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She grins at you over her shoulder before she jumps from the boat. You follow her but once you’re in the water, you can’t find her. You look around the small group of vacationers moving their arms around, marveling, laughing abruptly at the enormity of beauty that simply exists, untouched, uncreated. You don’t see her anywhere. You panic, not at the thought of having lost her, or of her having possibly drowned, but at the thought of not seeing her face in the otherworldly glow the water gives off. You have to see it right this instant. You want it more than anything.

And suddenly there are cool hands on your bare shoulders, familiar fingers slickly gripping your flesh. Before you can turn around, her body presses against your back and her mouth is at your ear. She whispers, “Hi.”

She swims in circles around you, leaving luminous rings around you and laughing deep in the back of her throat as you spin around to keep up with her. Finally she stops, places her hands back on your shoulders and tilts her head up to the moonlight. Her hair hangs heavy behind her, the ends trail against the water’s surface and set it alight.

Your hands are busy keeping the both of you afloat, but you want to touch her. You want to slide your hands around her hips, feel the smoothness of her bare back, the angles of her shoulder blades as they move under her skin. All you can do is watch her. She grins up at the stars, slowly swinging her head back and forth. Every movement euphoric.

She brings her head back down and the wide smile she was offering the sky fades to a smaller one, meant for you alone. She brings her face close to yours, something secret in her eyes. Her nose presses into the side of your nose, her lips drag against your cheek. She is close enough that her features blur into each other, dizzyingly, but you don’t close your eyes. She breathes; you breathe.

At this distance, you can finally kiss her and you do, over and over, until you’re both smiling hard. She puts a hand on your face, coaxing your smile down. Hers has already turned into a serious line. “You’re perfect,” she says softly. The tip of her index finger dips into the corner of your mouth and then runs along your bottom lip.

“You’re mine,” she says with disbelief in her voice. Your misbehaving mouth is smiling again and her fingertip has found that dimple in the left corner. She kisses you soundly, “My life, my family.”

She suddenly lets go of you before you can say anything and starts to swim away. At a safe distance, she stops and turns around, calling to you, “Come on! Catch me!” She kicks away again, your laughing bride, leaving a glowing trail for you to follow.


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