Page 69 of Oceansong
“I’ll stay with you, if that’s okay.”
Celia’s anxious energy rubbed off on Angie, and Angie held her arms over her stomach, dreading what news would come. Eva had to be okay,right? Maybe she had just worked overtime and somehow forgot to tell her daughter—
“Celia?” Grace approached them.
Celia stood at attention. Her face hardened. “I’ve seen doctors with that same look when they’re about to give a patient’s family bad news.”
Angie’s gaze darted between the two women, her next breath catching in her windpipe. Grace hung her head. “We found her, pulled her out from the water. She’s unconscious, and the paramedics are with her now.”
“What? No!” Celia began to push her way past Grace. “Where is she? Where’s my mom?”
“Celia, wait!” Grace ran behind Celia. “You’re going the wrong way!”
Angie followed as they changed directions, and they stopped in the middle of their main gangway, where two paramedics were on their knees performing CPR and a group of workers cluttered around them watching the seas, hands on their gun holsters. An ambulance was parked nearby.
“Mom!” Celia shrieked, wedging her way between the paramedics and dock workers, and collapsing at Eva’s side, her body racked with sobs. “Mom? Come back. Please come back. Don’t leave me all alone.”
“I’m sorry, we couldn’t save her,” one paramedic said. “We tried.”
With a roaring in her ears and a numbness in her cheeks and chest, Angie walked to Celia’s side and kneeled beside her. Eva lay supine, bloated and pale, her lips blue.
Celia’s wails and cries rang through the open sky, and Angie’s heart broke.
Friday evening came, and Angie waited for Kaden at Creston Harbor’s lighthouse before the sun descended. She replayed her night with Kaden over and over in her mind, wishing she could go back in time and take back her confession. Though she meant every word, she should never have said them aloud.
She was moving back to Seattle in less than a month. If she made it to the first day of class. The thought turned her nerves into fireworks. She should be elated at what her future held. Instead, stress and frustration overshadowed whatever happiness may have been bubbling inside.
She checked off the other reasons in her mind: There was a war. Kaden was a merman. She lived on land; he lived in the sea.
Self-loathing festered in her knowing she was betraying her bàba andher people.
An impossible situation that could never be.
It was cruel to lead Kaden on, thinking they had a future together, especially given their circumstances.
Both of them would be better off if they parted ways now.
“Did you wait long?” Kaden approached the shoreline. He took her hands in his and squeezed. The broad smile faded as he studied her face.
“What’s wrong?” Angie quirked an eyebrow.
“Your face. It’s awash with pallor, and there is smoky puffiness under your eyes. Your lips are no longer that beautiful pink. You are sitting here, slumped as if holding up the weight of your body is too much.”
“That’s a really poetic way to say I look exactly how I feel. Exhausted.” She covered her yawn.
Kaden curled the distal part of his tail and used it to give him a forceful push onto the seaside.
Tell him now. Cut the cord.
The words rose to her throat, ready to be vocalized.
But damn it. She cared for him, and it was much too tiring to fight the feeling. The look on his face, his smile, was so heartfelt.
“Sorry. I’m beat. I feel like my head is going to explode if it keeps pounding. This was supposed to be a fun, educational, relaxing summer. I feel like I aged ten years.” The words tumbled out of her mouth in a single breath. Pausing to think through her words would overwhelm her fatigued brain. She straightened her back, and then collapsed again. She swallowed hard, blinking back tears. “More of our workers disappeared. One of them was Eva, someone I’ve known since I was fourteen. Found out about her yesterday, when I saw her daughter at the docks.”
Kaden parted his lips, but Angie hurried before he could utter a sound. “Do you know what happened to her?”
“I—” The word stuttered.
