She wanted her tears to fill the ocean. Because then she could walk away and finally, finally start somewhere new. Coral wanted to let it go. All the pain, all the hurt, all the spiraling thoughts and reliving of nightmares. She couldn’t do this. These emotions, this Disease, was killing her. Day by day. Week by week.
Merrick only made it worse.
Every kind word he said, every moment he proved he was nothing like her sister’s prince, only tortured Coral more. Now she couldn’t stand to lose him. Now he was a part of her after. It was only a matter of time until he became nothing but before.
Fire lit the sky as it had the night of Red Tide. She didn’t bother going inside the cottage when she got home. Her grandmother would be asleep, and Coral wasn’t in the mood to answer her questions with fake responses like “It was fine,” and “Yes, I had a lovely time with the boy I’m probably falling in love with but push away every time he gets close because I know he’ll eventually leave and this can’t last and . . .”
Coral kicked a potted plant over and stormed around the back of the house to the ladder that rose to the roof. She climbed the rungs, heart prepared to fall from her chest and smash on the concrete below. When she reached the top she stepped lightly, finding her balance, until she worked her way to the spot toward the middle that was flat enough she could sit comfortably.
The cottage rested on the crest of a sloping hill covered in ice plants that produced little purple flowers. A private beach in the shape of a crescent waited below. During the day the water sparkled so blue she could imagine herself in a more tropical setting. Now it bled ink. Coral wanted to dip her pen there, to write everything she felt so she could get it out and away.
But her notebook waited on the beach. With Merrick. With her heart. Without a way to escape her own whirring thoughts, she sat naked, helpless, exposed. If she couldn’t write them, they stirred inside her, unable to flee.
So she watched the fireworks and let her heartache drown her. They were almost soundless from this distance. Glittering and lovely and unreal.
“Like Merrick,” she said aloud, tasting the words she needed to believe if she was ever going to survive. “He isn’t real.”
“Pretty sure I am, actually.”
Coral whipped her head toward his voice. Her heart leapt but she covered it with a look of disdain. “Did you follow me here?”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Did you want me to follow you?”
Yes. “No.”
“I don’t believe you.” His deadpan voice was more serious than it had ever been. “In fact, I’m pretty sure you left this on purpose precisely so I would follow you.”
He climbed a little higher and produced her notebook.
“You walked all the way here to bring me that?”
“Yes and no.” He set the notebook on the roof and disappeared for a moment. When he returned, he carried the picnic blanket and . . . Was that . . . ?
“I felt like our do-over needed a do-over.” He climbed onto the roof beside her, paper lantern in hand and blanket draped over his arm. When he joined her, Merrick laid the blanket across her legs, then opened the lantern. Next he pulled a lighter from his pocket.
“Where did you get that?”
“Questions, questions. Can’t you ever be in the moment?”
Could she?
Merrick lit the lantern in silence. “Make a wish. Anything you want. Then we’ll send it out to sea.”
She faced the water. She used to wish upon sea stars. Her grandmother would take her to find them. When they found one, Coral would close her eyes and hope for some silly thing. But this felt real, as if she had a single chance at a wish that might actually come true. She didn’t want to waste it.
“Whatever your past holds,” Merrick said, “we’ll get through it. Together.”
Coral closed her eyes. She pictured Merrick by her side. With that image so clear in her mind, others of the crown princess and Red Tide receded.
“Got one?”
She hugged her knees and faced him, searching his eyes. Nodded. Could he see through her now? Could he know what she wanted in this moment, in the here and now?
Merrick lit the lantern, only briefly taking his eyes from Coral’s. He held on to it for a moment. The warm light illuminated his skin, washing his face in an orange glow. As he released it, his gaze stayed fixed on hers. Though Coral’s habit was to look away, she willed herself to stay with him. She shut the door on the past and let the future stay right where it was.
The lantern took height, soaring down and away to the water. Coral freed a breath and made her wish again.
Merrick inhaled. Their faces hovered inches apart. He searched her eyes now. She gave the slightest nod. Would he notice?
But he saw.
Merrick closed the distance between them. First his thumb found her jaw. He traced the line of it, his gaze trailing down and then back up.
Coral kept her hands laced, arms wrapped around her knees for fear she might try to escape if she let them free.
Slowly, gently, purposefully, with so much care Coral wondered if he thought she might break, Merrick pressed his lips to hers.
Warmth filled every inch of her. Her chest swelled. Fear closed in, try as she might to keep it at bay. Her lower lip quivered against his and her throat grew tight.
He pulled back an inch. “What is it? Did I hurt you?”
No, she wanted to say. But you will.
Coral wanted to stay there with him as he kissed her again, then drew her in to rest her head in the soft space between his chest and shoulder. They watched the lantern drift over the water until it disappeared. The sight made her think of summer. Of the bright days and warm nights that ended too soon.
She watched it vanish before she was ready to let it go.
Her sister had been right about one thing.
“Give your heart to one and you can never go back.”
Why hadn’t she listened? Though she no longer held the same desire to drown a prince, she still wanted to find him, if only to ask him why.
Why didn’t you love her?
Why wasn’t she enough?
Soon Coral would ask those same questions of Merrick. He would move on and she would end up like her oldest sister. Then Red Tide would come for her too.
Merrick never loved me.
He never will.
Thirty-Five
Brooke
After
Hope’s memorial takes place the last day of July. I pile into the van with the other girls. Jake and Mary have shotgun. I sit in the back, stare out the window, and ask why.
Will nothing ever change?
I’ve gotten into the habit of taking the sea glass bottle and my journal with me wherever I go now. The pages are packed. I’ll need to start a new one soon. I open the cover and scan the now-full page of quotes Hope wrote.
“Sometimes . . . the smallest things take up the most room in your heart.”
—A. A. Milne
We drive over a bump as I press the words to my chest. The smallest thing did take up the most room. She still does.
A sharp turn onto the highway has me reaching for the overhead handle. I check my bag. The bottle remains intact, wrapped and padded inside my new UC Berkeley sweatshirt. I have one month until I leave Fathoms Ranch behind and trade it for a dorm room. Jake helped me fast-track my application to Berkeley (helps when your therapist knows the dean of admissions) and even found some scholarship money that hadn’t been claimed. That, plus the work-study program with the university’s paper, put me halfway there.