After a photo stop at Forrest Gump Point, a long stretch of Utah highway with Monument Valley in the background, we switch out the van for a jeep for a Navajo guided tour through the valley followed by a much needed lunch at Goulding's Stagecoach Dining Room. Two bad nights of sleep are catching up with me and I can barely keep my eyes open even when I'm trying to take in the astounding views of the buttes and the mesas and chimneys and spires and all of the other amazing things that our guide, Kai, told us about as he drove us through the valley.

By two thirty, when we get back into the van with full stomachs for our final drive of the day – a big one, almost two hundred miles from here at the very bottom of Utah to the south rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona – I am flagging big time. Kitty's the opposite, reenergized by a good meal and invigorated by the views and I feel bad to be a party pooper but I've reached that stage of tiredness where I feel sick and I don't want to ruin my first impression of the Grand Canyon when it's the part of the trip I've been looking forward to the most.

"Hey, sorry to be a downer but I'm gonna take a nap," I say to Kitty as I roll up my sweater to cushion my head against the window. Leila's sitting up front next to Dylan, in charge of the playlist for the next three hours.

"Sure, of course," Kitty says. "Did you sleep badly?"

"Yeah, pretty shitty night. Didn't get to sleep until about one and then I woke up before five and I am feeling it."

Kitty winces and says, "Did I keep you up?"

"No, no, not at all. Just, you know, my brain. Too busy for its own good," I say, swirling my hand around by my temple as though to indicate my overactive thoughts. Kitty's eyebrows pull together momentarily and I can see the question in her eyes: what are you overthinking? But she doesn't ask it and before she can, I say, "I never sleep well in new places." True. I struggle to truly switch off when I'm not in my own bed. But last night's restlessness had nothing to do with being away from home and everything to do with Kitty. Just not in the way she thinks.

I put in my earphones and queue up my favorites playlist, a mix of Taylor Swift and Harry Styles and girl in red and Lizzy McAlpine and Olivia Rodrigo. I close my eyes to the tune of Late Night Talking, hoping to at least get a half hour of sleep, and I let the rattle of the van shake every thought out of my head. Maybe the jolt of my head against the window will knock my crush right out of my mind.

*

It doesn't.

By some miracle I manage to sleep for almost all of the drive and when I open my eyes and see Kitty in front of me, her head against the window and her curls bouncing, my heart drops like I'm on a roller coaster. I dreamed about her. I don't often remember my dreams, which are usually too wild and fantastical to hold onto for longer than the first few seconds out of sleep, but I remember this dream. It was normal. A life of domesticity with my wife.

I could cry.

"We're staying in Grand Canyon Village," Dylan says, "but we're not going to head straight to the hotel because we're about forty minutes away and sunset is in"—he checks the time on the dash—"fifteen minutes. I don't want you guys to miss out on that, so we're going to take a break at Desert View Watchtower, which is just coming up on our right. It's further east, so it's less crowded and a totally unique spot with a way better view of the Colorado River."

The colors of the day are already turning, a rich mix of orange and pink imbuing the sky when we park up in a surprisingly quiet lot, only a handful of other cars here.

"Hey," Kitty says quietly, catching me once we're out of the van. "Feeling any better?"

"Much," I lie. The overtired nausea has gone, but my traitorous dreams have filled my head with the vision of a life with Kitty. Dreams don't deserve to be so powerful, showing me what I now know I want the most in painfully vivid detail and snatching it from me the moment consciousness returns. And now when I look at her, I see the life I invented.

"Good. You don't want to miss this." Her fingers take their place between mine and I do my best to ignore the somersaulting in my chest. I took a drama elective in college, I can act. At least, I can act well enough for a pass-fail freshman class.

Another canyon. Another sunset. Another vista that takes my breath away. The Colorado River is a silver ribbon snaking across the bottom of the canyon, almost a mile below us. The watchtower in question stands like a beacon against the pink sky, an abandoned stone outpost that makes for a great focal point when I take a photo with the vast hole in the ground in the background.

"This lighting is so romantic," Kitty says with a wistful sigh. There are no barriers here to keep us from plummeting into the canyon and I hold my breath as she takes a seat on the edge, next to a gorse bush. It isn't a straight drop down. She'd survive if she fell. But still, my poor battered heart is in my throat. And then I do the same.

"Did I miss anything on the way here?" I ask. It's cool here; I pull on my sweater.

"Not much. Lots of desert," she says, tugging her sleeves over her palms. "Oh, and a Washingtonian inquisition."

"Huh?"

"Like a Spanish inquisition, but from a Washingtonian," she explains, and I must still be half asleep because she laughs and says, "Leila asked a lot of questions."

"Oh. Yeah. Yeah, she does that." I smile to myself and look for Leila. She has her glasses in one hand and Dylan's binoculars in the other, held up to her eyes and trained on the river. In the dying light, her ash blonde hair almost looks lavender. "What was it this time?"

"How we went from friends to lovers and if it was awkward."

I tear my eyes from Leila to look at Kitty. "What'd you say?"

"Something about how it defies convention and we didn't go from friends to lovers, we just added romance to our friendship. Kind of a cherry on the cake situation. That there's no such thing as awkward when it comes to a love like ours." She bats her eyelashes at me, so naturally long and thick that she never bothers with mascara.

Oh, you have no idea, I think. "Cheesy," I say.

"Very cheesy. I kinda grossed myself out a bit. But Leila liked it."

I sit on my hands and heave a sigh, biting my lip. "I feel bad, lying to her. She's heartbroken and she's got herself hooked on our big romantic love story and it's a farce."

"In the nicest way possible, after tomorrow, we'll never see her again," Kitty says. "Just think of it as charity. She's feeling shitty right now. We're giving her hope. If anything, we're doing her a favor."

"Ha. Until she finds out and loses all faith in love and everyone she's ever met."

She slaps my thigh. "Stop it, you cynic. I'm the one who's supposed to be all mopey and brokenhearted, not you!"

"Wait, we have to take it in turns? Hold on, I don't know the rules." I take out my phone and open my notes app and pretend to type it out. "Any more rules I need to know about?"

Kitty pouts and taps her lower lip with the tip of her finger. "Well, of course. Rule number two, very important: don't let Leila find out. So shush, because she's coming over."

"Wow, one week into our marriage and you're already shushing me? While we're sitting next to a giant hole in the ground? You sure about that?"

"Your insinuated threats are totally empty," Kitty says. "We both know how heavy your conscience is. If you pushed me off the edge, you might as well jump in after me."

She's not wrong. If lying to Leila has me this torn up, I highly doubt I could emotionally handle anything more serious than, like, shoplifting, let alone murdering the woman I love.

Leila sits down next to me, close enough that a stray curl, escaped from the space bun, tickles my shoulder. "Stunning, isn't it?"

"Mmm." I tear my eyes from Kitty and my gaze lands on the curves of the river carving its way through the canyon from Colorado to Mexico.

"We're free to do whatever we want for the rest of the evening once Dylan's got us checked into the hotel," Leila says. "If I'm not getting in the way of any honeymoon plans you have, would it be okay if I join you guys for dinner?"

"Of course, you're more than welcome," I say. "We don't have any plans except to eat and sleep. Another early start tomorrow." The thought alone makes me yawn, already anticipating another poor night in a small bed.

"Thanks." Leila's voice is small and soft, meek as a mouse. I look over at her and behind the sunset reflected in her glasses, I can see that her eyes are wet. I lift my arm, an offer of comfort. She scoots closer. I rest my arm around her shoulders and it isn't long before I hear a sniffle and feel her shake as she lets out the tears she has been holding onto since before this trip began. I keep my arm around her as she cries into my shoulder and on my other side, Kitty squeezes my hand in silent solidarity.

"Sorry," Leila says, voice thick, wiping her cheeks with the sleeve of her sweater. When she straightens, her glasses have fogged up.

"What for?"

"Crying on you." She gestures to the wet patch on my sweater.

"It'll dry. You don't need to apologize for feeling your feelings."

"I'm not usually such a mess."

I raise my eyebrows at her. "I'm guessing you're also not usually getting dumped and cheated on?"

That gets a stuffy laugh out of her. "True."

"So let it all out. I bet the canyon could use the moisture."

Leila tugs her sleeves further down in search of a dry patch to press to her leaking eyes and she sets off a fresh round of tears when she says, "I thought Andy would propose to me here."

"Oh, Leila."

"We were together for two years. I wanted to marry him and when we booked this tour, I read about sunset at the Grand Canyon and I thought, wouldn't that be the most beautiful place to get engaged?" She laughs at herself, shaking her head, and pulls the neck of her sweater up to her eyes "How much of a fucking idiot am I?"

"You're not one at all," I insist. "Andy is the fucking idiot for cheating on you. You're just a romantic who totally reasonably thought her long term boyfriend might take advantage of an exciting trip to propose in a beautiful place."

Leila chews on her lower lip. "That's not so crazy, is it?"

"Not remotely. Give it some time, maybe you can come back here in a couple years with the true love of your life and they can take your breath away even more than the view."

She pulls her knees up to her chest and nods her head and says, "I guess when I get home I need to start working on Operation Find the Kitty to my Fliss."

"It should be the other way round," I say. "You're definitely a Kitty. To be a Kitty is to be a ray of sunshine, the kind of person who lights up a room and makes you want to be a better person. You're a sunshine person, Leila. You need to find yourself a Fliss: bit of a cynical bitch."

Kitty thumps me and says, "Hey. You're not a cynical bitch."

"I can be."

"Everyone can be. It's not, like, your defining trait."

"You sure about that?" I raise an eyebrow at her.

"I wouldn't marry a cynical bitch," she says. She leans forward to look past me to Leila, chin in her hand. "Flisses are carers. They're there for you no matter what, even if they don't agree with you. They're organized and reliable and generous beyond words. They balance you out, and they do anything to make you smile, even if that involves going on a roller coaster they're terrified of," she says with a smile, her eyes sparkling. "And they always have their camera ready without having to be asked for it."

Be still, my beating heart.

At this rate it might beat itself right out of my chest.

*

We leave Desert View Watchtower once the last of the color has left the sky and we embark on a winding forty minute drive to our accommodation in the heart of Grand Canyon Village, only a couple of miles from the visitor center and some of the most famous viewpoints in the entire park. It's been six hours since we had lunch in Monument Valley and my stomach is growling loud enough to let its discontent be known, even louder when we pass the dining room on the hotel's ground floor and I get a waft of miscellaneous fried food. I could absolutely murder a burger and fries right now.

But first, we need to move our stuff from the van to our room once Dylan gives Kitty the key. I psych myself up for another small bed, another night pressed up against Kitty's hot body – she's a furnace at night, which I'm sure is wonderful to sleep next to in the winter but not in Arizona, which doesn't know seasons. Kitty struggles to get the keycard to work, juggling too many things in her hands, so I take it from her and push open the door and I'm hit with pure joy.

There are two beds.

Two huge, glorious double beds. I throw myself onto the one by the door (Kitty likes to sleep by the window) and rejoice in all this space that will be mine tonight. "I see a good night's sleep in my future," I say, my face pressed into a pillow.

"So I did keep you up!" Kitty cries out, throwing her stuff onto the other bed.

"Okay, maybe a little bit." I roll onto my back. "Last night's bed wasn't fit for any couple bigger than Sofia and Max," I say. "Plus, you're a very ... affectionate sleeper. And incredibly hot."

Kitty bows. "Why thank you."

Blazing red hot cheeks alert. I don't take it back, though. It's true in both senses of the word.

"Seriously, though," she says. "If I get too close you can just roll me away. I probably won't wake up and even if I do, it won't take me long to get straight back to sleep. I don't want you having crappy nights because of me."

"It's not a problem in our honeymoon bed," I say, spreading my arms out, "and it won't be a problem tonight."

We don't waste much more time in our room before we meet Leila outside the hotel's dining room, and Kitty treats us all to dinner. The brisket is incredible, the fries the perfect blend of crisp and fluffy, and my hunger is well satiated by the time we head back upstairs to our spacious room just before nine. Despite my long nap, I'm ready to bury myself under the covers and lose consciousness for the next eight hours.

And that's exactly what I do.

*

we are at last back into the realm of places i've been to! the grand canyon is a beautiful place!