Page 112 of Bewitched By the Sea Monster
It’s what I called being wrapped in a blanket with another person, cozying up together until you roast…
A burrito.
“A burrito a day keeps the doctor away…”
Indigo and I had burritoed frequently. Until my mind, my ambition, myselfishnessstarted to wreck our relationship.
Onyx laughs and says, “Ah, ye’ve got some memory comin’ back, eh? Enjoyin’ yer brain now, Alistair?”
No.
I know she knows that, so I don’t say it.
“I always wondered what she saw in ye.” Onyx sniffs.
“Likely the same thing you saw in me once,” I say. “You hate me now, Onyx. But you didn’t always.”
Onyx purses her lips. “No. Yer right. I didna always. Ye were a bit of a buffoon. Likeable enough. Harmless, I thought. I didna figure ye for a selfish sort until it was too late. She already loved ye. Committed to spendin’ her life with ye.” She’s crying now.
I look away.
Because seeing people cry makesmecry, but I can’t shed tears while trapped in this monstrous body. Instead, they burn inside me, begging for a release they’ll never find.
And this hurt goes deeper. Because when I see Onyx cry, my mind thinks it’s Indigo weeping. And I am pulled to comfort her. Ease her pain.
They are sisters—twins.Onyx’s hair is longer, and she has a dimple in her chin, but she is otherwise identical to Indigo.
Orwasidentical.
Onyx is thirty-five now, whereas Indigo will forever be twenty-nine.
I close my eyes.
I’ve grieved her, my beautiful Indigo, with her keen humor and steadfast spirit. The calm to my chaos. The steady beating heart of our relationship. I’ve spent nights in a rage, hatingmyself for the part I played in her death. Other nights, I’ve mourned, wishing I’d been the one to die instead. If any magic existed that could trade one life for another, I would havegladlycast that spell. But it doesn’t. And I can’t. No matter how I wish for it, I can’t trade fates with her.
I’ve pleaded for death to come for me anyway, to take me away from my broken heart.
I’ve hurt. And I’ve despaired. And I’ve healed. Accepted.
The final stage of grief, as they say.
I’ve accepted that I will never see her lazy smile, hear the syrupy drawl of her voice, or the pleasant way she hummed along to the Beatles. Indigo never did anything fast. She lived her life like the flowers she adored—slow, and steady, and savoring every moment. Her magic was that way too. Sluggish. Onyx used to joke that it was stolen magic, that Indigo had pilfered it from her in the womb. But it was just…Indigo.
I’ve accepted that she is gone.
I’ve healed as much as I could.
But I’ll never stop missing her.
I’ll never regret that I said yes when she suggested going with me onSaturn’snext voyage. Her way of trying to reach me, to talk to me, while I’d been in the bowels of my obsession.
I’d told her to get on that ship.
And then I’d beenlate.
I can’t even remember what I’d gotten held up with.A meeting, or something equally as stupid.
“The ship leaves in five minutes, Alistair. What do you mean you’re still at the office?”
