“I mean, I’ve seen a movie, but not like this. On the big screen surrounded by people. My father thought it was silly and common. My oldest sister went once.”
“And? What was the verdict?”
“She said it was magical.”
“You haven’t seen anything yet.” He led her to a spot he’d reserved for them earlier in the day. An oversize blanket with a picnic basket at the center. Excitement sped his pulse. He’d never taken so much care to plan a date. His father usually did that for him.
They sat and a vendor called through the crowd as the previews played. “Popcorn. Cotton candy. Ice-cold Coca-Cola.”
Merrick opened the basket and pulled out a to-go container of scones from the same tea shop they’d visited in June.
Coral stared. Her eyes glistened.
“I figured since we didn’t get to finish the last time, a do-over was in order. There’s no whipped cream or marmalade, though. It would have gone bad.”
Her lips pressed and she shook her head. “No. This is perfect. Thank you.”
Merrick watched her as she ate. He watched her eyes on the screen as the opening scene brightened the night.
As she brightened the night.
He leaned back with elbows locked. Then he hunched forward over his bent knees. Then his arms were behind him again and he was basically lying down, fingers clasped behind his head.
Why was he acting like such a spaz?
While Merrick was all nerves, Coral didn’t move. Her knees had to hurt after kneeling for so long. Merrick tried to focus on the movie, but stray hairs kept falling away from their tucked places behind Coral’s ears. She had a tiny, brown, apple-shaped birthmark beside her left one. It could only be seen when her hair was pulled back. Every time a strand fell, the mark disappeared again.
He coughed but she didn’t react. How could she remain so still? He was practically jumping out of his skin at her nearness.
What. Is. Wrong. With. Me? If this were Nikki, or any other girl for that matter, I’d have made a move by now.
Other girls were predictable. In their revealing dresses and so much makeup caked on their skin that a guy had to wonder what they were hiding underneath all that paint. Coral didn’t wear makeup. Her eyebrows were so light, they almost blended in with her skin. Her dark eyelashes contrasted, framing her two-tone eyes, shocking against her pale complexion. She rarely spoke but always listened. On guard but begging to be seen.
She was something else.
Merrick didn’t want to be that other guy ever again.
The air seemed to change as the final scene rolled. Merrick observed the other couples cuddle closer. An old man and woman sat in a pair of matching lawn chairs. The man leaned in and kissed the woman’s cheek. His lips lingered and he nuzzled her skin with his nose. She giggled, batting him away, pretending she couldn’t stand him. What a cornball.
I hope I end up like him.
The music swelled and half the audience clapped and cheered as if they didn’t expect the happily-ever-after ending. Like they had zero clue the princess and her prince would end up together.
It’s why Merrick loved the classics. Every time was as good as the first.
When the credits rolled and the theme song faded in, the old man took his wife by the hand. They swayed in the sand as if they were the only two people in the world.
“Shall we?” Merrick offered his hand, palm up.
She placed hers there and he guided her to stand.
Coral often seemed a little uneasy on her legs, reminding him of a toddler first learning to walk.
Merrick placed a firm hand on her waist and guided her arms into position. He drew her in, the music accelerating his confidence. “Trust me. Pinky promise.”
She seemed to relax at those words. They swayed at first, nothing more than a back-and-forth rock. Merrick didn’t mind. As long as she was near, they could have simply stood still.
When they locked eyes, everything in him wanted to close the last bit of distance between them.
But her expression wilted and he held back. Or maybe she held back? “You’re safe,” he told her. “You’re safe with me.”
“Nothing is safe. No one. Everyone leaves eventually.”
“I’m still here.”
“For now.”
“What are you so afraid of?”
Her body stiffened and they stopped swaying. “You’d never understand.”
“Try me.” Merrick attempted to move her into rhythm with the music again.
Her resistance was painful.
“I’m here,” he said. “I’ve been here. I’m going to be here. You can’t get rid of me.”
She released him and took a step back.
He tried not to let his frustration show. “Why do you do that? Why do you push me away anytime we start to get close?” The words spilled out before he could swallow them back.
Her chest heaved and her eyes narrowed, transforming her once again into the withdrawn and closed-off girl he’d first met. “You know all about pushing people away, don’t you, Merrick? Your dad. Your sister.”
“Don’t bring Amaya into this. You don’t even know her.”
“I know enough. The bits and pieces you’ve told me. She may have stopped cutting, but she hardly eats, right? She inflicts pain on herself so she doesn’t have to admit how much it hurts that your mother abandoned you both.” Her breaths were short, quick, hot.
Merrick could hardly breathe.
“You walk around with your foolish ideals and dreams of your mom whisking you away to a better life. Get a clue, Merrick. There is no such thing as better. Your mom’s not coming back and Amaya’s going to slip away before you finally realize she’s not okay.”
Several of the couples near them had stopped to stare. The credits rolled in the background. They had become the main source of entertainment.
A curse left Merrick’s lips. Old habits died hard.
The magic between them had broken.
Coral took her cue and exited stage right.
Was he expected to handle her constant roller coaster? One minute she was up, the next she was diving off a cliff.
“Don’t just stand there, son.”
At the word son, Merrick froze.
But his father was not the one calling him by the term he’d come to despise. It was the old man. The cornball who’d kissed his wife on the cheek.
“Go after her,” he said.
His wife nodded. “You won’t regret it.” The elderly woman bent down. When she straightened she handed Merrick their flat paper lantern and a lighter. “We’ve had a lifetime of wishes. I think you need this more than we do.”
She turned to her husband and kissed his chin. They gazed at each other with so much love, with so much understanding, Merrick wondered if there had ever been a chance for his parents.
Probably not.
But their story didn’t have to be his. He thanked the couple, grabbed the picnic basket, blanket, and notebook Coral had left, and sprinted up the beach after her.
He would follow her. Again.
He would always follow her.
To the bottom of the sea and back.
Thirty-Four
Coral
Where were tears when she needed them?
Coral wanted to cry so hard and so loud and so ugly that her father and Jordan would hear it from a million miles away.
She wanted her face to get red and splotchy. She wanted to sob until she fell asleep and then awakened again to cry some more.