He glares at me. His eyes are as shiny as the surface of the water.
I say, “I don’t go over there that often. But she doesn’t leave the house, you know? She gets lonely.”
“I get lonely! I get lonely, you asshole! I hate humans!”
“What do you expect me to do? Fuck! You can’t just stand there—”
“Stand here?” His mouth hangs open. “Did you just say stand here?”
“—and fucking scream at me because you finally figured out you’re not my whole world.”
“Fuck your world! Fuck you and your human names your mom gives you and your brains and your lungs and your everything, because I don’t need any of it! This isn’t your world anymore! Take a look at where you are, asshole.” He splashes me with a webbed hand full of water. It’s so cold it burns. I scoot back.
“You can’t handle being fucking splashed!” He says, “You can’t even handle being here if I don’t keep you safe.”
“Yeah, let’s not talk about who’s saving who.”
“This is my world!”
Except it isn’t his world. It’s the fish’s world. And he’s not a human, but he’s not a fish, either. And it’s all crushing him and I don’t know what to do because I guess I’m not even a real friend or something.
And he goes, “I don’t even know your world,” and fuck, he better not cry.
Because I don’t know what to do. I invited him to live in my house, for fuck’s sake. That was the furthest I could go. How much of me does he seriously think is available right now?
I have other shit.
I close my eyes and breathe as deeply as I can. “Teeth . . . ”
What does he want me to do, grow a tail and swim with him forever? Forget about my family?
I won’t let myself picture it. I won’t think about it. I won’t imagine how nice the water must feel in the summer.
Because it’s impossible. So there’s no point in thinking about it. There’s no point in looking at him and wondering . . . because it just doesn’t make sense.
And thinking this truth hurts, because pretending I didn’t know it was so easy.
“I am so pathetic,” I whisper.
He mumbles, “I’m a fish.”
I guess he doesn’t know what pathetic means.
I need to get out of here. My lungs feel like they’re pushing through my rib cage, and where he splashed me is still stinging. And I don’t even know if we’re arguing anymore, but we’re staring at each other like there’s so much more we need to say, but he doesn’t know the words and I am not going to be the one to say it.
Because I have enough shit going on right now, and he was supposed to be the easy part.
And I might throw up.
I need to get out of here, but I can’t leave him like this. So I say, “Don’t you fucking dare go down to the marina on your own, okay? I mean it.”
And then he just snaps. “You don’t tell me what to do! Don’t you ever tell me what to do again! I hate humans!” He pushes off the dock and swims away.
I don’t stop him.
I shouldn’t give a shit that he’s going. That they’re probably going to catch him and beat him hard before they let him go. It shouldn’t matter to me. He’s just a fish.
I run into my house, ignoring my parents, who for some reason choose tonight to demand to know where I’ve been and why I’m all wet, and I run up to my room and I scream. And I’m ripping pictures off the walls—not even the pictures of him, because those are all hidden away—the ones of my family, my parents and my fucking fucking fucking brother, and I’m breaking my lamp because I threw it and I’m screaming.
And over the ocean, which started screaming and thrashing when I did, which knows exactly how fucked up this is, which is trying to swallow the fishboy before someone else swallows him, no one can even hear me, and no one even has any idea.
But I can hear him.
The ocean might be louder tonight than I’ve ever heard, roaring and growling, but I sleep right through it. I only wake up for the train whistle scream, the shriek of sharp teeth gnashed together, the hoarse warble from deep in his throat. The word please.
Magic word.
The silence.
It’s just the wind. It was just the wind, and it’s dying down now.
It’s nothing. It’s just this ghost of this boy who used to be.
I skip breakfast to go out early with peroxide, because I don’t have anything else to bring for a peace offering. And I can’t just walk around feeling like this, like I’ve swallowed a bucketful of sand. If that means I need to grovel, then fine, I’ll fucking grovel.
Because there’s always someone who’s more powerful, and ever since Teeth fed me that fish, it’s become really clear which one of us will sacrifice more than the other.
They better not have hurt him too badly.
“Teeth?” I get up on the dock and wait for him to come out.
He doesn’t.
eighteen
IT GETS COLD ENOUGH TO MAKE OUR FIRST FIRE. DAD’S WORRIED about the smoke and Dylan’s lungs, but he does really well. I think he’s happy I’ve been at home more. He glues himself to my lap and talks my ear off about the starfish he found on the shore this morning while he was out in the sand with Mom.
I know that even if Teeth were out in the water, he would have hidden from Dylan and Mom, so the fact that Dyl doesn’t mention him shouldn’t bother me. I shouldn’t even think about it. I shouldn’t even notice, really.
Dylan falls asleep, eventually, with his head against my shoulder. Dad goes into the kitchen to do dishes, and I can tell by the way Mom’s eyes track him that she wants to follow. She has this crazy look on her face like Dad is really attractive all of a sudden. Maybe it’s that everything has been so calm, all day—all week, even—and she can finally think about sex. It should gross me out, but I just think it’s kind of funny. My parents’ sex life is so incredibly far from having anything to do with me.
She looks at me and nods at Dylan, her eyebrows up. I mouth, “We’re fine.” She kisses the top of my head on her way to the kitchen. I hope she at least waits until she’s out of earshot before she pounces on him.
The ocean hits the rocks like a bomb, but Dylan doesn’t wake up.
I’m trying to figure out something else to think about, so my brain will shut up, TeethTeethTeeth, so I keep myself focused on Dylan as hard as I can. After a minute of this, I’m totally zoned in, like Dylan is the only thing in my whole life. The weight he’s gained makes him soft against my chest. I feel him breathing into my neck. I’m watching this spot on the back of his head where his hair’s a little thinner than the rest like it’s the prettiest painting in the world.
It’s hitting me that I have no idea what the hell I am to this kid.
There are eleven years between us. It’s not like we were ever really expected to play together. And I’m only just starting to accept the idea of him as a real person, and not a toddler in a hospital bed with bad lungs and the world’s softest cry.
I hold him a little tighter.
But can I be free? Can I get up without waking him up?
I’m tasting the salt and the wind and the great big ocean and no no no, not that kind of free. Home. Think about going home.
No. Dylan. We’re thinking about Dylan.
I want Dylan to be more than just how Dylan makes me feel. And I’m starting to get that he is. He’s here. He got well.
And now I guess I need to.
I’m still here about an hour later, when he wakes up and complains that I’m all sweaty and so gross and why won’t I put him down? And I pick him up and spin him around.
I guess I’ll figure it out. It looks like he’s going to be around for a long time.
And for a minute I’m warm. And I’m really not thinking about anything but Dylan, because he isn’t some abstract concept anymore. He’s this smile and these hands on my cheeks. Dylan.
It’s a windy night, and th
e water is loud and vicious and whipping against the dock. My parents fell asleep with Dylan in their bed, all of them curled into a ball.
I yell, “Fishboy!”
The ocean responds like a clash of thunder.
Screaming.
It’s at a lower pitch than before. Usually, he’s a whistle. Tonight he sounds like a boy.
I can’t see the marina from here. I should run down. I need to run down. I need a better reason not to run down besides that I’m so fucking scared.
“Teeth!”
Okay, so he isn’t the world’s best. In fact, he’s pretty much a total asshole, and he’s the biggest hypocrite in the world, and he thinks fish count as much as humans and whether or not that’s true it’s not something that can fit into my life right now, and he doesn’t even try to accept that, but he’s my total asshole and I can’t just leave him alone. That is not how this is going to work.
He deserves to be free.
I’m crying all of his names.
I can’t see the marina, but all I can picture is them ripping at him and crumbling him, and I don’t understand how he could let this happen.
Or how I could let this happen. Or why I can’t be a good friend to anyone in the whole world.
I don’t go to the marina.
nineteen
THE NEXT DAY, TUESDAY, TEETH STILL ISN’T BACK, SO WHEN Mom offers to go to the marketplace with me, I tell her no, I’ll go alone, it’s no problem.
She looks at me with a silly smile. “Just don’t take too long getting home.”
“I’m just walking down and then back.”
“Huh. I thought you’d want to stop by the house to spend some more time with your girlfriend.”
“Oh. Diana.”
“But you can’t marry her, promise me. We’d have the same name.”
Get me out of here.
“Yeah, I, uh, anyway, I think she can spare me for the morning.”
Mom smiles and kisses my cheek on my way out. I feel dirty for reasons I don’t want to think about.
I run to the marketplace.
So here’s what I’m hoping. I want enough fish so that I can get some for Dylan without trouble, but I want there to be a few less than usual, so I’ll know that Teeth has been gone all this time because he’s freeing more fish. He’s getting away. Maybe they catch him, but he has time to get out and breathe, but then he goes back in because he might be an asshole, but fuck, he’s brave.
So that’s what I want to see. Enough fish, but slightly fewer than usual, and I won’t have to worry about anything.
I’m early, and the fishermen aren’t here yet. I wave to a few people, then help Sam set up his bottles of milk. He gives me one for free in return.
Fiona is standing by the cliffs, looking into the water. I go over and stand with her, say hi.
She smiles at me. Her lips are dry, and they curl over her gums.
The fishermen hike up the hill, their boots squishing against the skin. They approach their stand and grin at us with gold teeth.
And they unload more fish than I’ve ever seen. Heaps and heaps of fish.
Fuck.
They have him.
I know I need to buy a few before I go, but I’m not sure I should be going anywhere near the fishermen right now. I might do something horrible if I do. Horrible for my family, at least.
I stay where I am, right next to Fiona. “The ghost isn’t with me,” I say to her.
She looks at me, her brows furrowed together.
I say, “I’m scared.”
“Where is the ghost?”
“Trapped.”
She nods. “The ghost is always trapped.”
“No, not trapped like this.”
She keeps nodding. “The ghost will always be trapped.”
“Why?”
“You just said it, didn’t you?” She’s looking at the water again. “Because you are scared.”
No fucking way. Not this time. “Thanks, Fiona.” I kiss her cheek and run to the fish stand. I throw my money down before I start wondering if I can kill someone with a paper cut to an artery. Leave them, Rudy. Leave them. I grab two handfuls of fish. One is still flapping weakly.
“Hey!” the one-eyed fisherman says.
“I don’t need them wrapped.” I swallow the instinct to say thank you. I stuff the naked fish into my bag. I run.
I need to find him. I need to find him. Holy shit, I need to find him before they get back. They must have him tied up. He has to be trapped somehow, or he would get away. I have to believe that he would get away.
One of the fishermen will be back soon; they never both stay at the market together for more than a few minutes. Once they’re done unloading, one will return and get back to work.
I’m too scared to call out. Too worried he won’t answer.
I scan the area as quickly as I can. The rowboats are both empty, save a pile of nets in one and a few spare fishing rods in the other.
I check underneath the boats. I better not find a body. He was screaming just last night. They couldn’t have killed him. No way. No fucking way.
I dig through a pile of nets. Nothing. I run toward the shrimp boat, that unused rickety thing. And there he is. I see the tip of a tail, tattered and bloody, peeking out from the inside of the cabin. If I didn’t know better, I’d never know it was anything but a bit of a discarded fish.
I’m inside. “Teeth.” It’s too dark for me to see anything, but I feel some part of him underneath my hand. It’s sticky and cold. Maybe his stomach.
He makes a noise, and I can tell both that he’s alive and that he’s been gagged.
“Okay. Okay, shh.” I try to crawl my hands up him to figure out where his face is, but there are so many ropes and so much blood. Fuck, I wish I could see him. I’m never going to be able to get him out of here in the dark.
I’m going to need to leave him and come back.
I find his face, finally, and tug the gag out of his mouth. He says, “Rudy Rudy Rudy,” over and over, his voice scraping all the way up to the roof of his mouth.
“Listen to me,” I say.
He’s quiet. I hear his chest growling when he breathes.
“Do you remember, in the cave, when you told me you would come back?”
“Uh-huh.” I hear his voice right on the edge of tears, and I also hear, behind me, the squishing noise of boots coming down the hill.
So I say, “I’ll be back,” as fast as I can, and I kiss his forehead before I can think of anything better to do. I’m out of there in a second, covered in his blood, and I grab my bags and scale the cliffs like a fucking master. Then I’m straight down the beach, into the water, washing myself clean. So cold, but the water is gentle, licking at the wounds that aren’t mine.
I come out and reclaim my bags. That fish that was wiggling isn’t anymore. The smallest one. I take him out and hold him. I stare into his eyes that don’t look anything like Teeth’s.
“Hey, it’s okay,” I tell him, even though he doesn’t speak English. “It’s all good. I’m going to save your brother.”
It takes me longer than it should to come up with a plan. I don’t know if that’s because the situation has warped my thought process, or if I’m just trying to avoid my only real option.
Or maybe it’s just because, to be lame and honest, what I really want to do right now is run to my parents and have them fix everything. But they don’t know about Fishboy, and I don’t think they’d be too pleased about saving the boy responsible for the fish shortage that nearly destroyed us.
There’s only one person in the world I can think of who can help me save him.
And the more I think about it, the more I realize there’s absolutely no way I can do this without her.
Diana takes a while to answer, so I’m practically throwing myself at the door by the time she gets there. “What do you want?” she says.
“I need help.”
“Oh yeah?”
Deep b
reath. “I need your mom’s gun.”
She raises her eyebrows, but not like she’s surprised, just like she’s ready for me to tell her more. Whenever I’m around Diana, I get the sense she’s already planned everything out, right down to what I’m going to say at every minute.
But I still feel like my tongue’s in my throat whenever I talk to her. Maybe my feelings about her aren’t as complicated as I thought. I really am easy.
“I’m not going to kill anyone,” I say. “Just wave it around threateningly or whatever.”
“And then have a lovely life in prison.”
“That . . . won’t happen.” I’ve only let myself glance over that thought. It’s a rule I made up a minute ago.
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.”
Fuck. How do people in movies do this? No one in movies ever goes to prison, unless they’re a bad guy. This is a rescue mission. So everything has to work out.
I say, “Look, the fishermen have Daniel. We . . . ” And then my chest is spasming when I try to talk. It feels awful. “They caught him trying to free the fish, and they’ve been hurting him really badly lately, and now he’s tied up and he’s just . . . he’s gagged and he’s bloody and he can’t get away, and they’re probably going to kill him if he stays there any longer, and we can’t just let him die. Or worse, and we can’t just . . . ”
Her eyebrows are still up.
“And he’s your brother,” I say. “You can’t let your brother die.”
“I’ve never even met him.”
But . . . he’s her brother. That means something. It always means something.
“He’s my best friend.” Even I know now that this feels like the wrong word for what Teeth and I are. But it’s the only way I can convince her to come.
“You’re just using me,” she says.
“It’s not that.” Or maybe it is. “I need you.” At least that’s true. Right now I need her. That isn’t what she wants, but it’s all I can say right now besides I need him, and that isn’t going to win me any points with her, I don’t think.
She says, “This doesn’t change the fact that you’ll rot in prison. Assault with a deadly weapon. That’s a major offense.” She nods.