Forgive My Fins

I scowl, still not certain that was praise.

  But apparently Calliope isn’t as doubtful. “Excellent.” She’s practically clapping. “Let’s move on to the second part of this exercise.”

  Great. The first part went so well, I can hardly wait for the second.

  “Now that we’ve established things you admire about each other,” she says, “it’s time to address the other side. I would like each of you to share one thing you would change about the other person. Try to make it a positive criticism instead of an attack. If you like, you might also touch on how you can help them achieve that change.”

  Well, at least this will be easy. I have a list as long as the Bimini Road of things I’d like to change about Quince.

  “Quince,” she says, “why don’t you go first this time?”

  All the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. If all of his “compliments” sounded suspiciously like criticisms, I’m almost afraid to hear an actual criticism.

  “If I could change one thing about Lily,” he begins. Then he’s quiet for several long seconds, like he has to think really hard about what he’s going to say. Just when I’m debating whether this is because he has too many things to choose from or because he can’t think of anything he’d want to change, he says, “I’d want her to see beneath the surface of the people around her.”

  What does he mean by that? What does he know about how I see other people? I see all the way down to his depths. And Shannen’s. And Bro—Oh. That’s it. This all goes back to the Brody thing.

  Figures.

  “Is this about Brody?” I demand, already certain of the answer.

  Calliope hushes me. “Explore that, Quince,” she says. “Why do you think that needs to change?”

  He kind of groans before quietly saying, “Sometimes I think Lily is too…self-involved to see more than—”

  “Excuse me?”

  “—what she wants to see.”

  “Self-involved? Self-involved?!?” I jump to my feet, unable to sit still. “Let’s talk about self-involved, Mr. Kissing Unsuspecting Girls in Libraries.”

  “Lily, please,” Calliope says. “Sit down so we can discuss this rationally.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that, Lily,” Quince says—and don’t think him using my actual name is going to calm me down this time—as he stands up to face me. “It’s just that you’ve been so caught up in Brody for so long and…” He runs his sandy fingers through his hair. “You don’t really know him. You’re in love with an image. And honestly, it’s a little…”

  My body stills. There’s something ominous in the way his sentence trails off. And honestly, I’m itching for whatever that brings. “What, Quince?” I demand. “It’s a little what?”

  He groans again, jamming his hands into his back pockets before looking me straight in the eyes as he says, “Shallow.”

  For a good ten seconds my mind is completely blank. No coherent thoughts form—it’s like I’m a jumble of words and feelings and…pain. That’s what comes next, an overwhelming pain. This is worse, even, than when Brody turned me down for the dance. A thousand times worse.

  “Lily, I—”

  “No,” I say, stopping the apology I know is coming. I don’t want to hear it. “It’s fine.”

  Calliope clears her throat. “Lily? Would you—”

  “You want to know the one thing I would change about Quince?” A feeling of empty calm washes through me. “The fact that he’s bonded to me.”

  He doesn’t have to say anything for me to know he’s feeling the same pain his words inflicted on me. I should be glad for that—it’s why I said what I said. But instead I just feel…nothing.

  Calliope stands and, very businesslike, starts gathering her belongings. “I think I’ve seen enough.”

  Good. I hope she’s seen how totally unsuitable we are.

  “There is a basket of food for your dinner in the blue pool,” she says as she stuffs her papers and notes and clipboards into her satchel. “I believe your father will be coming in the afternoon tomorrow to administer the final test.”

  “All right,” I say. Even though I haven’t done anything but make a necklace and talk about Quince today, I feel completely drained. (He has that effect on people.) More than physically. Emotionally.

  “Good night,” she says, waving at us before turning and diving into the sea.

  For several long minutes after she’s gone, we just stand there, silent on the beach as the sun sinks into the horizon. Which is fine with me. I don’t think there’s anything left to say.

  Quince apparently doesn’t agree.

  “Can I explain?”

  “I don’t think there’s anything to explain,” I reply.

  “There is,” he insists, stepping into my line of sight. “I know what I said hurt you, and that’s the last thing I want.”

  “Then why?” I feel tears threatening, but I quickly tamp them down.

  “I’m not sure,” he says, not exactly reassuring me. “It’s just that…there are so many things I like about you. Your generous heart and crooked smile and zillions of freckles.” He lifts his hand, like he wants to touch those freckles, but drops it back to his side. “How you always smell like lime and coconut. The list could go on forever. What I said…that was the only thing I could think of that I wish was different.”

  Five minutes ago I didn’t think there was a thing in the world that would change how I feel about Quince. But he did it. While I have an endless list of things I’d change about him, he has an endless list of things he likes about me. And only one thing he doesn’t.

  How can he make me go from being so mad at him that I could breathe fire, to making me feel completely rotten for even thinking that?

  Yet another thing about him that completely puzzles me.

  “Let’s eat,” I say, because I’m suddenly famished and a basket of food is way more appealing than continuing this conversation.

  “Sure,” Quince says, uncertain, but trying to sound up-beat. “I’m so hungry, I could even eat sushi.”

  I laugh. Partly at his joke, but partly at the ridiculousness of this situation. I mean, how did I—Thalassinian royal princess—wind up bonded to a land lover who can’t swim and hates sushi? If ever there was a more unsuitable match, I haven’t seen one. Daddy has to realize that, and if the first two test results don’t convince him, then I’ll just have to make sure the third does.

  I follow Quince toward our dinner. By this time tomorrow, we’ll be back in Seaview with this whole experience behind us.

  19

  After we’ve finished off the dinner basket—fresh uni and unagi sushi for me, grilled tuna steaks for Quince—I’m not tired at all. The sushi has revived me and, somehow, cleared my mind. Enough to know that I don’t want to talk about all those things Quince said. Enough to know a dangerous subject when I hear one.

  Rather than sink to the depths of the blue hole in a quest for sleep, I kick up to the surface and lie out on the sand, staring at the night sky above. So many twinkling points of light. All the mer technology in the sea can’t re-create their delicate beauty.

  Quince follows, lying at my side with his arms folded behind his head.

  For several minutes neither of us says a word. Like we’re just content to lie next to each other and stare at the stars. Then, before I know I’m going to do it, I break the silence. “All the stuff you said you like about me…how did you know all that?”

  I feel him tense. I sense every muscle in his body tighten, like a flight response, before he forces himself to relax. It’s the bond, I know, giving me this insight. That doesn’t make it any less alluring to be able to tap into someone else’s emotions.

  “I don’t know,” he finally says on a big exhale. “I guess I was paying attention.”

  “I…” What do you say to something like that? “I didn’t know.”

  “Well, either I didn’t want you to know”—he shifts, rolling over onto his side to face me—“or you didn’t
want to know.”

  Fighting the urge to roll onto my side, which would bring us uncomfortably face-to-face, I say, “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you have been too caught up in chasing your dream guy to see much of anything else.”

  “That’s not fair.” I roll to my side before I think better of it. “I love Brody. Why should I notice whether my pervy next-door neighbor has been watching me? Shouldn’t the person you love come before everything else?”

  Quince’s eyes look accusingly into mine. “You only think you love Brody.” He digs a hand through the sand between us, like he needs a physical outlet. “Love isn’t about obsession. Love is about…connection.”

  “Obsession?” I gasp. “I’m not obsessed. I mean, not any more than any other girl in love.”

  “Right,” he says as he rolls away from me, onto his back.

  “Besides,” I say, scooting forward so I can poke him in the shoulder, “what would you know about love?”

  When he laughs, a self-mocking kind of laugh, I know I’m about to be in big trouble.

  “Oh, Lily,” he says, shaking his head. “I know about love. I know about wanting and dreaming and wishing with every piece of your soul. I know enough to recognize the difference between the parts that are real and the parts that are only in my fantasy.”

  He turns his head slightly to face me, and I find myself saying, “L-like what?”

  “Like when she cries and my heart tears into little shreds, and all I can think of is making her forget the source of her sadness.” His face is blank, emotionless. His words—and the underlying emotion bombarding me through the bond—more than make up for it. “That’s real.”

  My voice is barely a whisper when I ask, “And fantasy?”

  “Believing she might ever feel the same way.”

  When he swings into a sitting position, I have to stop myself from reaching for him. My hand itches to wrap around his biceps and pull him back down and…I don’t know what. But that would sweep me into a totally different current, one I’m not prepared to drift with.

  I lie there, staring at his broad back, just visible in the starlight.

  “I think I’ll sleep on land tonight,” he says, pushing to his feet.

  I feel helplessly glued to the ground, unable to make myself move or speak or do anything at all.

  He pauses, like he’s waiting for me to respond. Then, when I don’t, he adds, “I’ll be under the palm if you need me.”

  “Quince,” I call out. I’m not sure what I want to say, but I have to say something. I scramble to my feet and gather my courage. “Why didn’t you ever tell her? This girl you love. Why didn’t you tell her how you feel?”

  His shoulders tighten and then relax. He does that a lot. Lets the tension take over and then releases it. That must be how he always remains so calm, why I can never set him off like he does to me. He doesn’t fight the emotion, he just processes it.

  “Because”—his voice is heavy with a kind of resigned sadness—“she doesn’t want to know.”

  That’s the moment that I know, for certain, that he’s talking about me. I might have speculated and wondered and imagined, but when he says that, I know with unwavering certainty that the “she” he’s talking about is me.

  And I feel like the biggest coward in history for letting him walk away.

  Sometime just before daybreak I finally fall asleep. I spent hours tossing and turning and twisting in the still waters of the blue hole before finally succumbing to exhaustion on the ledge Quince and I shared the night before. So I’ve been asleep only an hour or two at the most when I feel someone rock me awake.

  “Lily,” Quince says, his hushed voice full of tension, “wake up.”

  I blink into the dawn light filtering through the water. “What?”

  “Shh.” He holds a finger to his lips, then waves a hurry-up gesture at me before kicking into the depths of the hole.

  Still dazed by sleep, I follow. When I reach the seafloor, I ask, “What’s going—”

  But he wraps a hand over my mouth before I can finish. Then, before I have the nerve to bite him, a shadow passes above.

  A human shadow.

  “Oh, no,” I whisper. “What are they doing here?”

  “Fishing,” he says. “Their engine woke me up. I watched them long enough to see they were set up with fishing gear, not diving. We should be safe down here.” He glances up nervously. “At least until the sun moves directly overhead.”

  He’s right. As long as the sunlight streaming through the water comes at an angle, there will be shadows for us to hide in. But by noon we’ll be in direct view through the crystal-clear water to anyone looking.

  “Maybe they’re morning fishermen,” I say. “Maybe they’ll move on soon.”

  Besides, it’s not like the blue hole is teeming with fish. Most forms of sea life are smart enough to know that a contained pool of water is not a safe place to hang out. And the isolation means they could get into the pool only during extremely high tides and severe storms.

  “Guess we’re stuck here for a while,” Quince says, hugging the wall.

  “Yeah, guess so.” Something about his distance—it’s emotional and physical—brings back memories of last night. “Look, Quince, about last night—”

  “Forget it,” he says before I can finish. “We both said a lot of things we wouldn’t normally say. Let’s just chalk it up to a long, emotional day. Okay?”

  “Oh.” I’m not sure why I’m disappointed. “Okay.”

  I try to tell myself it’s the bond, that the warm emotions I’m feeling toward Quince are nothing more than a magic trick. But they sure feel real.

  I’ll have to sort them out…as soon as we’re not in danger of discovery.

  We settle in along the wall, waiting for the shadows above to disappear.

  Two hours later, I’m starting to get nervous. I mean, what if they don’t leave before noon? What if they see one of us? I would be hard enough to explain, with a green and gold tail fin for my lower body, but what about a human boy who’s been underwater for two hours? That opens a whole other can of worms.

  As if reading my thoughts, Quince says, “We have to do something. We can’t just sit here waiting for the last few inches of shadow to disappear.”

  “Agreed,” I say. “But what?”

  “I’m not sure.” He rubs his temples, like he’s been thinking hard with no results. “We have to get their attention away from the hole, but I don’t know how to do that when we’re stuck in here.”

  “If only we could get to the sea,” I say. “We could create some kind of diversion to make them want to leave.”

  “But they’d see us,” he says. “It’s not like we can just pop up on the surface unseen. It’s clear as day up there.”

  “We need to mask their vision for a few seconds.” I try to imagine what could conceal us from sight. “Just long enough to make a dash for it.”

  “Yeah,” Quince says with a laugh. “We could use a thick fog bank right about now.”

  Thick fog. That reminds me of something Daddy taught me when I was a little girl, a just-in-case defense mechanism for situations like this.

  “You’re a genius!” I squeal, flinging my arms around his neck. “A fog bank.”

  “What?” he asks, leaning back. “You got a weather report you wanna share?”

  “No, silly.” For the first time in a while, I feel like I have the upper hand between us. “I am the weather report.”

  He scowls in confusion, but I don’t have time to explain. The sun is rising fast and taking our shadows with it.

  “Listen, I can alter the surface temperature of the water enough to make a thick fog. It won’t last long. Ten seconds, maybe fifteen.”

  “That’s okay,” he says. “That’s plenty of time. Then what?”

  “Well, I think the only thing that will send fishermen to different waters,” I explain, “is the promise of a bigger fish.”
>
  “And that fish would be…”

  “Me.”

  “Absolutely not,” he replies. “I won’t take the chance that they’ll see you. Or, God forbid”—he winces—“catch you.”

  I see the real terror in his eyes. His implacable calm is finally gone, and I’m too focused on alleviating his fears to even enjoy the moment. But I’ve outwitted fishermen dozens of times before. They’re probably sun blind and half drunk by now, anyway. Placing my palm against his cheek, I do my best to reassure him. “They’ll never see more than my fin.”

  He struggles for a minute, torn between what I think is his trust in me and his desire to protect me. It’s scary how good I’m getting at sensing his emotions. Too bad that insight will end with the separation.

  He finally covers my hand with his. “Tell me what to do.”

  “Stay here.”

  “Are you kidding?” he demands. “I’m not letting you go out there alone and risk your life—”

  “I’ll be careful,” I insist. When he looks like he’s going to protest more, I add, “You’ll only get in my way.”

  I know that comment hurt. He likes to be the rescuer, the white knight. The thought of being helpless must be completely foreign to a guy as capable as Quince. But this is one situation where he has to let someone else save the day.

  When he doesn’t immediately agree, I ask, “Trust me?”

  He takes a deep breath and nods.

  Then, before we can say more—or change our minds—I swim up to the edge of the shadow and focus on the surface water. If I can cool it to below the dew point, it should create a sudden bank of fog above the pool that will spread out over the island. Like I said, it won’t last. But it should be just enough.

  I focus all my energy on chilling the water above.

  When the sunlight turns from clear golden beams into blurry gray light, I make my move. As I break the surface in terraped form on the opposite side from the fishermen, I hear one of them say, “Where the hell did this come from?”

  I don’t stop until I reach the shore, diving and transfiguring simultaneously. Then, kicking as fast as my fins can move me—because I’m certain that once the fog has cleared, they’ll be peering down into the hole and maybe spying the human-shaped outline at the bottom—I swim for their boat. It’s the longest thirty seconds of my life.