“You gave us quite the scare.” She set the corked, frosted, blue sea glass bottle on the table beside my hospital bed.
I stared at it. Why had she saved it? Amid the vases of flowers and balloon bouquets and the dozen cards from the girls at the ranch, it looked . . .
Ordinary.
“You have a visitor,” Jake said that first day I sat up without help.
I knew who she meant, but I’d been too prideful to face the one who’d sent me away. “I don’t want any visitors.”
“Understood,” Jake conceded, palms raised.
She didn’t push me or prod me or try to guilt me into changing my mind.
Which was why I didn’t refuse her visits. Jake showed up every Saturday for the past three months. I didn’t say much and she didn’t ask. When she picked me up this morning, I didn’t question her.
“Hope’s been asking about you,” Jake says now, turning off the ignition and shifting the van into park. “She’s calling you a mermaid. They all are. I’m still stunned you survived those temperatures for that long. The ocean was watching out for you.”
I shoulder my tote bag and exit the car at the same time she does. How do I respond? I still don’t know what to make of all this. Of my vivid hallucination or why I survived. I stick with the safety of my silence and follow Jake inside.
The moment we cross the threshold, a whirlwind of commotion ensues. Two Goldendoodle dogs greet me, jumping and pouncing and licking my hands. Mary shoos them away and hands me a cup of hot cocoa. The girls gather around. A few I recognize from the group session, but new faces have been added to the mix as well.
When Hope, the smallest of all, presses through them, she offers me a dried, wrinkled, and faded paper heart. “You dropped this. I saved it.”
I try to deny it, but even the ocean in all her vast depths doesn’t have as much soul as this little girl has with her genuine tenacity and very real heart.
I clear my throat and meet her eyes. “You saved it all this time? Why?”
She exchanges a knowing look with Jake. “I had a feeling you’d be back.” Hope winks. “Wanted to make sure you remembered.”
She doesn’t have to continue. Because despite my hypothermic hallucinations and the craziness of that January day, Hope’s words stayed with me.
I am not nothing.
“Thank you,” I say. Then, “I’m sorry.”
She shakes her head. “You can be sorry for dropping my heart. You can even be sorry for running away and almost dying. But you don’t get to be sorry for existing anymore. Okay?”
My chest grows tight. My eyes sting. I have no profound words to match her eleven-year-old wisdom, so I nod and repeat, “Okay.”
How fitting this one little word feels as I clutch my quote tote and head upstairs.
When I’m under the spray of the warm shower, alone with nothing but the artificial rain as my soundtrack, I say it again. “Okay.”
And when I’m lying in bed? I breathe the word. Nod as I drift off to sleep. Speak it again.
“Okay.”
Twenty-Four
Merrick
Anxiety grated Merrick’s nerves all the way back to Grim’s.
Coral sought a prince.
He’d given her his word. Promised to help her find one. But as he walked home, doubts weighed in, making Merrick question their entire conversation.
What if his father had sent her? Would Hiroshi send a teenager as a spy? Maybe she wasn’t a teenager. What if she just looked young? Had his father somehow discovered the police report from that terrible January night? If Hiroshi had tracked Merrick down, why didn’t he act?
Merrick frowned as he entered the dark beach house. His first instinct was to check on Maya. He crept upstairs, where he found her sound asleep in Grim’s guest bedroom. Merrick exhaled and made his way back down to the kitchen.
He cursed. Too loudly for this time of night, but who cared? His father would pull a stunt like this. To make Merrick go insane. Leave him wondering if he was being watched or followed.
Eventually, he’d snap.
But that day was not today.
Whoever Coral was, Merrick would find out. If she was a spy, he’d—
“What am I doing?” He hung his head and massaged the bridge of his nose. “This is crazy.” He spoke the words aloud because somehow it made them more concrete. He’d let his father get into his head. Maybe in the city, Merrick had been a hotshot bachelor. Here he was a nobody. It made things simple. Something he’d never experienced.
Grim’s laptop sat on the counter and Merrick pulled it toward him. He logged in to several social media platforms in different tabs and started his nightly keyword search.
“It’s late, man,” a groggy Grim said from the couch. “You should get some shut-eye.”
Merrick picked up the laptop and moved toward the stairs. “Sorry. Didn’t realize you’d fallen asleep down here.”
Grim sat up, rubbed his eyes, and waved him off. “Sit down.” He walked to the kitchen and opened the fridge. “Hungry?”
“I’m good. How was tutoring?”
“Can’t complain, my friend.” Grim took a swig of OJ straight from the carton, then wiped his mouth with the back of his arm. “Job’s a job, am I right?”
Merrick nodded and found his place at the counter again. His eyes were dry and he could feel the lack of rest wearing on him. But he didn’t have time to waste. He’d sleep after he found their mom. She would understand what Maya needed and she wouldn’t send her away, like his father had wanted to.
Grim pulled up a bar stool and joined Merrick at the counter. “You forgot the book, didn’t you?”
Merrick winced. “I’ll grab it tomorrow.”
“Can I ask you something?”
Merrick opened a new tab and typed in the address for the next social media platform. “Yeah.”
“Maya’s cuts?”
An inward groan rumbled through him. “Not this again. They’re old.” The site opened and Merrick’s eyes widened. The person who used the device last hadn’t logged out. His sister’s profile photo stared back at him. “Has Maya been on here?”
Grim shrugged. “She wanted to see her friends. I swear, she didn’t post anything.”
Merrick swabbed a hand over his face and scanned her profile. Then he checked her messenger box. Her search history. All looked untouched. Or she’d covered her tracks. “I don’t want her on here.” Merrick couldn’t prove it, but he’d had a sinking suspicion his sister’s “friends” were part of the problem back home.
“You’re avoiding the question.” Grim nudged him.
Merrick looked up from the screen. “We’ve had this conversation. She’s not cutting. She’s taking classes online under a fake name and address. As soon as I find our mom, we’ll be out of your hair and Maya can get treatment close to home. She’s fine.”
“Hey now, friend, you know this isn’t about that. I have no problem with you staying here or being your wingman when it comes to running from the law. I know your intentions are good. So I’ve taken a risk. And gladly. But your mom—”
“What about her?”
“Did you consider maybe she doesn’t want to be found?”
The question stilled Merrick’s fingers over the keys. “This is my father’s doing.” He resumed typing. Clicked through a few profiles of women who fit his mom’s demographic. Nothing.