Halfway to You(29)
His eyes lifted to the friends ahead of us, and his lips pursed. When he opened his mouth to speak, the Dutch husband interrupted from up ahead: “We are close.”
We’d arrived at a freestanding stucco wall, set with decorative burgundy double doors that led to nothing. To the right of the doors, there was a small gap in the wall, and when our new friends stepped through, it looked as if they were disappearing into the sky. We were high up. A steep decline of white buildings and steps led down the cliff face toward the water far, far below. The ferries and pleasure boats were as tiny as grains of rice.
Keith—still carrying an armload of blankets and wine—squeezed through the gap and disappeared behind the others. “Come on, lovebirds,” he teased.
Todd’s response was to frown, and my heart did skip, a sharp little disappointed pause.
“You go first,” Todd said.
I moved past him and turned the corner, my right arm brushing the wall. The path was an easy decline past some stoops and houses, not at all precarious, as more buildings were built into the cliff. Their roofs reached my shoulder, and little alleys disappeared between structures, wedging us in, safe from falling.
Up ahead, we could plainly see the northernmost tip of Santorini. An old castle jutted up at the very end of the land, a promontory peppered with tiny, distant sunset watchers. Between there and here were lit-up homes, urban palm trees, stoic windmills, and—in our immediate foreground—three impeccable blue-domed churches. The literal postcard view.
The Dutch couple had made it down the path, near a half wall that separated the walkway from a convex stucco rooftop. The husband hoisted his wife first, then scrambled onto the curved surface. This was our spot. Keith handed them the blankets and wine, then climbed up. He offered me a hand, which I took, shimmying up the gritty surface. Once Todd handed me his own bundle of stuff, he clambered up. We all sat in a line facing the domes, our legs extended down the rounded surface of the roof.
Up here, it felt like we were the only people on the whole island.
The sky had donned its best pastels: periwinkle fading into peach. The shell-colored buildings of Oia took on a lavender cream coloring, illuminated by the gentle sunset. The crescent of Santorini stretched with stony arms, as if reaching to encircle the tiny islands in the middle of the caldera. Along the distant seam where sea met sky, the sun was an apricot orb surrounded by shades of ivory and melon. The fairy-tale colors, the warm breeze, the love bursting in my heart . . . I was inside a dream.
Keith poured wine into paper cups, emptying the first bottle. After raising our drinks to the sunset, we passed a second bottle around for refills. The wine was bright and dry, with citrus and mineral notes that went down smooth. Keith handed out blankets, with Todd and I sharing one.
As the sun slipped into the ocean and the sky darkened into plum and cobalt, the stars began to glitter. We chatted and laughed, and soon the Dutch couple were leaving. Keith, Todd, and I lingered, savoring the last little bit of light in the sky. The temperature had cooled, and the wind whipped off the water, chilling me. I felt Todd shift closer, resettling the blanket over our laps. There was one more bottle, which the three of us shared. My head swam, the wine warming me like a hot bath. Todd’s cheeks were ruddy, and he had an easy smile on his face; Keith hummed softly.
“What is that?” Todd asked.
“Fleetwood Mac.” Keith hummed louder.
I picked up the first verse of “Dreams,” singing softly over his melody. At the chorus, all three of us broke into song. We finished the wine, and then we sang some more, until there was no remaining evidence of the sun ever having been in the sky.
Keith was the first to stand on unsteady legs. “Well, we can’t drive now,” he said. “Why don’t we find a table at that restaurant near where we parked the mopeds?”
I didn’t move from my place under the blanket. “I want to stay just a little bit longer,” I said. Todd began to shift, and I put my hand on his thigh. “Keep me company?”
Todd glanced at Keith, who glanced at me.
With his eyes boring into mine, Keith said, “Meet me in fifteen? I’ll order us some food.”
“Fifteen,” I agreed.
Keith waved as he walked away, heading back up the narrow path from which we had come.
Todd sighed. “It is nice up here.”
“It’s beautiful,” I replied.
Lights illuminated small pockets of the vertical town in buttery auras. The silhouette of the castle was visible in the dark, still and stoic. The wind howled, ruffling our blanket.
Todd leaned back on his hands, looking up at the stars. He had darkness in his eyes again, a distant gaze. I wondered what he saw that haunted him so; I wondered how I could free him from it. As if it were a fantastical beast, I had no idea how to slay Todd’s inner darkness—but I wanted to try. I wanted him. And back then, I was clueless enough to think that I could be the flame in his night.
I leaned against his chest, his arms propping both of us up. He sighed and pressed his face into my hair. Every part of my being tensed with longing. If I tilted my head up toward his, would he kiss me? I might’ve seemed overly confident when it came to seducing him, but in that moment on the rooftop, I was petrified. I didn’t want my heart to be broken again; if Todd broke it, it might break beyond repair.
I turned my ear toward his collarbone and heard the rhythm of his heart. Over my own shoulder, I stared up at his jawline and the fan of his eyelashes against the backdrop of space. I whispered, “You never told me what your favorite part of the trip has been.”