Sentinel Hill

Next to the main road that leads toward central Mexicali stands Sentinel Hill. Its base is covered with panoramic views of the desert plains, and the area itself is full of cars where people park informally. Much like this improvised parking, the trail is entirely unregulated: there are no formal roads over or up the hill. Instead, compacted gravel and dirt loosely mark the path, forming a steep ascent. With no official trailhead, access begins from several points around the hill.

One of those access points had become my destination—not for a short hike or any kind of recreation, but to look for someone whose disappearance had affected me deeply. Her last trace led me here, toward this rise they called Sentinel Hill—the Centinela, the hill the Cucapá people spoke of—standing guard at the outskirts of Mexicali.

I had a faint idea of which point she had accessed, based only on what my memory had retained from her retelling several months earlier—after returning from a trip in December, once she was back at the university. We hadn’t spoken in years; she had led me to a plaza just across from her faculty and almost immediately began complaining about the heat, despite it being the beginning of winter.

“It doesn’t matter what month you go there—it’s always unbearable,” she told me as we sat on a small sofa in the corner of the cafeteria. “You really can’t live there without air conditioning, twenty-four seven.”

I had made that trip myself, from Tijuana east toward Mexicali. It was only about two hours, but the difference in weather was like night and day—it felt as though I had traveled out of state.

“Elizabeth!” the barista called out her order, and she got up, heading to the counter. Her curly hair wobbled from side to side, despite being twisted into a modest bun that barely held it together.

My gaze followed downward to her nape, where I noticed a slight crimson rash—a sign of sunburn. Although it did not look severe, it was reddened enough to show on her copper-toned skin.

Once she came back, I pointed out her sunburn. She had grown used to me noticing such details.

“I know!” she exclaimed, wide-eyed, with a resigned smile. “Even though I used a lot of sunblock, I still got burned there.”

“You didn’t wear a hat?” I asked—an obvious question, but I did not care; I just wanted to hear more of her voice.

“I did, I did!” she repeated, her expressive eyes pleading with me to believe her, “but it got lost—or rather, I did.”

As I waited for her to continue, she drank some of her coffee—which technically wasn’t coffee at all, but tea: a chai with an ounce of espresso mixed in. I remembered her telling me, years ago, how chai already meant tea to begin with.

“The next day after the conference, some of our group got together and decided to go to the Centinela, just for a walk in the morning,” she would casually tell me these things from her day, without me needing to ask—at that time, all I would do was listen. “I tagged along—I’ve never done hiking before, you know.”

I already knew that. I had learned a lot about her after being her friend for close to seven years, since our high school years. Now, near the end of our studies in university, we had grown distant—or more precisely, near the end of my studies, since she was studying Medicine. She was only four years in.

“We were—I’m not sure how far ahead, since the trail isn’t marked or anything—you just follow the footsteps in the soil,” her recounting of these stories always came with details one wouldn’t exactly harp on. “The wind, though! It was blowing so hard it was throwing dirt—and even pebbles! My hat just flew away, backward. It almost slapped some of the guys behind us!” She finished while laughing somewhat timidly; her eyes nearly closed, her lips unabashedly breaking into a grin she always tried to cover with her right hand.

I knew I loved her—and every single day we had spent together had been one in which I was captivated by all the expressions that made up the entirety of her being.

“You didn’t go back for the hat?” I asked so she could continue after her short laugh. Instead, she avoided my gaze for a few seconds, almost as if she were making an effort to remember.

“No?” I insisted; she still hadn’t answered.

She looked back at me, offering a fixed smile that felt different from any of her usual merry expressions.

“I lost it—it just flew away, I guess,” she replied, her tone marking the end of the topic.

The brusque shift in her tone—no longer cheerful—coincided with the familiar presence that had stayed close to her for many years, always watching her every action and word. I could see it from outside the door: the image of the sentinel looking toward us. I could tell—the yellow eyes of its bighorn head shone with vitality.

Sometimes I hated my own mind—raging at full capacity whenever it concerned any detail that came from Elizabeth. I had already noticed the discrepancy between her getting lost and the hat being taken by the wind. Her lie escaped into the air—just as the delicate foot trails were swept away and erased on the Sentinel trail.

Elizabeth had wanted to become a writer ever since she was in high school—at least, that is when I first learned of her passion. I had noticed her on our first day of high school. When I arrived by myself, there was a strangely shaped figure standing outside the school, on the pavement across the street. The tall figure wore a long, over sized light-brown tunic; its head was that of a sheep, the kind we see around here in Baja—a bighorn sheep. I could tell, since the animal’s figure is used as an emblem for the state.

The figure kept looking at a solitary girl. I also gazed at her. She was writing diligently in a notebook, sitting on one of the fixed concrete benches attached to the circular tables permanently set into the school’s patio—just beside the cooperativa, the school’s small snack shop.

This image went on to repeat for several days. Despite arriving early, she would already be in that same spot, writing intently. I even knew she was there before reaching the school, by seeing that figure keeping guard from afar.

I simply walked toward her one of those days, my excuse being a request for help with English homework. It was flimsy, but my younger self had never spoken to a beautiful girl before. I only had enough bravery to step into her space on the impulse of a selfish desire—which I had camouflaged as a normal request.

She hadn’t been coy, nor had she attempted to hide her writing. She answered without hesitation, showing me that she was, in fact, working on a manuscript—fiction, no less—instead of homework. I realized that day that her desire to become a writer was real. Even as a child, I wouldn’t have found it strange for someone to try to hide their work, or something as personal as their writing.

With a fake deep voice, I searched for a reason to keep talking to her. “May I read it?”

“It’s not for you guys—you don’t like this genre,” she answered matter-of-factly.

“Have you shown it to anybody else?” I continued, asking whatever question came to my childish, racing brain.

“No, I haven’t yet.” Her tone was curt, as if the answer were obvious.

“Your parents?”

“Nope.” She shook her head from side to side.

“A sibling? Do you have brothers?”

She closed her notebook and fixed her eyes on mine. “Are you going to give me a scholarship, or why the interview?”

There was no need to check a mirror; I could feel the heat rising from my ears and spreading to my cheeks. My head felt light as a wave of embarrassment—surely visible on my face—took hold of me.

“May—maybe I could give you some feedback?” I managed to reply. Yet behind this awkward effort, I felt the nascent butterflies filling my stomach.

Looking into her eyes reassured me. I could see what she was feeling and thinking through the sheer expressiveness of her ember-colored gaze, framed by an entrancing face.

Despite her gaze being directed toward me, I could tell she was realizing something else. Her surprise quickly settled, and her eyes met mine again, her long eyelashes blinking once.

“What about your homework?” she asked as if it was an important task.

“Homework?” The racing my brain had done left me in a brief stupor.

“Your English homework—you should finish it now, before class,” she reminded me, before beginning to put her notebook away.

I briefly considered coming clean—having already talked to her for this long felt like a success to my younger, immature self.

“Do your parents pick you up after school?” she asked, standing up from the bench.

“No, I take the bus—the green combi by the Oxxo.”

“Okay. Meet me here after classes, and I’ll let you read it.”

I was by no means an exemplary student; however, I did tend to lean most toward the arts and history classes. I was a complete novice in literature, but compared to the rest of my peers, I knew I could stand with my shoulders straight—once having been the only one in the entire class who had actually read Pedro Páramo and written the report on it.

Outside of those mandatory works, I had no real frame of reference by which to judge Elizabeth’s early writing. Still, I had enough sense to know that simply praising her would be worthless—that my help, and even my company, would be of no benefit to her in that case.

“I really don’t know much about this genre,” I admitted.

“See? I told you.” Somehow she appeared smug; being right really was important to her.

“I mean—to be honest—I was expecting something else, when you told me we guys don’t read this type of genre.”

Her eyes were expectant, urging me to go on. I started noticing more of her peculiarities in the way her expressions shifted.

“Honestly?” I asked, wanting to be sure before saying it.

“Yeah, honestly.”

“I thought you meant something like romance or drama.” I hid my eyes from her view. I knew that trying to pretend to be more cultured than I actually was would only work against me in the long run, but I wasn’t secure enough to just be myself either. I really struggled with knowing how to interact with her. “This is more thriller and mystery.”

“You guys—as in the boys in our school—don’t actually read this at all, right?” she said, leaning back against the concrete bench. Her mood, somehow, hadn’t been affected by what I thought would be an indiscretion born from my wrong assumptions. “Most people here don’t read at all, to begin with.”

I closed the notebook and handed it back to her, my eyes taking in Elizabeth in full. Everything about her expression projected security. Her movements flowed naturally, marked by a quiet tenacity I didn’t see in other people—or in other girls, or in myself, for that matter.

“You really want to be a writer.” I had intended it as a question, but halfway through it came out as a statement.

She looked up after slipping the notebook back into her backpack. She gazed at me, perhaps confused by my tone at first, but after a few seconds her eyes narrowed, her lips curving into a grin that betrayed her honesty. Her face glowed in the lowering sun behind her, its rays giving her bronzed skin a captivating glint.

“Yes, I do!” she said.

We kept meeting like this. At first, I revised her work, and only gradually did we begin to talk about ourselves. Under the constant vigil of the bighorn sentinel, we built a routine of our own; those early, awkward interactions were smoothed into a quiet, trusting relationship, like rocky cliffs eroded by constant waves. Our friendship extended beyond high school and into university, and somewhere along the way, I surrendered to my feelings for her.

I hadn’t noticed when the change had happened—or whether there had been a change at all. I had simply learned that she had enrolled in the Faculty of Medicine, while I had applied to Humanities with ease. In our last year of high school, I felt no need to question her path; I assumed she would go on to study literature. But something had happened along the way.

“My mother has died.”

She came to my faculty one year into our respective degrees. The university was large, but not so large that we couldn’t run into each other; regardless, I would be there when she needed me.

“I’m sorry,” I said, defaulting to courtesies as I apologized. Despite being close to her for several years, there was a world I had never managed to enter—her family was one of those places. But my efforts weren’t entirely in vain. “What do we need to do?”

I didn’t need to ask her if she was okay. Regardless of one’s relationship with family—close or distant—departure from the world is rarely announced; it always comes while one is busy with other plans. Death has a way of doing that.

The beginning of my friendship with her had been much the same—an offer of help. I didn’t have much to give beyond my time and my labor. I didn’t assign much value to either, but I knew there was little else I could offer.

“I need to go see her—to confirm it,” she said to no one in particular.

“I’ll take you there.”

Later that day, we went to the morgue to identify her mother’s body.

This had been the quietest day I had ever spent with her by my side. I would always listen; that seemed to be my role in the relationship, one I had naturally fallen into. From the ride to the morgue until she came back out, she did not utter a word—at least not when I was near her.

At some point, other people formed a circle around her—family, I assumed. Despite the peculiarities of every family, gathering like this after a tragedy—forming a circle, nodding along, agreeing with one another’s remarks—seemed to be a shared occurrence across all of them.

I didn’t have any plan or idea of what I was going to do; I simply waited in my car while Elizabeth kept company with the others. All these years I had trained myself to ignore the sentinel keeping Elizabeth under its watch, but as I waited for her, I noticed my inability to find its long, bighorn-shaped head anywhere. Of all the days I wished to be alone with her, it would be the one permeated by the weight of death that its constant vigil would cease.

After nearly two hours of waiting, Elizabeth approached my car alone. Somewhere along the way, I had expected her to go home with someone from her family, but instead she returned and got into the passenger seat. She did not say a word, and I did not ask how it had gone.

I started the car and drove away from the morgue. With no other tasks ahead, I headed toward her home.

“I spoke with my mother,” her beautiful voice wrapping around my ears as I let her continue. “She apologized—that there wasn’t anything she could do about it.”

I reminisced in an old saying, uttered by old people constantly: if it’s meant to be, it will happen, no matter what; if it’s not, nothing you do can make it happen.

“Were you close?”

“Not particularly. I just admired her,” she explained calmly. “I was shocked. She came to me in the bathroom—everyone else was lamenting outside in the parking lot, standing in a circle—even though her body was lying cold on a metal table. I couldn’t stay there.”

“What else did she say?”

She stared straight ahead. I wanted to look at her, but the moving road kept my eyes fixed forward. I didn’t want to risk bringing Elizabeth to her mother by accident; I wouldn’t have been able to meet either of their eyes.

“That she wished she could have seen me in my white coat.”

I remained quiet, hoping she would continue. Instead, I heard her soft breathing beside me, her small nose pushing air out and drawing it back in. Having her at my side had always heightened my senses.

“I can’t go home—not today,” she said. “He’s going to be watching me. I know it.”

Hearing the strain in her voice, I tried to reassure her. “He’s gone, right?”

“That thing—the sentinel. I can’t—just not today.” Ignoring me, her words—and her strength—slowly faded.

The detour extended my time in the car by another hour, but near the end of the afternoon we finally arrived at my place. I resented having Elizabeth so close to such a dangerous part of the city, but I didn’t feel right leaving her alone in a motel.

My body felt sour after sitting in the car for several hours; my joints ached as if they had been welded in place. By contrast, Elizabeth never made a movement that wasn’t full of grace.

I was never much of a drinker. I would have a beer if I had to, but I didn’t enjoy it. I knew Elizabeth had taken a liking to wine—sometimes it felt as though everyone had. It might have been the effect of growing up, of young adults being admitted into the world of older people, but I couldn’t help feeling that twenty years ago no one here drank wine—until, one day, they all did.

Either way, I had already prepared. Knowing much of what she liked and disliked, I had bought a few bottles of wine imported from somewhere in South America—apparently a “dry” type. I didn’t know much about it.

We didn’t discuss it. I simply took the bottle and began removing the cork. From the sounds coming from the small living room, I gathered she had taken a seat on my old brown leather sofa adjacent to the door. It fit three people—four if they snuggled like canned sardines.

Placing the glass in front of her, she looked up and took it with both hands. I didn’t even have cheap wine glasses—only tumblers—but she didn’t seem to care. After taking the glass, I was unsure where to sit, so I just stood there, uncertain where to place my body or what to say to her.

“What is next?” I asked. Despite being unsure of what was to be done, I knew what I wanted—to help her.

Her face carried a calm reassurance. She considered my question in silence for a few seconds before giving up. “I may have an idea, but—I don’t really know.”

“Then—whatever you need, I will help you.”

“Thank you,” she replied. I sensed the courtesy emanating from her words.

“No. I mean it.” My eyes searched for hers, but she remained absent-minded until I reinforced my commitment. “Whatever it is, if you need me, I’ll be there.”

Her eyes slowly regained a trace of their former presence; I noticed it when we locked gazes for the first time that day. Had it been a contest, I would have lost, averting my eyes just slightly to the side.

She formed a smile, immediately easing the tension in my body. She shifted to the side of the sofa, the motion impossibly endearing to my eyes. It took me a few seconds to realize she was making space for me, but once I did, I went ahead and sat beside her.

The warmth was familiar. Despite her small frame, the heat of her presence was something I had etched into my skin for years. The hair framing her face had grown longer, but her features remained the same—bearing the same proud exterior as when I first saw her sitting on that bench. The dissonance between my memory and her physical presence became evident with the invasive scent of fruit and alcohol. Inwardly, I resented the callousness of the wine’s fragrance mingling with her lips, while I remained just close enough to witness it.

Clouded with anxiety and jealousy toward an inanimate object, I felt her weight shift toward my shoulder. After resting her head—and then her shoulders—against my side, she exhaled a tired sigh. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before; perhaps my own physical exhaustion from waiting had made me oblivious. Only then did I consider how taxing the entire day had been for her—far more than it had been for me, surely.

“My mother—she wanted to be a nurse, you know.”

I didn’t. She continued, “It wasn’t exactly pressure, but I couldn’t go completely against her. And if I was going to fulfill someone else’s dream, then at least I would choose how to go about it.”

“So you chose to become a doctor instead?”

I felt her answer in the small movement of her head, her hair and the wine enveloping my nose with their fragrance.

“It’s not that I think doctors are better—not at all. It’s just… I wanted to rebel a little.” She took a sip of her remaining wine, awkwardly lifting her arm as she let herself sink further into my shoulder. “Her father forbade her from studying anything. She had already been promised in marriage.”

Something in her tone elicited a sharp, deep feeling in my stomach, a grotesque realization rising within me. As if the answer had been planted externally, I asked anyway, “Your father?”

I felt her deny it with a slight movement of her head, the pit of my stomach sinking.

I waited for her to continue. Instead, she remained silent, staring ahead, where only the bare wall stood before her.

“I am scared,” she said. Her tone concealed a deeper context—one I did not yet know how to reach. “Can I stay here?”

“Of course,” I replied. I had already intended for that to be the case.

When I stood up, she held my arm, keeping me there, my knees still bent.

“Where are you going?” She lifted her gaze toward me, a small but rapid shifting overtaking her eyes.

“I’m going to get some blankets. You can use the bed, and I’ll stay here—I won’t go anywhere.”

She kept looking at me, but deep within her eyes I could tell she was thinking of something else, almost planning. I waited for her to reach a conclusion. Slowly, she let go of my arm, the tension in her gaze returning to my face.

“Okay—I understand,” she said, a short, nostalgic smile forming on her lips. “May I use the shower?”

“Go ahead, but—I only have pajamas in my size.”

She laughed for the first time that day, covering her mouth with her right hand, her eyes half closed. We were slowly falling back into our routine.

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” she repeated.

Before going to the bathroom, she insisted on washing the dishes first, saying it was the least she could do.

“I’m going to take a shower now,” she said once she finished. “You drove me around all day—you must be exhausted. I’m sorry.”

She smiled faintly. “You should rest. I’ll be fine.”

The only light in the apartment escaped through the narrow gap beneath the bathroom door. Along with it came the muffled sound of running water, interrupted now and then by the dull splash of it striking the tiles.

Listening to her move on the other side of the door, I felt useless. I had no idea how to change anything that was swirling through Elizabeth’s life at that moment; beyond being there for her, there was little I could truly affect through my own efforts.

The sensation of her lingering warmth remained in my arm, keeping me company beneath the loose heat of the old comforter I had pulled over myself. I lay uncomfortably on the sofa, the soft scent of wine lingering in my nose, subdued and unfamiliar. Is this what dry wine smells like? I had no idea.

Long were the minutes that passed through the apartment—a soundless passage of time. After the running water ceased and the light no longer shone beneath the bathroom door, the apartment reflected nothing back toward my eyes. I drifted between sleep and wakefulness, the worry and self-castigation over my own uselessness having finally worn me down into a dull mental fatigue. My last thoughts wandered to whether she had already gone to sleep—surely by now.

But it was not to be.

I caught the silhouette of a small woman slowly making her way across the living room—the space I called a living room being too small in this apartment to differ from an oversized entryway. Elizabeth looked cold. The exposed lines of her shoulders and legs contrasted with the white, porcelain-like towel wrapped around her, her brown skin muted by the darkness of the apartment.

I knew her well enough to know that every action she took was usually followed by an explanation. Remaining quiet, I gazed at her intently. I did not want to think anything, or form any assumption, before letting her speak.

I had been somewhat correct. Once the distance between us was closed, she stopped and remained there. Her eyes were clearly unsure, her breathing visibly subdued, but she was not speaking. She closed her eyes, now unable to maintain eye contact with me, and I noticed her arms trembling. Nervousness, coldness—it could have been anything.

“Elizabeth?” I called out to her.

Hearing her name, she opened her eyes. Without the hesitation that had plagued her expression, she curled her hands into tight fists and knelt down toward me.

“What are you doing?” It was all I could say before she lunged into a kiss, nearly knocking her forehead against mine.

I couldn’t perceive the sensations of her lips or her skin making contact with mine; my brain had thrown me into fight or flight. The pulsations of my heart were almost painful, as if it had been riled up by a cheap jump scare. Being thrown into this situation jolted me out of my stupor.

With my hands gripping her shoulders to pull her back, I could tell her skin had already dried, the warmth and moisture of the shower long gone—she had been like this for a while.

I wanted to ask her, but she wouldn’t allow me. Her arms wrapping around my neck, her lips locking onto mine once again. The fold of her towel had loosened, but it remained held in place by the pressure of our embrace. Despite her touch and her continued seizing of my mouth, reason struck me at the back of the head—it was the wine. It must have been.

“Elizabeth—you’re drunk,” I said after pushing her back once again; her body was so frail it was easy to do. “You’re going to catch a cold like this.”

Under my arms, I felt the strength finally leave her body. She sank fully onto her knees, her head bowed. I didn’t care about any explanation—she was naked in a dark, cold apartment.

“I am not drunk,” I heard her say calmly.

“You’re not making any sense right now,” I replied, surprised at myself. I felt no anger at all, and I didn’t know why. “Please—I’m worried about you.”

“Then—sleep with me.” Her reply was devoid of hesitation.

Despite the incoherence, I wanted to hear her. I had never been an emotional man; I was dull. In this situation, another man would have known what to say, or how to act, but that wasn’t me—my role had always been to listen.

“Why?” I asked. Instead of excitement, my voice trembled with sorrow.

We locked eyes. Despite the nervousness, my feelings for her, and my diffident nature, I held her gaze, waiting for her answer. Her eyes were not clouded; her determination was present in her face. A small hope rose in my chest when I recognized it—this was Elizabeth herself, not a drunken impulse guiding her actions.

Perhaps because of that small glimmer of hope born in my heart, I allowed her to embrace me. This time she approached timidly, almost apologetic for her actions. I hugged her back, feeling a small twitch when my cold palm made contact with her bare back.

“You promised me—whatever it is that I need,” she whispered, her voice brushing the side of my head, echoing my words from moments earlier. Her arms tightened around my neck. “Please—only for tonight.”

My own hesitation wouldn’t allow me to give her an answer. Instead, as she pulled back from my arms and stared into my eyes, she searched for one herself. I felt her hands cup my face; her touch was cold—slowly losing its warmth after being naked for so long.

I didn’t stop her. I let my head tilt forward as she sealed her lips with mine once again, our slow, steady breathing the only muted sound echoing through the room. I couldn’t strip away the guilt I felt over her mother. I kept seeing the image of her daughter crossing the living room, guiding a man into the bedroom, both of us swallowed by the darkness of the apartment.

I closed the door behind me, the muffled sound lingering in my head as we embraced again, lying together in the bed. I didn’t know how I would face her.

Since I was a child, I had always loved the rain. Not just the sound of falling water, but the smell of everything surrounded by the downpour—it all appeared cleansed to my senses, as if nature itself were washing the environment. Growing up on this dry peninsula, cold weather was a change that did not come often, and it was always welcome to me. It was one of the reasons I had dreamed of moving away to a rainy city someday when I grew up.

This affinity for rain had woken me. The unannounced downpour arrived first as a soft breeze, announcing itself through the smell of wet pavement. No residue of wine remained in my apartment. As if a delay had been placed on my eyes, vision came a few seconds later—though it hardly mattered, since I was embraced by the warm darkness of dawn, a very different kind of shadow than night.

I couldn’t revel in the placid beginning of the day. It was filled with the sound of falling rain, accompanied by the steady breathing beside me—Elizabeth’s breathing echoing in a tranquil rhythm, a completely different state from her anxious self the day before. The grave knocking that disturbed this scene continued to ring through the apartment.

Without particular care, I rose from the bed and dressed. I knew I was in no hurry by the nature of the knocking. It was not a fist or a palm, nor any metal object being used to seek attention; it was a dull, heavy thump, carrying a deep bass—like someone striking their own head against a wall in mounting frustration. Before leaving the bedroom, I glanced back at Elizabeth as she slept, hoping the sight of her would give me courage.

The knocking began to subside gradually, as if the figure outside knew I was moving toward the door. Its impatience still showed in a few final blows, the sounds landing above my head rather than at the door’s center.

As if a filter had been removed, the swing of the door let the sound of rain flood the apartment. With the door open, the large figure stood outside, its horns nearly grazing the doorframe’s header, no hands in sight—only its long tunic reaching the ground. The sentinel’s eyes contrasted with the early-day darkness, an ember-yellow tint surrounding its rectangular irises. It wasn’t the first time we had made eye contact, but I had never wished to confront it directly.

For a second, the rain froze midair—a pause long enough for a single utterance.

“Thief,” it bellowed.

After the word decayed into silence, the rain resumed its fall.

I was not confused by the accusation. I could see its intent clearly as I glared back at its horizontal irises. On its right eyelid, floating in the ember glow, was my own reflection; on the left, a plastered image of a young Elizabeth.

The rain hovered above its head and circled its body, as if refusing to touch it at all. My repulsion had been simmering; just the sight of the sentinel reminded me how deeply I hated it.

The shimmering rain halted again, allowing a bray to sound clearly.

“Mine.”

“She isn’t anyone’s,” I blurted, not caring whether it understood me.

The rain did not resume. It remained suspended as a gradual, rising laugh reached my ears. The sentinel’s eyes nearly closed; if it had a mouth, it would have been grinning. My own mind betrayed me—the sight reminded me of Elizabeth’s mannerisms. I was immediately disgusted with myself.

The laugh faded into a murmur. “Fool.”

As if granted permission, the rain resumed its fall.

I remained alone in the entryway, letting faint droplets slip inside and wet my bare feet—and for the first time, I felt disgust at the scent the rain carried.

It wasn’t hard to realize Elizabeth was awake. Not only had her body shifted beneath the blankets, and not only had she slipped into her shirt—I had heard her choked sobbing before I returned to the bedroom. I lay down beside her, facing her back. The curls of her deep brown hair had knotted slightly. Despite the ache in me, I did not try to console her, much less touch her again.

“I don’t know how one goes about these things, but—” I spoke after several minutes of stillness, my gaze fixed on the exposed bronze of her nape. I had no clear sense of where I was going. “I’ve been in love with you for years.”

It was harder without seeing her face. I would have thought the opposite, but her back had become an oppressive presence in the room. Still, I continued.

“Nothing that happened yesterday has anything to do with this. I’ve felt this way for a long time—long before that.” I could sense myself losing the thread. “I love you, Elizabeth. If you would allow me to help you carry your grief, to be there with you—then that would make me very happy.”

If she was pretending to be asleep or simply lying still, the sudden wriggling of her legs beneath the blankets betrayed her. Aside from her breathing, the rustle of fabric was all I heard. We would have been buried in silence if not for the murmur of rain drifting through the room. Gradually, her sobbing grew stronger. At first, she tried to stifle it, until she was unable to. Her slender body trembled with each whimper, punctuated now and then by an involuntary gasp as she clutched the pillow to muffle her weeping.

I didn’t know whether her grief was truly that overwhelming, or whether regret for what she had asked of me had taken hold of her body—or whether it was my own confession, laid upon her at such a moment. I would never know. I didn’t ask, and she did not respond—not that day, nor in the years that followed.

We no longer saw the sentinel trailing us. The unwatched days became weeks, followed by months without its presence. Elizabeth remained alone, her back now freed from gazes—except my own. Her life slowly eased back into a placid routine. She had always possessed the ability to take sorrow from the outside world and paint a landscape that made one feel at ease. I could only watch from a distance, until three years had passed.

Elizabeth stood beside my car. The nearly empty parking lot on school grounds was washed in a low yellow glint from the onset of evening. The green of the grass dulled by the lack of watering, despite the field being dotted with pop-up sprinklers.

It had been a cold end to the year—now the beginning of winter—and her figure looked particularly lonely beneath the light poles. Nothing had changed in her appearance: her white coat guarded her arms from the cold, her figure traced by blue scrubs that made my heart slowly ache.

After telling me she wanted to talk, we crossed the university toward the adjacent plaza, connected by a pedestrian bridge. The plaza and bridge stood in front of her faculty. That was how I had been able to steal glances at her all those years—the parking lot lay conveniently beside the Faculty of Medicine. Every day, I would kill the ignition a little more slowly, just to give her time to enter my field of vision on her way to class.

I could tell she was easing the tension by telling me about her university trip to Mexicali—how her hat had been taken by the heated winds on Sentinel Trail. I finally realized what had been pressing on her lately. It was the same horizontal set of eyes that had kept vigil over her so many years ago. The eyes on the bighorn’s head watched us steadily from afar.

“You know—after my mother’s passing, I was at a loss,” she began, brushing past the lie about her hat. I paid no mind and focused on her. “I felt choked. Like something was pressing me into the ground. But still—I didn’t mean to grow distant.”

She set her chai, that already meant tea, on the small round table and held my gaze with a nostalgic conviction I hadn’t seen in her for years. “That’s why I wanted to apologize. For many other things as well. I’m sorry.”

Unsure what this meant, I followed only my instinct. Speaking to her again after so long, I found myself drawn back to her voice.

“There’s no need to apologize,” I said. Whether it came across as mere politeness, I couldn’t tell, but I meant it. “I could’ve—should’ve been there for you regardless. I’m sorry.”

“No, no,” she repeated, leaning forward. “You’ve already done so much. You gave me a kind of peace I couldn’t find these past few years.”

“I was just glued to your side, listening,” I said. “I haven’t done anything worth praising.”

“That’s not true. You have no idea how much you helped me—how free I felt, even if only for a short while.” As she spoke, I caught the glint of guilt in her voice. Somehow, I knew we were talking past each other on purpose. Still, I missed having her voice murmuring in my ears. She continued, as if reading my thoughts. “I’ve missed you.”

“I really haven’t done anything—”

“You really just want to argue with me, don’t you? Just let me praise you for once,” she said, her sweet tone carrying the innocence of years ago.

“I don’t usually get to correct a doctor that often, you know,” I replied, smiling for the first time all day.

“You would—if I were wrong,” she quipped, eyes half-closed, an innocent grin on her lips. “Also, I’m still not a doctor—yet. So you’re wrong. Now stop arguing and let me praise you, okay?”

Her need to be right hadn’t changed with age.

“Honestly?”

“Yeah. Honestly.”

“I’ve missed you too.”

As evening settled, we walked back across the plaza. The pedestrian bridge was poorly lit, some of its lamps broken. The higher we climbed, the louder the buzzing of cars racing along the highway below. We walked side by side, as if we weren’t under the vigilant watch of the sentinel. The shadows made it hard to locate it, but the effect of its constant gaze never left our skin.

The solitude of the parking lot stretched across the campus. Once we passed her faculty, the irrigation system hissed to life, sending thin arcs of water across the grass. The mechanical rhythm of the sprinklers mingled with the distant echo of passing vehicles—our footsteps loud by comparison.

“Thank you for today—for listening to me.” Her eyes closed involuntarily as a sneeze escaped her. “I’m sorry.”

I slipped my sweater over her shoulders. “Bless you.”

Despite the awkward air surrounding us, neither of us moved to leave. Her gaze wandered absently around the parking lot, looking past me. At some point distracted by the rotation of the sprinklers, her eyes mimicking the motion of the thin water arcs. There was a coyness in her attempt to cope with our awkward interaction, almost comforting to me.

As if I had returned back to high school, I searched for any excuse to keep talking. “Are you still writing?”

Her gaze returned to me, surprise briefly touching her face before softening into a smile. “Yes. I still do.”

“May I read it?”

“Are you sure?”

“Do all doctors answer questions with questions?”

She rolled her eyes, then pushed me lightly with her palm. “You just did the same.”

I grabbed the soft palm colliding with my shoulder, her lips pressed together as if suppressing a grin. “And I already told you—I’m still not a doctor.”

“That’s right—your handwriting is still legible.” I teased, stepping closer with one short step—the small movement warmed the air around us.

“Unlike yours. Barely legible—how did you even take notes?” she replied, surprising me with her own short step, closing the distance further.

With nowhere else to look, I simply remained with my gaze trapped in her hazel eyes. Herself, never dropping her grin, her gaze shifting subtly as she studied me.

I stopped thinking of retorts once I was caught in her eyes.

As she breathed out, her breath brushed my face, tickling my nose—the distance between us nearly gone. My mind, long overwhelmed by her presence, was now simply reacting. “You smell like chai tea.”

“Chai already means tea,” she said, pouting slightly, the tip of her nose brushing mine. “You know that.”

“Yeah. I know—”

Giving up entirely, I closed the minuscule gap between us. Her lips were cold at first, the artificial sweetness of coffee syrup enveloping our mouths. With every kiss, we slowly began to take in warmth from each other. I drew Elizabeth into my arms, the piercing gaze above us doing little to stem the spill of my feelings.

Only the rustle of our clothes—her arms circling my neck—and the distant roar of racing cars remained. The irrigation had fallen silent; the arcs of water froze midair, as if their permission to arch had been withdrawn.