Page 47 of Stranded With the Grumpy Mermaid

I close my eyes.

“But, Neri, you’ve spent years trying to make yourself so perfect nobody could ever question you. Don’t you think it’s time you live for yourself and not just to prove yourself?”

My throat tightens. Dad has a way of seeing right through me and to the heart of any problem.

“I’m serious. You cannot build your whole life around stopping people from being idiots.”

A laugh escapes me before I can stop it. It hurts.

“There she is,” he says softly. “I miss that sound. You have your mother’s laugh.”

That nearly gets me crying again.

“She was proud of you. God, she was proud of you. But she loved you regardless of the degrees, the papers and the career. She loved you for you, little seaweed. Just as I do.”

The gravel blurs under my shoes. I wipe at my face.

“She would be proud of the scientist you became,” he continues. “But these last few years? Watching you make yourself smaller and smaller because you thought it made you tougher? That would have broken her heart.”

“Dad.”

“I’m not telling you what to do about Rafe. That part is yours. And I am definitely not telling my only daughter to throw away a career she worked this hard for because of some man.”

“He would love being called some man.”

“I’m sure he would.”

I laugh again.

“I’m only saying this: your mother wanted you to live. So did I. We still do.”

The dusk has gone darker while we talked. Below the path, beyond the dock lights, the sea moves against the granite.

“Dad, I have to go.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

We hang up. I don’t go back to the reception. I take the path downhill instead, through the spruce, to the little shingle beach south of the dock where the shore drops away dark and clean.

There’s nobody here. Just me and the ocean. I shifted on the island with Rafe standing on the shore. I haven’t shifted since. Now I need to know if I can do it without him.

I step out of my ceremony shoes and leave them on the shingle. The blazer comes next, then the rest, folded on a dry rock above the tide line. The water reaches my ankles.

Cold and familiar.

I walk deeper. My heart is beating hard, but I keep going until the water reaches my waist.

The change comes.

No witness. No fire. No one holding his breath on shore.

My body remembers. My legs merge beneath the surface. Teal and silver scales catch what little light reaches the water. My gills open.