As the late afternoon sun dips behind the trees, I make my way down to the river alone. It feels completely surreal. For eight years, I made this trek almost every day, and so many memories hit me full force. Unlike the town, the riverbank remains largely unchanged as if time has skipped over it completely. I’d worried there might be some kind of development in the area.
When I arrive at our clearing, the whispered questions in the back of my head grow louder. Do I want to see what’s left of the pebble art? Do I want to see it destroyed when I came here to heal?
Gravitating towards the river’s edge where I’d watched Mereki fish so many times, I smile sadly, remembering the best and worst day of my life and the pact we made.
“Let’s make a pact to come back here on this day at sunset every five years, no matter what,” he said, staring at the burning orange ball descending towards the horizon. “November nineteenth. I would say every year, but I think that’s unrealistic, and I don’t want to come back here that often. Do you?”
“Wouldn’t you want to visit your mum and dad?”
He shrugged. “They can visit us in the city.”
I remained quiet for a few moments, deliberating. Three little words. They could have meant nothing, but in that moment, to me, they meant everything. “I don’t like how you said ‘no matter what,’ as if there might ever be a reason we wouldn’t be together.”
“Is that what you thought I meant?” he asked, shaking his head. “Of course we’ll be together. I just meant that who knows what we’ll be doing or where we’ll be in five years. We’ll be twenty-three years old and probably finished with our studies by then. Hopefully I’ll be kicking arse at a big engineering firm, and you’ll be working on a major exhibition.”
I laughed at the beautiful picture he’d painted. “Well when you put it like that . . .”
“I just think we should always remember what this place means to us and come back to where it all began. We’ll tell the river about all the exciting things we’ve done since we left.”
I pushed up onto my knees and threw my arms around his neck. “That’s a wonderful idea. Let’s do it.” I kissed him hard on the lips before pulling back to meet his gaze. “So, four days after my twenty-third birthday, we’ll both be right here watching the sunset, no matter what.”
Nothing and no one would ever come between us.
Taking a deep breath, I mumble, “No matter what.”
Despite my attempted composure, the tears come. Swiping them away, I push my shoulders back, determined to be strong for my beloved Ki. When the words come again, they’re said with confidence. “No matter what.”
The breeze picks up and I hear his voice, swirling around me. No matter what.
He appears out of nowhere, and I sob with relief. I feel lucky and blessed to see his beautiful, kind face again even if I know it’s for the last time. His dark eyes are soft with understanding.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I say, tears streaming down my face. I reach out and touch his face. I can feel him with every single part of me.
I can hear what he wants to say because it’s exactly what I would’ve said to him if it had been me.
“Say it with your whole heart and mean it. Say it because it’s your greatest gift to me, to our memory, and most importantly, to you.”
Shaking my head vigorously, a loud sob escapes my lips. “I don’t think I can.”
“You can, Kalimna.”
I meet Mereki’s gaze. He tilts his head, then walks towards the very spot I’ve been avoiding. I need to see what’s left of the pebble art that changed my life. With him, I can do this. I want to do this. Glancing briefly at the gathering clouds above, I follow him, my heart rate spiking with adrenaline. When he stops, I do, too.
He whispers to me, and I swear I hear his reassuring eighteen-year-old voice. “I’m here, Emerson.”
With his encouragement adding steel to my spine, I look down and gasp. Collapsing to my knees, I cover my mouth with my hands, overwhelmed by nostalgia, devastation, and a strange kind of joy. Like looking in a mirror to my soul, I can see the damage. Some pebbles are broken, dislodged, and eroded. Others have disappeared, washed down the river and lost forever. However, the big picture is largely intact. Maybe more than ever, it reflects the strong and resilient girl I’ve always been inside, weathered by circumstance and time.
Darting my eyes around, I find Ki standing by the river’s edge, and my mind catapults back to the hundreds of times I sat in this exact spot and watched him fish.
Brushing my hands down my thighs, my heart sinks knowing it’s now time to do what I came here to do. I push up to stand and shuffle towards him, stopping when I’m close enough to feel his presence.
His smile threatens to derail me, and I commit it to the part of my memory reserved just for him. The part of my memory that I will never let go. I can still hear his voice in my head.
“I don’t want to let you go.” Even though I hate the weakness of my words, my mind speaks the truth.
Ki lifts his fingers to his lips and blows me a kiss. The pain is still crippling, but I can hear him. “Moving on with your life and loving someone else is not letting me go. We had our time and it was perfect, but there’s more to your love story. and you don’t want to miss it.”
My sobs are uncontrolled as I listen to the words in my head, in my heart, and swirling in the breeze. My heart explodes with agony and hope all at the same time.
“You take this next chapter with both hands, bright eyes, and an open heart.”
“I want to be happy again, but I can’t fathom my life without you standing beside me.” Shivering, I clutch my heart, knowing that’s exactly where he is. “My happiness has always been so tied up in you.”
Closing my eyes, I can feel his embrace. In this moment, I reflect on his friendship, his love, his absolute belief in all that I am, and it wraps around me until I’m no longer cold. Squeezing my eyes shut tighter, I want to freeze time.
“Say it, Emerson.” He’s whispering in my ear. “Say it, knowing I will always be in your heart like you are forever in mine.”
Taking a shaky breath, I open my eyes and walk ever so slowly towards the river, still feeling his presence all around me.
I try to smile, but desperate sorrow is still my overriding emotion when I pick up his fishing rod and fight away the dread, knowing what I’m about to do. “Everything I am, I learnt from you,” I say, looking into his loving eyes.
“Live and love for both of us, Kalimna.”
I concentrate to still my shaking hands and get ready to cast the line. This is when I expect him to stand behind me to guide my movement. When I look to him, he shakes his head with the tiniest of movements. I nod in understanding, absolutely gutted nonetheless.
The sun touches the horizon, and evening mist settles over the gently flowing river when I tear my eyes away from Ki.
“Say it, Kalimna.” It no longer sounds like his voice in my head. It is only the whisperings of the wind, lapping at the water and the rustling of the leaves in the trees.
Panicking, I whip my head around. Relief overwhelms me when he’s still there, but he’s fading. He’s melting into the mist, and he appears irrefutably happy. I’m shocked to find my heart isn’t completely broken. If anything, it feels hopeful. I want happiness for him as much as he wants it for me.
“Say it, Kalimna.” The windswept words settle around me, and I smile through my tears.
With newfound determination, I firm my grip on the rod, swing it back, and cast it out in a smooth arc, exactly the way he’d taught me so many times. He’s no longer guiding my every movement, but he’s with me. He’ll always be with me.
“Goodbye.” I say the word I’ve refused to say until now for fear of really losing him. “Goodbye, my first friend, my first love, my first everything. I will never forget you, and I will always be grateful for the time we had.” Despite the lightness seeping into my heart, my shoulders slump and tears stream relentlessly down my cheeks. “Goodbye, Mereki.”
The Mereki I’ve clutched to for years swirls away with the mist. Unable to hold the rod now, I reel in the line and know I need to leave it behind, too. Without any further thought, I prop it in the dirt just like Ki had done all those years ago when he’d go in search of pebbles for our art work. Taking a few steps back, I can almost see Ki standing next to his rod smiling at me. It’s different though now. It’s simply a memory, and I fully acknowledge he’s no longer a physical part of my life other than the permanent place he will always have in my heart.
My shoulders slump, but my heart is full. I continue to stare at the river for a length of time I can’t begin to measure. It might be minutes or hours. It might be days, months or years. For the first time since I was just shy of ten years old, I’m facing life without him, and I’m determined to live for both of us.
“Emerson.”
I hear my name, and for a few moments I wonder if I really am crazy. I turn around and find Josh standing a few feet away. His hands are pushed into his pockets and his shoulders are hunched, but what I see in his eyes is enough to steal the breath from my lungs. They’re filled with sadness, longing and bone-deep love.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, swiping at my tear-stained face. “How did you know where I’d be?”
He edges forward, pulling his hands from his pockets as he halves the distance between us. “You told me the date and, the way you talked about Mereki’s parents, I suspected you’d be staying with them.” His shoulders rise and fall with each breath. “I asked around when I arrived a couple of hours ago and found their house without any trouble.” I don’t interrupt him primarily because I’m speechless. I can’t believe he’s here. “I wasn’t sure how they’d feel about a stranger turning up on their doorstep asking for you, but they welcomed me into their home.” He eyes search mine. “You told them about me.”
I nod. “I did.”
The corners of his mouth rise, but he’s cautious. “I have a present for you in my car. I wanted to give it to you on your birthday but knew you wanted space, and I was trying so hard to respect that.”
“What changed?”
He sighs. “Honestly, Emerson. I tried to talk myself out of coming, knowing you wanted to do this alone, but I couldn’t stay away imagining how hard this was going to be.” He cocks his head and points over his shoulder. “I’ve been up by that tree pacing for the past hour, unsure if I should be here or not but unable to walk away. I needed to know you were okay.” He runs his hands through his hair, and I see his pain etched into his features.
“I’m here for you as a friend at the very least.” Another step forward and he glances behind me to the river, breaking our gaze for a split second. “I’m so sorry for everything you went through.”
I edge forward, and he does the same.
“Tell me to go—”
“I’m really glad you’re here, Josh.” I take a small step, and we’re now so close that if we both reached out, we could touch. I gasp. The air crackles between us and wraps me in a warm blanket, stitched with Josh’s soothing presence, empathy, and love. My eyes dip, but Josh grips my chin, forcing my gaze back to his.
“Look at me, Emerson,” he says, with a firm tone. “I need to see your eyes when I say this to you.”
I swallow hard, surprised I have any tears left to shed, but I can feel them regrouping in the corners of my eyes.
“I broke a promise to you and that’s on me.”
I shake my head, and his hand drops from my chin. “You didn’t break anything. I broke you.”
“No,” he says. “Please let me finish.”
“I saw you right from the very first moment I laid eyes on you.” He reaches out and pushes my hair behind my ears, then steps into my personal space. “I saw you, Emerson, and I knew there was something you were hiding. I promised you I wouldn’t push, and instead of honouring that, I let you into my heart and my bed.”
The tears I was trying so hard to detain slip free. “I was there, too, Josh, even though I wasn’t ready to let go of my past and move forward with you.”
“I should’ve been your friend and waited until you trusted me enough to speak freely about this.” He grazes his knuckles across my right cheekbone with such tenderness, I am at a loss for words. “I should’ve pushed harder for your art, not your body, and certainly not your heart. A little voice told me it wouldn’t be smooth sailing for us, but who listens when it’s saying the opposite of what you want to hear?”
“You’re right about so much, Josh, but if you hadn’t pushed me, I’d still be living my life in limbo, fearful of looking backwards but unable to move forward. I was barely living at all until I met you.”
He pulls me into his arms and groans when I wrap my arms around his waist, snuggling into his firm chest. “I missed you more than I thought possible.”
“I missed you, too,” I say, knowing I’m speaking the truth.
He pulls me back and holds me at arm’s length. “We need to talk about this, Emerson. I need to know you’re going to be okay. I won’t be asking for anything other than your trust and your friendship until you’re ready for more.”
I nod. “Thank you.” I feel his lips on the top of my head, and I try to get closer to him.
“Do you need more time here or are you ready to leave?” he asks.
Reluctantly, I pull back so I can look into his eyes. “I’m ready to leave, and I’m ready to live.”