“Now I know my emotions are what make me human. And that love is as real as the healing, incredibly human tears on my face.”
“Spoken like a true writer.”
“You would know.” I wink. “You have a way with words yourself.”
“I had a good teacher.”
We stay in this place. I take in his summer scent and he holds my gaze, challenging me to keep the intense stare without looking away for fear of what he might see. I match his stare with everything inside me, unafraid for the first time to let him look into who I am.
“I found him.” He reaches into his pocket. Withdraws my bracelet. “The guy who broke River’s heart.”
“When?” My pulse picks up as he slides the pearls over my wrist.
He doesn’t draw back, instead wrapping his fingers over mine. “A few weeks now. I couldn’t figure out how to tell you at first.” Merrick hangs his head, regret shaking his shoulders. His story spills out in run-on sentences and whispered curses. At the end, he doesn’t meet my gaze.
Now it’s my turn. I place my palm to his jawline, nudging him to look at me.
When he does, his dark but forever warm eyes express more emotion than a hundred thousand words could. “I’m sorry. For what he did. For not finding him sooner.”
“Thank you. For keeping your promise.” Our foreheads meet, tips of our noses barely touching. “He doesn’t matter. River wouldn’t want me to dwell on revenge. She would hate to know I wasted my time on someone who didn’t value hers.”
“I’ve never seen you like this.” His admission warms my cheeks. “So calm. Present.”
I close my eyes and linger on his words. “Now is all we have. And right now I am completely in love with you, Merrick Prince.”
My heart sets the truth free and a moment of terror grips me. How could he love me when I still struggle every day to love myself? Then again, a life without love—without Merrick—is a life of drowning. I’d rather struggle together than face another second apart.
I push aside the old voice of fear and uncertainty and close the distance between us, matching my lips to his. He doesn’t need to speak the words. He’s written them, made them permanent on a page, and etched them over my heart. Besides, Merrick’s soft response now speaks more than words ever could. Our lips part and join, like the waves meeting the shore. We don’t come up for air for a while. We kiss until our breaths aren’t our own and there’s no telling which one of us draws back first.
“You stole my line,” his lips say against mine. “That was from one of my letters.”
“Are you going to arrest me for plagiarism?”
“Most definitely.”
We share another long embrace and several more tentative kisses before the sun fades. When we stand and walk hand in hand up the beach, we collect the bottles until our arms are as full as our hearts. We walk back to town, ready to celebrate together. Our holidays will always be bittersweet, missing the faces of those no longer with us. Sorrow remains an unwelcome companion in the days ahead.
But joy follows close behind. And laughter. We can take the journey side by side, find healing in sharing every heartache. Discover hope in every tear we freely shed.
And maybe—just maybe—our own version of happily. Ever. After.
Enden.
(Which, in Danish, means “The End”)
After
“When we are at the end of the story, we shall know more than we know now.”
—Hans Christian Andersen
I never thought I’d get here.
To the beginning.
To the place where everything starts over. Fresh. Bursting with new life, and color, and love.
I soak in the light that seems to drown me now. Though the darkness is never fully gone, I’ve learned how to fight it. It only takes one drop of sunlight to break through an Abyss.
It might be impossible to change the past. But who said starting over had anything to do with going back?
No matter where after begins, there’s always a chance for a new before.
Before starts right now. Because I choose after.
And after will never be the same again.
Author’s Note on Hans Christian Andersen’s Tragic Tale of Tears and Tortured Souls
Oh, Dear Reader, welcome to the end.
And, as it turns out, the beginning.
This tale has been a journey, to say the least. When I began writing this book, I had no idea it would be about mental health. The Disney girl that I am wanted . . . well, Disney. But something happened during the writing (and rewriting) process that took me down a path I never expected. A road of learning about myself and others who have experienced trauma and heartache. There are more of us than we know.
“But a mermaid has no tears, and therefore she suffers so much more.”
This single line from the original tale sent my mind spinning. While I’m a Disney girl through and through—and allude to the 1989 film that brought Disney animation back to life throughout this book—I was also heartbroken that these words were somehow lost in the film adaptation.
For those who aren’t familiar with the story as it was first told, Andersen wrote of a little mermaid who longs for a human soul. Because mermaids do not possess a soul, they become as the foam of the sea when they die. And without a soul, mermaids cannot cry.
This simple concept got me thinking about life as we know it. About stoicism and the idea of being tough or “just getting over it.” As if it were that simple. For those who have never experienced depression, anxiety, or trauma (physical and emotional), it can be difficult to explain the concepts of numbness or dissociation.
I cannot represent every situation, and I won’t claim to. I am also not a licensed counselor or therapist. But I do know something about grief and loss and being told to “get over it.” When I assumed I’d cried every last tear an ocean could hold, I reached a point where I felt removed from my own life. As if all the things that had happened to me were happening to someone else. I couldn’t cry and I couldn’t feel. There were no more tears to shed, and that was a new kind of suffering. A suffering inside myself that no one else could see.
And that is why this story hangs on this single line written by an author I could only aspire to be like. It is a story not necessarily retold, but rather reimagined.
If you have been or are in a place where your tears no longer fall, I relate to your suffering. And it’s a suffering far greater than many could ever understand.
There is much more I want to say on this topic. Ways I want to explain why this novel took the direction it did. But there are not enough pages and never enough words. So I leave you with this—reach out to someone. A family member. A friend. A counselor. You have a voice. You don’t have to drown alone. Talk to someone you trust and let those tears come.
I’ll be right there with you in spirit.
You are not nothing. And you are not alone.
With all my heart,
Discussion Questions
Warning! Spoilers Ahead
Several themes from the original, dark fairy tale of “The Little Mermaid” are addressed throughout the book. Hans Christian Andersen wrote, “But a mermaid has no tears, and therefore she suffers so much more.” Discuss what you think this means on an emotional level for Brooke, Coral, and Amaya Hope. Does Merrick experience this type of “suffering” in his own way?