Where Sea Meets Sky

I frown though something inside me is growing warm. “Why not?”

She balks like I asked a stupid question. “Because.” She sighs harshly. “Attachments hurt when they’re taken away. You’re leaving.”

“So what?” I tell her. “I’m attached to you already and I’m still leaving. I almost left right now. Doesn’t mean that the pain negates everything, that none of this was worth it.”

She swallows, looking surprised. “You’re attached to me?”

I shake my head incredulously and run my thumb over her lips, marveling at how fucking clueless she is. “Gemma, Gemma, Gemma,” I murmur. “I told you how I feel about you. I told you why I’m here. Of course I’m attached to you. And I know very well that I’m leaving, but that isn’t stopping these feelings from happening. In fact, it only makes it sweeter, stronger, because I know we don’t have much time together.”

She seems to take that in. I want her to believe it so badly. I have never in my life been so open with a girl. Always in the past it was my girlfriends or random chicks that wanted more from me, wanted a piece of me. I never wanted shit from them. But being with Gemma is like getting blood from a stone, and I may be a fool for trying but I finally understand what it’s like to be on the other side.

She relaxes a bit, her eyes softening. I’m think I’m finally getting to her.

“At the very least, we should be screwing each other’s brains out until I get on that plane,” I say with a smile, pressing my thumb into her wet mouth. I could definitely screw her right here. I spy some sturdy trees over her shoulder. If not, she could easily get on her knees and suck me off. She was good at that.

She bites my thumb then pulls back. “So you’re not going.”

“Are we going to screw each other’s brains out?”

She smiles coquettishly, which makes my dick harder. “If you’d like.”

“Sweetheart, it’s what you’d like,” I tell her. “And if I remember correctly, you liked it an awful lot.”

She seems to consider that. She looks over at Mr. Orange. “Maybe we should wait until Amber’s not with us anymore, or at least until we’re at my mom’s and we’re not all cramped in the bus together.”

I cock my head and give her a blank look. “Are you serious?” She’s saying yes to sex and now we have to wait?

“It will make things super awkward and weird, don’t you think?”

“Gemma,” I say with a laugh, “it’s been super awkward and weird as fuck for weeks now. This is the most uncomfortable road trip I have ever taken in my whole life, and I’ve been stuck in a car with my divorcing parents and my sister for a trip across the province before.”

“Three more nights,” she reiterates. “Two in Kaikoura, one in Masterton, and then we’re home in Napier for Christmas.”

I squeeze her hand. “No promises,” I tell her gruffly. But secretly I’m grinning inside. For her I could wait forever.

Well, I could try, anyway.

Then I’d have a great time relishing the failure.

We stay the two nights in Kaikoura at a holiday park by the ocean. It’s a beautiful place—wild blue ocean on one side, towering snowy peaks on the other. It’s like the marine mammal and aquatic shit capital of the country, and we’re there to go dolphin swimming. It was Amber’s idea and Gemma agreed to come along, but when we got up at five a.m. to go out on the boat, we discovered it was cancelled due to high surf.

We end up going for a walk on the Kaikoura Peninsula instead. It’s windy as hell and what looked like a quick jaunt is taking us hours of just walking along seal-strewn shores and sheep-covered bluffs. It’s pretty though, the contrast between the pebbled beaches and the blue-gray water peppered with whitecaps.

When we stop at a low stone wall on the bluff to eat the sandwiches we bought earlier, I take out my watercolor pencils and sketchbook and start drawing the scene. Eventually Gemma comes over and peers over my shoulder.

“That’s gorgeous, Josh,” she says softly. I look up at her and see the wistfulness in her eyes.

“Here,” I say, handing her the book and the slate gray pencil. “You try.”

Fear lines her brow. “You know I can’t.”

I shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe you can. It’s just a pencil and it’s just paper.” I can’t help but beg her with my eyes. Please, I tell her. “Come on.”

To encourage her, I flip the page so it’s nice and new and blank and I place it in her hand. I pat the grass next to me. “Sit, stay.”

“Play fetch?” she asks wryly, but sits down anyway. I get to my feet and join Amber by the wall, wanting to give her some space. It can’t help to have me looking over her shoulder.

She smiles at me shyly, appreciatively, then turns her head out to the view. The wind rushes up off the cliffs and tousles her hair. Her face, when it’s not hidden by her dark strands, becomes pensive. Then she’s slowly sketching. She’s beautiful.

I munch on my sandwich and Amber and I talk about sharks since shark diving was the other option for the day (in a cage and all, but no thanks) but my eyes rarely leave Gemma. She seems to be caught up in a battle, staring at the ocean, that thin line of the horizon, then back at her book, like it’s not matching up for her.

Frustrated, she throws my book and pencil to the side and puts her head in her hands. I exchange a quick look with Amber then go over to Gemma’s side. I crouch down and place a hand on her shoulder.