A thousand colors and shapes, and a view I never would’ve been able to have anywhere else.

I looked out over the mountains, their snow-capped peaks, and the roads that winded through them.

Lotte leaned against me. “Sam, we did it. You helped me, you made me do this.” Her voice held awe, and even though my stomach felt a bit weak, it was hard not to see it the way she saw.

I looked out at the other people in the gondola. They were taking photos, selfies, had selfie sticks hanging out of the basket. Everyone was quiet, however, except for a few murmurs of awe.

I turned to Lotte, who was looking at me, and seemingly had been looking at me for a while, gauging my reaction. She rubbed at my back, squeezed her arms around me. Her blue eyes were soft, her pink lips were closed as she smiled at me, and my heart thumped slowly once, twice, three times, as I stared at her.

I loved her.