Page 121 of When We Believed in Mermaids

I saw them sometimes on the beach, late at night. Saw them bending their heads together and laughing, as if they were partners in some secret caper. It made me jealous enough that I think now, I did know. Appropriate or not, they had an intimate relationship, one that had nothing to do with me.

But what does all that mean for my relationship with him? My memories of him? All this time that was the one thing I could count on. Dylan loved me. He made my life better. He saved me, in so many ways.

It’s still true. It’s also true that he contributed to my sister’s downfall.

I don’t know how to reconcile those two versions of him.

On the water, I’m fine. I don’t have to think. I don’t have to feel. I can just ride the waves, become part of nature. Out there, I wonder if that’s what Dylan was doing, dissolving into nature. Trying, anyway.

In the end, that was exactly what he did. Drowning was the perfect death for him.

The waves are honestly not great, and I head back after only a half hour, peeling off my wet suit and donning a pair of sweats and a T-shirt, my hair tied up in a knot on top of my head. My mom won’t care.

My phone dings with a personal email, and I stand against my Jeep on the bluff where Eden used to be and open it.

Mi sirenita,

The sky tonight shines with orange light, reflected in the water. I walked to Ima for dinner, where I go very often now, and ate roast chicken and thought of you.

I hope you’re doing well. Your sister invited me to come for supper, and I told her I would be pleased. Sarah will be sad that you are not with me, but I will bring her fountain pen ink and tell her it comes from you. Perhaps you’ll truly be here soon. We are all waiting, wishing for your company.

Yours,

Javier

Every day, he writes something. A paragraph, like this one. A fragment of a poem—he’s quite fond of Neruda’s love poetry. It’s touching and sweet, and I write him back only every third or fourth time. It seems a foolish connection, one bound to fade away. And really, we had only a few days together. It’s ridiculous that I should be in a funk about it. Which my mother has carefully not commented upon.

I stand on the bluff over the empty cove and feel the ghosts around me. Dylan leans on the car, smoking a joint. My dad slaps the dust off his jeans, his watch in his shirt pocket. We never found it, and I cried for days over that one thing.

Neither of them was perfect. One was a hard man raised in a hard place. The other was warped by abuse.

Just as Josie was.

The revelation is soft, rolling through my body like a summer breeze. It eases the knots in my belly, unfurls the protective thorns over my heart. Maybe I don’t have to choose between Dylan as a villain and Dylan as my beloved hero. Maybe he was both. Maybe Josie was—is—both too. Heroine and villain.

Maybe we all are.

The ocean is calm. For the first time in weeks and weeks, I feel calm too. I still haven’t sorted out what to do about my job. I am tired of patching up humans who hurt themselves, and maybe I want to go back to animals. My first love was the sea, animals and fish in the water, and God knows they could use all the help they can get right now. I have plenty of money saved. I could look into arenas of study.

Maybe.

My stomach growls, and I hop in the Jeep, drive to my mom’s place. The sun is starting to peek out through the clouds, and it lifts my mood slightly. Maybe I just need a long vacation in a sunny place. I climb the stairs, sorting through the possibilities—Tahiti, Bali, the Maldives.

Spain.

Even the word makes all the hairs on my body hurt. I have to stop on the stairs and breathe through it, stuffing all those things back where they belong. Did I really fall in love with Javier?

Not in less than a week. That’s just ridiculous.

But then why do I miss him so much? It feels like the stars have fallen from the sky. Quite apart from everything else, I miss Javier specifically. I miss talking to him. Being myself with him.

I stomp the rest of the way up the stairs, yank open the door, and halt, uncomprehending.

“What are you doing here?”

“Surprise,” says my mom.

“Surprise!” says Sarah, and she bolts across the room to fling her body at me. “We all came to see you!”