Free 12 Hours In Paradise by Kathryn Berla Page B

an eye out for them.”
    We walked along the path that spilled us out onto the sand. Huge spotlights lit up the waves.
    “Crazies?” I said. “Maybe we should go back on the street where there are more people.”
    “The only crazies on this beach are you and me. He’s just trying to scare us. We’re fine.”
    I did want to go to the beach with Arash and I didn’t see anyone who fit that description.
    Probably he was just trying to scare us , I thought.
     
    ***
     
    But on the beach all worries about crazies disappeared. This was where I had imagined myself with Arash all along. This was our certain destination, as if we were helpless to combat the forces bringing us to this spot.
    I kicked off the flip-flop on my good foot so I could feel the sand beneath my feet one last time. Sand instead of snow. It was delicious, and I was going to miss it terribly. For the first time that night, I reached for Arash’s hand on my own. We existed, just the two of us, on that tiny blip of land—volcanic residue, really. Out in the middle of the world’s largest body of water. Nothingness surrounding us. Nothingness above us. How had two people so different found each other on this night in this place?
    “Let’s sit,” he suggested, and we sat just above the line that marked the division between wet and dry.
    The dimpled water cradled the lights of the city and sky. I wriggled my fingers and toes into the still-warm sand. Arash looked at his phone and read the next question.
    “‘If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future, or anything else, what would you want to know?’”
    “That’s pretty broad,” I said. “A crystal ball that could tell you anything. Remember, you already consulted your crystal ball with the other question. The one about the perfect day.”
    “Fortunately, my crystal ball takes unlimited questions,” he said. “So I’d like to ask my crystal ball what lies beyond this life. When I die, does everything just fade to black, or is there more? And if there’s more, how much more? A repetition of my life here on earth except with all the people who died before me? Or an altered reality where perhaps I’m a spiritual force floating through the universe looking for a new body to inhabit? That’s what I really want to know. I hope my crystal ball is up to the task of answering.”
    “Would you really want to know? What if the crystal ball tells you that’s it, there’s nothing else? Would you be bummed out? Wouldn’t it be like having the doctor tell you that in one year you’re going to die of cancer? I don’t want to know. I want to be able to hope this isn’t the end.”
    “It wouldn’t bother me a bit, because I’m going on the assumption that all we have is the life we’ve been given. So anything else would be a bonus. In any case, I want to live my life like there’s no hereafter. I can’t imagine anything as beautiful as what we have here, even with all the pain that comes with it. Look around you. This is already heaven. This is paradise.”
    He leaned forward, toward the ocean, elbows propped against knees. I shifted to tuck my dress underneath me, anchoring it against the ocean breeze.
    “Okay, it’s your turn,” he said after a while.
    I guess somewhere in the back of my mind I’d been thinking about my answer since we’d begun to share serious issues. Since I started to trust him. I probably knew all along I was going to bring it up somehow before the night was over. Here was my chance.
    “Mine is kind of personal, and I’ve never told anyone about it before. Or at least about what I’ve been wondering since it happened.”
    Arash looked at me kind of surprised but interested at the same time. It was a confession I knew might test the opinion he had of me. But it was also an opportunity to unload something that had been bothering me for a few years. It was the first time I’d felt comfortable enough with someone to bring it up. I