Only Here

It is hot and humid as sin and I shower in the dark with the windows open over San Juan. The city rises in pale stacks against the bay. The air hangs in the room like wet linen. It does not move.

Earlier, without knocking, Cari pushed the door open with the confidence of someone who has never once believed in privacy.

You have to hear the cookies.

The cookies?

Yes. The cookies.

She stood there waiting for me to register the importance of this small amphibian and then left the door open when she walked out, satisfied, as if she had delivered news that would alter my understanding of the island.

Now I hear them.

Co. Keeeee.

Small. Exact. Undistracted.

Later she corrects me.

Coquí.

Seventeen kinds. Each hour another begins. They do not compete. One voice hunts. Another waits. The night layers itself with precision. They have survived here for thousands of years.

Only here.

If you take them anywhere else they die.

The hot water runs down my spine. Across the bay a penthouse balcony glows against the dark. Maple floors. Black railing. A sliding glass door half open to the heat. I imagine us standing there. Coconut tequila sweating in plastic cups.

The wedding we crashed. The ocean we ran into naked. The night we discovered that drink by accident and decided that was it. That this was how we would live — slightly reckless, entirely certain, already planning the next place before the first one was finished.

We were the center of things without trying.

We met at full speed.

You were murdered in our hallway.

The water keeps falling.

Dinner tonight moved fast. Politics. Corruption. Infidelity. I spoke cleanly. I felt the current shift when I did. I caught eyes. I landed a line and the table opened in laughter.

For a second it felt familiar.

For a second I felt us.

And then it was only me.

There is no one across from me whose mind meets mine at that level.

That is the part that breaks me.

The coquí shift.

Another hour.

Co. Keeeee.

I love their discipline. The way one yields so another can take over. The way the night replaces what stops.

The world does not pause when one sound ends.

It adjusts.

The craving for coconut tequila rises fast and physical. Not for the alcohol. For that night before the future broke. For discovering something new beside you. For believing there would always be more to discover.

I no longer drink.

But I want to stand on that balcony and feel the burn in my throat and pretend the timeline split differently.

It is 2026.

The year after we were supposed to move.

Instead, I am here.

And this is the first real act of building something without you.

Not that I am alone.

But that I will adapt.

That I will get used to standing in steam and not turning to show you the skyline.

That I will build a life that functions.

That someone else may one day stand on a balcony beside me.

And it will not be the same.

The water turns hotter. My skin flushes red.

The coquí call again.

Co. Keeeee.

They survive because they live only where they were meant to live.

I loved you because you were exactly where you were meant to be.

There will only ever have been one life that was supposed to continue uninterrupted.

The steam thickens. The skyline blurs.

My tears slide down and vanish before they reach the tile.

The frogs keep time.

The night layers itself.

And I stand there long enough to understand that the most frightening thing is not rebuilding without you.

It is that I will learn how.