Time passes so quickly.

I sit with Sammy on the roof of a tall building. It is night, and all the stars in the sky make a magic show just for us. I lay my head in his lap.

Tell me again how we met, I beg. We have known each other for a very long time, since long before he saved me from the fire. Sam says we have known and loved each other for longer than infinity, even though I can’t remember it. Because of the way I feel about him, it must be true.

You were sitting on a cloud, he starts.

I thought it was a mountain?

No, Abby. He shakes his head. A cloud. I remember because your toes were flecked with dew and your whole body was damp.

Then what? I ask. He is running his fingers through my hair. He bends to kiss my temple. My heart beats staccato the way it always does when he’s close.

Then the cloud started to break up, he continues. Turn into mist or rain or something. And you began to fall.

So . . .?

Shhh, be patient! He pauses to think. You fell and fell, for maybe a mile, and I saw you in the sky. You were a tiny speck that got bigger and bigger with each moment, and you were moving very fast. But luckily, I was sitting on a terrace, watching. And since I didn’t have anything better to do . . .

I laugh and bite his thigh playfully. Sammy loves to tease.

Anyway, he continues, since I didn’t have anything better to do, I thought, What the heck? I’ll save this girl. So I climbed up the side of the building on the fire escape to the very top, like how we got here now. Except I had to do it fast, like six or eight times as fast as we got up here tonight. Because you were dropping like a rock, faster and faster. And just as I got to the top, you were above me, so I leaped off the building and grabbed you.

But weren’t you worried that you would fall, too? And we’d both wind up a pile on the ground?

Ah, mija, he purrs in my ear. I never worry for my own safety when I have you to think of.

And you were right not to worry, because we were fine, I finish. The End.

That isn’t the end! We were only fine because I managed to catch a tree branch on the way down, then shimmy down the tree trunk with you on my back. Otherwise we would have gone splat on the pavement.

Right. And then I went home.

No, then you knelt down and kissed my feet and pledged your life to me, since I had saved you. You didn’t know me, but you vowed to love me forever.

Did not! I laugh. I wriggle with happiness.

You did, mija. That is how it happened.

I press my face into his stomach and wrap my arms around his back. He is right. The story is different each time. But sometime, somewhere in each version, I need him to save me, and when he does, I vow to love him forever. I hold on to the moment and enjoy him while I can, and for a while we are the way we were all those weeks ago when he scooped me up and brought me home.