Midnight. The sky is black velvet scattered with diamond stars. The waves are loud on the sandy beach and cold as they wash over our bare feet. My hands are cold as my feet and my teeth are chattering. His face is in shadow but I can hear his breathing. The air rushes in and out of his lungs in time with the water rushing up and down the sand.

June is at an end and with it my time here. The earth is so sweet tonight it makes my teeth ache. So tender that we do not speak for fear of breaking it. A wrong word could rip the fabric of the night and expose the ugly, painful truth it masks. That tomorrow I will not be here. That tomorrow I will not wake to the smell of salt or the blue of the sky. That my footprints will not mark the shore as my own. The knowledge threatens to crush me. I try to imprint everything in my mind. The precise angle of the stars to the earth. The wetness of the water’s kiss. The sound of his sea-breath. The weight of sadness. I did not know it could be so heavy.

Neither of us speak. The small wooden boat knocks against the jetty, another gentle reminder that my minutes here are numbered. To comfort myself I think of all the parts of me that I will leave behind. The pansies I planted in secret one day last year. The loose hairs shed without my knowledge. My dust. Odd parts of DNA that will outlast my physical presence here. I try not to think of the child I might have left here had I the chance. A girl with hazel eyes, a boy with curly hair. I try not to think of what they may have become. Children of the light by birthright. The sound of their laughter light on the sea breeze.

There are other things left here. The echo of my laughter. The faint trails of my walks through the green and yellow fields. My footprints in a thousand grains of sand. Teardrops which watered arid ground. The heart I gave without hesitation to this land. This city of glass and air. Him. He will be left here too. Our bed will be his now. Our sofa his sofa. The imprint of me will soon fade from the house with the green walls. The roses and rhododendron will bloom without me. And the pansies. I left them for him to find. I hope he does. He will not find the headstone though. A tiny, hidden miniature. Carved with my name, my dates. Morbid perhaps but a part of me will die as I drift out on the tide. A part of me that will always remain.

The wind ruffles our hair. The boat creaks and knocks harder against the jetty. My time is almost up. We can both sense it. Wordlessly we walk to the jetty. Wordlessly he hands me into the boat. The saltwater on my cheeks is a final comfort. It tastes of the sea. His lips too, when they press against mine, are as salty as the depths. I untie the rope and wait for the sea. One waves, two, and with the third my craft is caught and drawn out. I dash the saltwater from my eyes because I will not lose this last look. No matter the dark, I can make out every curve of the shore, every tree, each blade of grass, each echo of me waving- from the birch grove on the hill, from the windows of the house, from the beaches, the cliffs. This land is me and I am it. That cannot change. And as the sea pulls my boat out and my heart feels it may crack with grief I can say nothing but thank you and thank you and thank you for all that I am and all that I was.