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Vivian opened her eyes slowly, confused for a moment by the sound of wind chimes and the smell of salt in the air. Her thoughts felt foggy and disjointed as memories of her life played behind her closed eyelids as if on a movie screen...but she wasn’t at the movies...no...the last thing she could remember was falling asleep in her bed. She’d been thinking of Judith and how much she missed her and how she longed to hold her just one more time.
Once when Vivian had been very little, she’d gone to the seashore with her family and her father had held her hand as they’d waded out into the water...she would never forget the roar of the ocean...how big it was and how small it had made her feel... Her father had scooped her up then and held her aloft his shoulders as the waves crashed and roared around them, foaming at their ankles the salt sticking to her long blonde hair. Oh how she loved the ocean! The wild way it made her feel inside....it was the same way she always felt whenever she kissed Jude. Jude had always been the ocean inside of Vivian.
Their first kiss had been at the ocean when she was only sixteen years old. Jude’s family lived in town year round back then but Vivian’s family only vacationed on the shore once a year. When they’d met—The year before her parents would end up sending her off to university. Jude’s Father hadn’t believed in schooling for girls beyond secondary school so she would stay behind. Jude had promised to wait for her. And she had.
The day after Vivian graduated and she went to Jude’s house...interrupted dinner, much to Jude’s parents dismay.
Vivian could still remember taking Jude by the hand that evening, in the face of Jude’s mother’s agape mouth and her fathers fuming anger. Jude herself had had this wide-eyed look at first which had soon turned to one of decision. One look. Two smiles. And then the pair had fled out the front door of Jude’s parents house with their hands intertwined like always. They didn’t look back. And they were not afraid.
The only fear Vivian would ever feel would be decades after they had run off together when she had had to leave Jude in the hospital, knowing she was dying. Knowing she would not kiss her again, hold her...fall asleep with her.
They had been together for thirty years and then the end had finally come. Vivian had snuck into Judes room one more time after that, shortly after the nurses changed shifts. She’d crawled into bed with her and held her hand, their fingers folded around each-other until Judes very last breath.
Blinking her eyes blurred the images in front of her and the room she’d woken up in came into a slow focus. There was something familiar about the place. It was simple... one room. Four walls... There were no doors, just a door frame that led to an expanse of sand just outside.
Vivian sat up in bed, reaching her arms above her head she felt her muscles stretch and then relax. She ran her fingers along the smoothness of the white blanket draped around her. The fogginess she’d woken up with was starting to lift like she was coming out of a dream and she shook her head, letting her long golden hair drape around her to frame her face. She felt good. She felt really good.
The thatch floor scratched at the bottom of her bare feet as she made her way around the room, stopping to run her fingers along the furniture. A dresser that looked like it belonged in a castle... a white rocking chair, chipped and worn. An ornate Japanese style screen with images of Cherry blossoms decorating the light colored bamboo. Vivian felt as if it was hers.... or had been hers... Her breath caught when she saw it. An ivory hair pin... she’d given it to Jude the first summer they’d met. She could remember how she felt watching Jude unwrap it...she’d unwrapped it like the small gift was the most precious thing she’d ever received.
Jude....
Vivian made her way from the thatch-roof bungalow down the three wooden steps to the sand below. Things were starting to become clearer now as the long dream of her life as Vivian started fading from her mind. Her memories were still present but there was a new knowledge awakening somewhere in her conscious mind...in the part of her that was still Vivian and in the part of her that was more than Vivian.
The sand felt warm and soft as it gave beneath her footsteps. The sunset painted wide strokes in the sky with a purplish blue. She could hear the roar of the ocean. Wildflowers bloomed in the sand on either side of the path she followed and she leaned down to pick one...a yellow one...one that reminded her of Jude.
Vivian smiled then...a bright smile because the hand that held the small flower was different somehow...younger.
Jude
Clutching the precious flower in her fingers so she wouldn’t lose it, Viv took off running toward the ocean. The salt air swirled around her and she breathed it deep into her lungs which now burned from the effort of traversing the sandy terrain.
Vivian took in a sharp breath through her nose to counter her heaving chest even though she heard her own voice which somehow sounded way to far off to be heard so clearly saying that oxygen wasn’t really necessary and that breath was just an illusion. What she knew to be real was the sand and the sea and the waves she could now see licking gently at the shore.
And something else.
Everything was surging into place...she’d gone to bed for the last time in her cozy house that she would never see again...never recognize again even if she saw it in pictures someday. The last thing to fade would be her name...and Jude’s...but she didn’t have to think about that now because she was home.
Vivian sensed from that place inside of her—the place that knew more than she— that Jude would be there on the beach waiting for her.
Jude.
Crashing through the brush, she nearly fell over when she spotted her...sitting by the shore...her dark hair was down around her shoulders and her beautiful caramel legs poked out from under the summer dress she wore.
“Jude!” Vivian called out... her heart threatened to fall from her body even as her legs propelled her forward.
Jude turned in Vivian’s direction when she heard her calling, a bright smile spreading across her beautiful pink lips.
The memories were still there but fuzzy now...bleeding into all their other lives...all the many important moments in every life becoming one continuous memory. Seamless yet at the same time perforated and distinct.
Jude beamed up at her with a bright smile as if it hadn’t been twenty years...as if it had only been ten minutes since they’d last seen each other. The years were gone from her face and she was the Jude of sixteen... Vivian felt that she was also younger now. Then it occurred to her that they were always younger here, she looked around at the sand and sea, because this was theirs...this was whatever they wanted it to be.
Vivian dropped down to sit in the sand next to Jude. A smile stretched across Vivian’s face to match the one Jude was wearing. “Jude.... Oh how I've missed you.”
“It hasn’t been that long, Viv...”
“Not for you...but you forget that time works differently there than it does here.” Vivian couldn’t stop looking at the girl next to her... how her tan skin glowed in the sunset’s hue and her dark hair framed her beautiful face. Vivian reached a hand out to tuck a dark strand behind Jude’s ear. Her skin tingled where the pads of her fingertips made contact with her warm skin.
“I liked this one best, Jude.” Vivian said with a youthful certainty.
“You always say that” Jude bumped her shoulder playfully, her dark eyes impossibly bright in the fading light. Brown pools with flecks of pink and orange... reflecting the lowering sun in their darkly bright depths.
Vivian watched as the other girl’s tongue came out to moisten her bottom lip. And she was struck with the sudden urge to press her lips to the other girl’s. Jude was still her girl...always her girl. And this...Vivian looked out at the beach and the sea...was theirs.
“Want to do it again?” Jude asked, her eyes flickering back to the sea, her dimpled chin tilting up, motioning beyond them.
“Now?” Vivian was suddenly nervous...she’d just gotten here...or had she? The whole concept of time was fading just like her memory. How many sunsets had they watched side-by-side like this?
Jude had picked up on her hesitation and brought her face close to Vivian’s, her nose nuzzling playfully against Vivian’s before she spoke.
“My favorite part is getting to meet you and fall in love with you all over again”
Vivian could feel the puffs of sweet breath on her face, tickling the tender skin of her lips. Jude was waiting for her to lean forward...Jude was waiting for a kiss.
Vivian leaned in and their lips came together tenderly. They’d kissed a thousand times before this kiss in a hundred different incarnations...yet it always felt new and exciting.
Vivian was the first to pull back, though she didn’t go far. Her lips immediately found Jude’s neck, just under her jaw line. Jude smelled like honeysuckles and salty sea air. “How about somewhere warm this time...?” Vivian whispered against the skin of Jude's neck. “ I've had enough of the cold weather...New York was nice but...”
Jude wrapped her arm around Vivian’s back and she leaned into her embrace, relishing the feeling of comfort and warmth Jude’s embrace gave her.
Tired all of the sudden, her eyes threatened to close. Everything was perfect. Everything was just the way it was meant to be...places in her mind were still smoothing around the edges... she felt herself fanning out with them...the distance between who she is...or was, she reminded herself, as Vivian dissipating with each wave that rolled in and then retreated.
Her sense of self was like the waves, she thought...she couldn’t remember her name anymore...only knew that it started with “V” Valentina sounded right to her. Her name was Valentina.
Valentina’s hand slipped down into the warm sand, her fingers slipping beneath it until she felt the cool under layer. There was something there...a slip of paper. She pulled it up and dusted the dark remnants of wet sand from its surface. There was writing on it but Valentina couldn’t see it clearly so she handed it to.... Juliana. Yes...that was right too.
“It’s mine” Juliana said, passing the slip of paper back to Valentina. She could make out the words now.
“Over achiever” Valentina said, trying not to laugh but she could feel the dimples creasing her face as her smile broke out. “Why do you always choose the hardest path?”
“What would I learn if life was easy?”
Valentina smiled. The other girl wasn’t wrong. She was still unsure though...afraid of what she didn’t know and even though the sea called to her...she wasn’t quite ready to leave their safe place just yet.
There was another shift, a new self growing...not in the place of but alongside the old one. The sea shimmered and seemed to hiss as the sun kissed the surface of the horizon
“How will I know it’s you?”
“You always know” There was a pause “We always know”
Val twirled the tiny flower she’d pluck from the path between her fingers, before tucking the butter yellow flower into Juliana’s dark strands.
“How about this?”...”Mirame” Juliana said, taking Valentina’s hand.
Valentina’s blue eyes met the endless depths of Juliana dark eyes. She traced the delicate skin of Juliana’s wrist all the way down to her fingers, reveling in the feel of her soft skin. “Que” she asked, intrigued.
Juliana took the flower from her hair before pressing it into the skin at her own wrist. When she removed her hand a tiny tattoo formed... a yellow flower etched into her skin as a sign that only they would recongize.
“One more....Por Favor?”
Valentina nodded this time. “One more.” She agreed.
She stood, slipping the overlay she wore from her shoulders to reveal a black bathing suit. She felt Juliana’s eyes on her...”Are you coming?” She smiled almost shyly, feeling her body flush slightly at the intensity of the other girl’s gaze.
“In a minute. I want to watch the sunset”
Valentina’s reply was cheeky “Don’t be too long...I wouldn’t want to end up your grandmother” She held out her pinky finger and Juliana entwined her own. “Juntas” she said, leaning down to kiss Juliana one more time.
“Juntas”
Juliana echoed their pact, her eyes sparkling in the dimming light.
“I have a feeling this is going to be the best one.” Valentina called out as she ran toward the shore. The water lapped at her thighs and she took a deep breath before slipping under. She didn’t look back.
“Y mi Tambien.” Juliana whispered in response even though she knew Val was already gone. The sun dipped beyond the shore, setting the horizon on fire. She stood then...slipping the dress from her body, to reveal a white bikini.
One last look around and then she was following Valentina’s path toward shore, her footsteps overlapping the other girl’s. She wasn’t the best swimmer but she wasn’t afraid.
Juliana let the waves take her as she followed Val out to sea.