I remember how many stars there were out on the moor, how the wild ponies edged closer to us in the dark until we could hear their breathing and the rip of the grass they pulled out of the ground with their piano-key teeth and soft mouths. I remember how cold it got while I was sleeping, how wet everything was in the morning, like the sky had turned to liquid overnight, our quilt and blankets, my clothes soaked through and sticking to my skin.

When I said, “Thank you,” he said, “For what?” like it was all nothing, all this magic, and I guess that’s how we did it, how we acknowledged and overlooked at the same time how special this was, how unexpected and temporary, the solid and the unthinkable, the ordinary and the impossible-to-know. I don’t think either of us knew then how long it would last. I accepted and denied his otherness, our otherness. The way you do when you’re falling in love against all logic, wildly fascinating and hopelessly unrealistic, and you say, This is not happening, no way, no thanks, not to me.

How do I remember him right, this life-changing boy? I will never be able to do him justice, but I will never stop trying. Like the solitary soul I’d seen at the water’s edge that first day at the beach, Novo was deep-down sad, the definition of lonely, and yet he laughed more than anyone I have met. He loved to be wrapped up, under a blanket, doing nothing but thinking, and he loved being outside too, moving and searching. He was tireless. Curious about everything. I realized later that I never actually saw him sleep. No detail was too small or too dull to deserve the gift of his full attention. He drank it all in, and all life came to him somehow, the way those seals and dolphins came to the mouth of the sea when he was near it, and the birds clamored and the ponies galloped to meet him. His thoughts showed on his face, when he forgot to stop them. He wrote the world down with his eyes, read situations quickly, and remembered everything he saw. Agile and daring, reckless with himself. And so careful with me. Because he was indestructible, in his own way, I guess, if I ever understood that right. And I am breakable.

I remember falling down the hill when we were smashed, laughing till we were nearly sick, and my bruises in the morning, like tropical flowers, blue-green and purple, fading to yellow, and him, unmarked. Novo was horrified when he saw, but I thought they were magnificent. I said they didn’t hurt, even though they did. I said they were worth it. And I was right.