“How much further?” Diana asked, huffing as she hiked her backpack up. Diego seemed not to have heard her and simply kept walking along, dog-leash in hand, with a bounding and joyful Formosan Mountain Dog ahead of him. If she had seen his face instead of the indifferent back of his head, she would’ve seen a wry a smile creep across his face.

“Stop asking,” Diego called back. “If you stop asking, we’ll get there.”

“I just need some kind of idea,” Diana rested her hands on her knees.

“I already told you,” Diego said as he turned around. He paused to eye his over-dramatic sister. “We’re close.”

Diana let out a sigh and carried on trudging toward him painfully slowly. At this point, Honey was circling excitedly around Diego’s legs, desperately wanting to keep going. She loved going on hikes with Diego – she probably didn’t like them as much whenever Diana tagged along because she didn’t get to race through the trees at her own pace as much.

“You said that ages ago – surely we must be closer than ‘close’ by now.”

“Fine,” Diego rolled his eyes at her use of air quotes and then set off again. “We’re ‘closer’.”

Diana rolled her eyes, and trudged along, eventually matching her brother’s pace and catching up to him. They walked in silence from then on. Diana would glance at Diego every now and then, and the look on his face immediately dismantled the sarcastic quip she’d been preparing in her head. It wasn’t like her brother to look so disengaged while doing something outdoors – it was usually the way he got back to himself and to the present moment. He didn’t look angry or sad, just wholly vacant as if he were sleep-walking or operating on autopilot.

“It’s starting to look more familiar to me now,” Diana said cheerfully, trying to coax Diego back into the physical world. It seemed to work somewhat as the corners of his mouth suddenly twitched into a smile. They returned to silence except that now one could hear Honey’s soft panting becoming more rapid. Diana sped up and walked ahead for a while, trying to distract herself from the pain in her thighs from the stretch of uphill terrain they’d been traversing for the past 15 minutes. As they reached the lookout point, Diego finally spoke.

“Do you think they’ve repaired the arm?” he called to Diana. In the distance was a wooden bench, tucked away under some trees where the rest of the mountain path continued with enough of a view the forest, then later city landscape, sprawling beneath them.

“Nah,” Diana said as she squinted to get a better look. “I’m pretty sure they’ve forgotten there’s even a bench hidden away there.”

They stood for a moment at the lookout point – Diana took some pictures and Diego let Honey run around and expend some energy in the open space where he could keep an eye on her.

“New camera?” Diego said bemusedly as he watched Diana prance around, occasionally stopping to stare thoughtfully at the sky or crouch down artistically to better capture the beauty of the dust between their feet. Diego was somewhat disapproving of his sister’s pursuit of the arts – almost out of jealousy as he had always been more actively guided (or required) to pursue more ‘reliable’ career paths.

“I figured I earned it,” she replied with her face scrunched up against the viewfinder. There was a sharp click, “I covered three weddings this month.” She furrowed her brow as she went through her recent shots. Diego smiled to himself – Diana had the same emergent set of wrinkle lines as their mother had had.

“So, what’s on your mind?” Diana inquired after remembering her brother’s sustained strange behavior and conjuring up the confidence to pry. “You never ask me about my job, what gives?.”

Diego had never been incredibly open, and she learned when they were kids that timing was crucial to asking him questions (never when he had just finished eating, up to an hour after he had watched a movie, before he got dressed for school but after he had brushed his teeth etc.).

“You need to buy actual hiking shoes,” he replied cheekily, nudging her shoulder. Classic Diego – King of deflection.

“You told me we were going for a walk,” Diana yelled into the air as she set off towards the bench she had been squinting at earlier. Diego watched his little sister walk off towards the shade – Honey racing past him and after her. Diana had always been louder, more expressive and extroverted. Perhaps because she was the baby of the family, she had been allowed a little more freedom. Their parents hadn’t been controlling or over-protective, but they often communicated to their son that he had responsibilities (his sister’s safety and well-being apparently becoming one of them). They had come out here countless times as a family. His father, in particular, loved walking, particularly walking with no end in sight or decided destination. He knew his mom just loved the view and being in nature enough that she would put up with a little bit of uphill to be able to experience it.
Diana was sitting on the bench now, camera in hand as she continued to go through her pictures. Honey had wriggled under the bench and was happily sprawled out catching her breath. Diego walked over and could see the golden glint of the dedication plaque glinting in the dappled sunlight.

IN LOVING MEMORY OF ANTONY & MARIA DE SILVA

They had died in a car accident three years ago – the day after Diana’s university graduation.

“Thanks for doing this with me,” Diego whispered, wiping his sweaty palms on his shorts. Diana gently rested her camera in her lap and looked over at her brother.

“It needed to be done,” she said just as softly. “I haven’t visited them since the funeral and well… so much has happened since then.”

Diego sighed heavily and nodded, then reached into his backpack to pull out Honey’s portable drinking bowl.

“Can you tell me why we’re here though?” Diana persisted. “There’s no way this was a spontaneous urge of yours.”

“Well,” he paused and looked down at Honey who was happily lapping away at her water, then back out at the view before them. “I wanted us all to be together when I told you.” He reached back to touch the plaque that bore their parents’ names.

Diana’s eyes widened – a mixture of excitement and worry washing over her.

“You’re going to have another wedding to shoot,” Diego said in the most serious voice he could muster, but as soon as he made eye contact with Diana, the biggest, most foolish grin spread across his face.

Diana gasped and grabbed Diego’s shoulders, shaking him and exclaiming, “NO, YOU DIDN’T! WHEN? WAIT, WHICH ONE OF YOU? I MEAN, IT MUST’VE BEEN YOU, RIGHT??” Diego threw his head back as he laughed at his sister’s excitement and as tears of joy filled his eyes.

“I proposed two nights ago,” Diana squealed as Diego spoke. “And, Kalvin said yes.”

“Obviously!” Diana flung her arms around her brother and hugged him tightly.

Diego laughed and pretended to sputter at her impact. Suddenly, she relaxed her grip and hung back to look at him. She glanced down at the plaque and then back at her big brother who had always denied himself of joy, especially after their parents died. Finally, he had chosen himself and his own happiness instead of something he assumed people wanted from him.

The siblings sat on opposite ends of the bench, still half-hugging and crying happily as Honey jumped between them to assess all of the recent commotion.
​
“They would be so proud of you.”

“What’s your happiest memory?” she asked as she stared up at a thickening band of clouds. I looked over at her and chuckled. I love that she asked such random questions, but I never had answers to them – or at least, they didn’t feel like answers to me. “I don’t know, Willa,” I said slyly and rolled over onto my side. She did the same and took a drag of her cigarette. “Wanna know mine?” she said as thin wisps of smoke spilled over her lips, wafting to the sky – grey on grey. I nodded and fanned away the smoke – it made my eyes itch. “Sorry,” she muttered as she sat up.

“Tell me,” I said.

“Give me a second to compose my thoughts,” she giggled and glanced down at me. “I was hoping you’d have more to say to buy me some time.”

“You know I never answer your questions the way you want me to.”

“Or you just don’t answer them, Miss Mysterious.”

“Even no answer is an answer, babe.”

She rolled her eyes and looked out at the city that sprawled out around us. We loved coming up to the roof on days like this – a rare overcast, but not rainy day in the middle of a tropical summer.

“I had spent the larger part of the morning researching some new camera models before heading off to meet a friend for lunch. I was getting annoyed because I couldn’t find something that met all of my needs that wasn’t disgustingly expensive. My current camera at the time was still in fair working condition, but I had just received a bonus at work and wanted to treat myself – also, I figured I could sell or give my camera to someone looking to get into photography.”

I loved her voice. Perhaps subconsciously that’s part of the reason why I never answered her questions with much detail or depth and just put her own questions back onto her. I just wanted to hear her speak forever, I wanted to learn about her forever. She had this way of speaking about the world that was insanely enchanting without too much annoying optimism. She saw things so purely and became enraged at times when she observed pain and imbalance. Seeing her angry was rare, but she wouldn’t stand for injustice. I don’t think she is capable of forgetting anything which might be both her blessing and her curse. Remembering the good meant remembering the bad, too. I was also in awe of her ability to be understanding of herself when in pain. She has this grace, the way she just holds of herself with such care and love and says to each of her emotions and facets and thoughts in turn, “It’s your time to be felt and heard now.”

“My friend messaged me the location for this new spot she wanted to try. It was this sushi place she had been telling me about for weeks. It was so good, too – really worth all the hype it had been getting.” She put her hands up in the air and exclaimed, “And you know how much I love me some salmon sashimi!”

I laughed and stroked her back. She’d been trying to go vegan for the longest time, but almost always switched back over to pescatarian after about a month. She hated that I was able to “do it so easily” or so she always says. I just didn’t like the idea of eating anything with parents and/or a face.

“Anyway, so I got up to get ready and for some reason I just felt this urge to pick up my camera and take it with me. So I was walking around my apartment in my underwear with a DSLR around my neck, and after I put my coffee mug in the sink I looked up and saw my girlfriend walking towards me holding her phone and smiling down at it. Nothing out of the ordinary, I thought she was going to show me another one of the memes she found hilarious and I would fake laugh and then she would kiss me to get me to stop and then call me cheeky and walk away and I’d slap her ass and she’d laugh and call me childish.”

“So many ands…”

I sat up and hugged my knees. I knew so much about her and her life because of the way that she rambled on when she told a story. There were always so many detours and digressions and for each story, she always had to so kindly provide me with context. Despite how much I knew about her, there was something about the way that she looked into my eyes that made me eerily certain that she knew absolutely everything about me without me having to say a word.

She clicked her tongue and nudged me before continuing, “I asked her what she was looking at and she bit her lip and paused for a moment before showing me the screen. She had taken a picture of me. She said it was ‘A wild Willa in her natural habitat’. It was weird for me to see a picture of myself that wasn’t a selfie or a group picture. I was so used to being behind the camera, you know. She told me I looked stunning. I told her she was silly. She told me that she was right. She was always right, so I had to believe her and give my cognitive dissonance the middle finger. She joked about me using it as my new profile picture. She didn’t ever make jokes like that, so I could immediately tell that she wanted to say something she had been thinking too much about saying. She bit her lip again and tugged at my camera strap. I asked her what she was thinking about. She couldn’t make eye contact with me. She gently traced the curve of my left collarbone with her finger, her gaze resting on the clock on wall just behind me. She glanced at me and then back at the clock and said something about me being late to my lunch date. I asked her what she wanted to tell me. She sighed and then finally resolved to look me in the eye. She was still holding her cell phone up between us, the ‘Wild Willa’ picture now beneath her lock screen.”

She stopped and lit another cigarette. I thought it was weird (or perhaps great storytelling) to stop right before what was clearly the climax of her epic tale. She was biting her lip now, maybe the way she recalled this ex-girlfriend of hers had done.

“She told me she loved me.”

I started thinking about when we started dating and how far we had come in the time that had elapsed since then. We hadn’t said that to each other yet.

“I had told her I loved her about 3 months prior. I knew she would need time to say it back, so I wasn’t expecting it then. In fact, it would’ve been very noticeably insincere if she had said it then. She was never a woman of many words, but when she had something to say you could trust that it was important and genuine. And in that moment, she had decided me worthy of those words and the knowledge of her feelings that she had been keeping locked away safely in her own head.”
I related to that. I was never quick to talk for what I always felt was just the sake of talking. Suddenly, I realized that in all that Willa had ever told me, she had never mentioned this ex-girlfriend or any girlfriend for that matter. She had always made it seem as if ours was her first real relationship.

“What happened to make you want to end things?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she said with an exhale of smoke.

“When did you break up?” That was the question I truly wanted answered. I needed to determine how much time she had had to get over this girl whom had apparently made her so happy.

“We didn’t,” she said slowly and looked over at me almost sadly.

I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up as anger trickled down my spine in the form of a cold chill.

“What are you saying?” I said shakily, now sitting straight up.

Then she smiled and shook her head at me. “You’re so smart, and so cryptic, Miss Mysterious. You can figure this one out.”

“What sick joke is this, Willa,” I felt my voice growing louder and more vicious. “When did this happen?”

“Three months from now,” she said instantly.

I froze along with my anger which was subsequently replaced by confusion. I had no idea what to say, she made no sense.

“I love you,” she said and then rested her dwindling cigarette in between her lips.

She reached over and tugged at a strand of hair that had fallen into my mouth as it stood agape.

“That… that doesn’t,” I sputtered as her finger touched my lower lip. “I thought you were telling me your happiest memory.”

“It is.”

“Babe…”

“Hmmm?”

She put out her cigarette, and then kissed me. My eyes stayed open as my brain was desperately trying to reboot.

“That’s not a memory,” I said breathlessly as she pulled away.

“It’s a memory of the future,” she said with a cheeky grin.

“Not what a memory is,” I said quickly. My brain was starting to come to.

“I put a lot of thought into how I’d tell you,” she said. She stood up and began twirling around on the rooftop. “I also thought about what I wanted it to be like when you said it to me. Technically, it’s a memory of thinking about it then, right?”

“You’re insane.”

“You wouldn’t have it any other way, baby.”

I smiled and nodded. Then I became serious.

“What?” she stopped twirling.

“What if I can’t say it then?” I looked up at her and by the way her face softened, I’m sure I must’ve looked terrified. She walked over and sat behind me and wrapped her arms around me.

“That’s the joy of the future, right?” she kissed me on the cheek. “We can embrace the unknown and make it our own.”

“You loved that that rhymed, didn’t you?” I smiled and rolled my eyes. She was adorable. She was adorable and she loved me.

She threw her head back and laughed – a sound so beautiful that it might now be my happiest memory.
​
“I mean, who knows?” she said, still giggling. “Maybe you’ll be the one who slaps my ass.”