Page 45 of Reckless Hearts

Peace.

The next day,Seb and I head off down the Otago peninsula. The peninsula is right next to Dunedin, but it has an untamed, wild beauty, all rugged cliffs and rolling hills embracing the sea.

When we reach Taiaora Head, the headland of the peninsula where the albatross colony is located, the visitor carpark is half-full. Up to the right, half a dozen people are clustered on a wooden walkway.

“What’s up there?” I ask.

“That’s just the lookout that overlooks a seal colony. But it’s quite a steep cliff. I don’t think you’d like it very much.”

The fact Seb has remembered my dislike of heights causes a warm glow in my chest.

“Oh, right,” I say.

“The seals aren’t that interesting, anyway. For my animal behavior paper we came down here to do a behavioral ethogram on the seals, where we each got assigned a seal and had to record what it was doing every thirty seconds,” Seb says.

“That definitely sounds more interesting than what I do in class,” I say.

“Not when the one I was watching slept solidly for three hours. You try writingstill asleepevery thirty seconds for three hours and see how interesting you find it.”

I laugh, and Seb throws me a grin.

“The albatross colony is up this way.” Seb points to a path leading up to the information center.

Once inside the center, we start by getting an introductory lecture on albatrosses from our guide and watching a short film about them.

Seb keeps flicking these little glances over at me, like he’s concerned I’m finding it boring.

And okay, it’s not as interesting as when Seb tells me animal facts, but I learn the Northern Royal Albatross has a three-meter wing span and flies nearly twelve thousand miles a year, and they can go years without touching land.

They also generally mate for life and can still be raising chicks in their sixties.

After our information briefing, we head to the glassed observatory to watch the large white birds nestled in the long tussock grass, their long hooked beaks and dark eyes visible even from a distance.

Then, one stretches its wings to take off.

The albatross is ungainly on the ground, stumbling about like a drunk sailor. But once airborne, it transforms, its massive wings catching the wind. It soars effortlessly in the sky.

Seb’s beanie is pulled low over his forehead as he stares at the albatrosses gliding over the headland.

I try to track the bird, but honestly? I find it difficult to tear my eyes away from the look on Seb’s face. No feat of nature can match his look of awe.

He slips a glance at me. “Aren’t they amazing?”

“Amazing,” I echo.

“We think we’re so clean and green in New Zealand, but because we had no native land mammals here besides bats, our island ecosystem is so vulnerable. Since humans arrived and introduced predators like rats, stoats, and cats, one-third of our native bird species has gone extinct. We had the largest eagle in the world. We had the moa, a flightless grazing bird bigger than an ostrich. We had the New Zealand laughing owl, the Huia, and the Adzebill. And they have all gone extinct, and eighty-two percent of our remaining bird species are endangered.”

“That’s a high percentage,” I say.

“I know. This is what I want to do with my life. I want to do everything I can to save the species we still have.”

Seb’s expression is so alive and passionate as he talks. There’s no trace of his usual shyness and awkwardness.

For an instant, I get a glimpse of the man Seb will become and have a flare of jealousy over the person who will get to be with him, who will receive the care, intensity, and humor that is Seb.

My jealousy is also partly over Seb himself. He has a passion and a purpose. He knows what he wants to do in this world. Unlike me who is so aimless, directionless.

“I think that is really…noble of you,” I say.