Page 92 of Bewitched By the Sea Monster
I tucked my knees up to my chest, trying to physically hold myself together.
“Would you like to speak…talk?” Alistair asked.
“In a minute.” Right now, I had to fight to keep my guts in place.
“Okay.”
I pressed my forehead to my knees.
Alistair made low, thrumming noises. Reminding me, again, that he was there. But he otherwise let silence fall over us.
And the motions of his body, as he bobbed his head in time with the waves, combined with his gentle noises were comforting. Like being rocked to sleep, smooshed safely in the arms of someone you loved, while they murmured reassurances in your ear.
Which was a thought that set me crying.Again.
Because it made me realize I’d never had that kind of loving security with Jackson. Or anyone, really. I’d had to go halfway across the world and perch on the head of a sea beast to find those kinds of feelings.
How pathetic.
“Pippi?” Alistair whispered.
“I’m sorry.” I wiped a hand over my face. “I’m lousy company tonight, aren’t I?”
“You could never be lou-lousy,” Alistair said. “I only wish I could help.”
“This helps, actually. Being here. With you. It’s helped. Even though it doesn’t look it.” I scrubbed more tears away and laughed. Bitterly. “My mom used to say tears were how our souls shed their scars. I guess I’ve got a lot of scars. And they’re not even…I mean…” I sighed. Chewed on my lip, rolling it between my teeth until the pinprick of pain plugged the worst of the flood. “I said I wanted to make tonight about knowing each other. But I’m not always good at...” I waved my arm over myself, remembered he couldn’t see me since I was above his eyes, and amended, “I’m not good at talking about me. So, this is gonna be different. I guess. A story. Maybe if I make it all a little less personal, it won’t be so weird. Y’know?”
“I think I do,” Alistair said.
I sighed. Got my nerves in a big ole snarl, trying to figure out where to start. But then I felt Alistair. His calm. And I grasped on to it, suckling at his emotions, leeching off them, until my own stilled.
And then I knew where I had to begin.
“There was this girl once,” I said. “She had young parents. Her mom’d only been seventeen and her dad two months past his eighteenth birthday when she was born. They’d loved each other then, when they were young and idealistic. But as the years passed, they drifted apart. And they fought.Constantly.Stewing in their own bitterness. And they pulled the girl into the pot to stew along with them. Because she could feel their emotions, and to be constantly boiling in anger and hate and disappointment—it wore on her. She did anythingshe could think of to turn the burner off. Singing, dancing, making her parents cards and drawings, acting out scenes from hermom’s favorite shows—even though the girlhatedthose shows—because her mom used to put them on to drown out the sounds of fighting. The girl triedeverything.And she had some success, at first. When her parents focused on her, they calmed. But eventually it stopped working, and nothing the girl did helped anymore.”
It was easier talking like this. Pretending I was talking about a fictional girl in a fictional drama.
It was easier to pretend this wasn’t my life.
“The girl’s parents finally went their separate ways. But they’d inflicted wounds upon each other that would never heal. Her once fanciful mom turned bitter and sad. Her father decided he’d rather pretend he’d never had a daughter. But the girl kept trying to please them both. Because that was all she knew how to do.
“She went through high school and worked her tush off to get straight A’s, and started looking at colleges, even though she didn’t want to. She had other dreams. To explore the world. Write a book. Live a life for herself for the first time. But her mother, who’d been so bitter for so long, was proud and boastful of her daughter going to college. And the girl liked when the people around her were happy. So she forsook her dreams and went to school.”
The next words thickened, turning to syrup in my throat. I had toreallyfight to choke them out. “Then the girl’s mom got sick. And there was nothing the doctors could do, nothing the girl could do. So she kept going to school, kept showing her mom the near perfect grades. And her mom was content when she died.Proud.The girl told herself she was at peace too, even though she wished she had spent those last months living a life with her mom, instead of grinding away at a college degree.”
The sob hurt as it punched through my chest. And I meanpunched. It came out with enough force to rattle my bones.Even Alistair flinched, caught off guard by my keen. He chuffed, billowing out a gentle fountain of steam from his nostrils, comforting me, but he said nothing as I collected myself and finished the story.
“After college it was off to corporate America, where the girl kept busting her bum, bending over backward to make her bosses happy, to keep her clients content, and to make sure her friends and coworkers never wanted for help or companionship. And when…”—a foul, lemony taste swished over my tongue—“when she met the man who flipped her world upside down, she bent over backward for him too. Making sure she was cheery when he had a bad day, watching the movies and shows he wanted to watch, going where he wanted to go, acting the way he wanted her to act, dressing the way he wanted her to dress…” I pressed a hand to my mouth to still the trembling. “Because she loved him. With her w-whole heart. But that love was draining her, and she didn’t even realize it. Until…”
My heart was about ready to break out of my chest. I laid my hand over it, trying to cajole it into slowing. “The girl was taken to a faraway land. Amagicland. And it was like she woke up. For the first time, she looked at her life and realized she hadn’t been living. She’d been sinking into a quagmire, struggling with the weight of keeping everyone happy. And that quagmire is going to consume her sooner, rather than later. But it’s home. Everything she has, everything she loves, or thought she loved, is in there. And if she starts f-fighting to be free of it, she’ll lose everything. And thatterrifiesher. But she knows if she stays, the swamp is going to consume her, and that scares her too. But at least she’d be home, you know? She’d be home…and there’s comfort in being at home, even if it’s suffocating her. And…Gosh, saying all this…Phew! What a sad little story my life makes, huh? The girl who lived for others but forgot to live for herself.Pathetic.”
I sniffled. Had a hiccupping sensation that I thought was bringing more tears. But surprised myself when I belched a laugh. A bitter, humorless, lifeless chuckle. The kind people forced out in awkward situations when they didn’t know what else to do or say.
“I’m sorry, Pippi,” Alistair said, in that gruff, sincere way of his. Like he was pouring his whole heart into the apology.
“It’s not even worth being sorry over. It’s just sad. A pitiful story with a pitiful ending.” I absently reached down, rubbing my hand over the spiky scales on his head.
He gurgled contentedly. “Your story hasn’t ended.”
