She raises her hands out, like she’s about to fly, and tips her head back to the sky, eyes closed and smiling. I can feel the peace radiate from her, like she’s being born anew. It’s stunning.

I love you, I think as my heart seems to expand inside me.

And you’ll hurt me.

You’ll burn me.

You’ll mark me.

But it’s already worth it.

I sit down in the sand and bring out the sketchbook and pastels from the pack. Eventually she comes over to me, glowing even more brightly than the sun.

“Trying out the pastels?” she asks.

I shake my head. “No. You are.”

She frowns and the glow seems to recede like the tide.

“Like before,” I say to her, patting the sand next to me. “Like in Kaikoura. I want you to capture this, but with the pastels.”

She frowns, but to her credit she crouches down beside me. She’s not running away. “Why?”

“Because I think it will be good for you,” I tell her.

She studies me carefully with those dark eyes of hers. “I’m not sure if you know what’s good for me.”

I grin at her. “I do. I’m good for you.” I grab her shoulder and push her down so she falls back on her ass. She glares at me but again, she’s not getting up, she’s not leaving.

I place the box of pastels and the open page of the sketchbook beside her. “You won’t see anything more inspiring than this,” I say, gesturing to the sky, now gold. “Re-create it, capture it. Let it be wild, let it be messy. It’s the first sunrise of many more to come. You can’t screw it up. If you do, there’s always tomorrow.”

I know she’s not the kind of person who looks kindly on the concept of tomorrow, but it seems to work. She chews on her lip for a moment, staring out at the ocean, before she rifles through the pastels and pulls out a goldenrod-colored one. She gingerly touches the pastel to the page and it leaves a waxy imprint. It’s messy. It’s abstract. You can’t be precise. It’s all about feeling and blurred edges and the loss of detail. It’s the perfect medium for her.

She needs to let her soul out, on that page, like an artist. I feel like no one has seen it since her father died, since her art stopped. I understood what she meant by self-preservation. But it was more than that. It was like she had gotten rid of the only outlet she’d known.

I stand up and leave her in peace but she quickly mutters, “No, stay. I don’t want to do this alone.” She’s never sounded so vulnerable.

So I stay. I sit beside her and watch with my own eyes as she re-creates a new version of the world; her version. It’s imperfectly perfect and I’m lucky to be a part of it.

However much in love with her I was a few moments ago, I’m more in love with her now. And with each radiant smudge, each beautiful design, the feeling grows. And grows. And grows.

When she’s done, she has tears rolling down her face. She has created art; gorgeous, heartfelt art. It’s more than a sunrise. It’s capturing a feeling, the right now. And she’s just as proud of herself as I am of her.

I gently kiss her tears off of her face. I kiss her until she smiles.

I kiss her until we’re naked on the sand and she’s riding me and her bronzed body is lit by the morning sun, the pale blue sky behind her. We might be having the first sex of this day to follow that first sunrise. I hope we’re setting an example for the rest of the earth. The sun climbs the sky and tomorrow creeps up in the distance, hiding behind the horizon.

Waiting.

“I should get a tattoo,” Gemma says to me as she drives down the winding road toward Rotorua, dense forest and ferns blanketing either side of us and tossing long shadows across the bus.

I raise my brows and give her a look. “Really?”

It’s been three days since that sunrise at the East Cape and we’ve managed to cram a whole lot of nothing into them. As we rounded the cape heading west along the soft curve of the Bay of Plenty, we stayed for a few nights on Ōhope Beach outside the town of Whakatane, renting a beach house for a few days. (Yes, pronouncing “F” instead of “Wh” still makes me laugh.)

We were right on the beach, and when we weren’t relaxing on the balcony and enjoying the ocean view, we were eating, fucking, swimming—you know, all the good things. Though one of the days I managed to convince Gemma to stop being too cool for school and to come dolphin swimming with me.

That was definitely a highlight, getting into wet suits and going out on the open seas between the sandy shore and the steaming volcano of White Island, chasing down dolphin pods. The boat would get in front of the incoming pods and everyone would have to get in the water quickly. It was up to the dolphins to decide if they wanted to check us out or not.

One decided it liked Gemma a lot—it kept swimming around her and she kept humming a tune that sounded suspiciously like Pink Floyd to keep it interested. When we climbed back on the boat, she looked so elated I thought she was going to float away.

We’re heading to Rotorua because it’s apparently a really stinky place. Okay, well, there’s supposed to be really cool volcanic remnants and hot springs and that kind of stuff, but from what I’ve learned it apparently smells. We’re there for a night at a holiday park then over to Auckland, through the city and up into the Northland to other places I don’t remember and on to her grandfather’s place for New Year’s Eve.

Time is flying and Gemma’s statement about the tattoo has thrown me off a little.