by Meghan Edge
makes me. I've never previously been interested in girls. I mean, none of my family had really been interested in anyone until 'the one' came along, but Brooklyn. I like Brooklyn. She is my city, my heartbeat and my home.
“I've got to go,” she says breathlessly, her eyes wide and afraid. “I'm sorry, I've got to go.”
“But wait!” I call after her, my arm reaching, grasping for her. I want to grip her back. I want to hold her to me and kiss her again. She hurries down the sidewalk, platform heels clicking, never looking back at me. When I lower my wrist, I realize it's naked, a white stripe of flesh the only proof it had ever been there. My bracelet is laying on the ground in a puddle of rainwater.
She doesn't come to class for two weeks. I'm not entirely sure why she does come back, but she does, sliding into her seat next to me quietly, refusing to meet my gaze. I've already gone through a sort of grief at the loss of her friendship, my heart feels tight and pained in my chest. When she doesn't talk at me, or whisper to me, or even make fun of our teacher's comb over, I think I get the picture and I don't wait for her after class. I just leave. Brooklyn follows me, though, catching my hand in hers.
“I'm sorry,” she says, and I give her a look over my shoulder. I can't help the way I react to her, but I also can't bring myself to lose the attitude.
“For what?”
Brooklyn chews her plush lower lip thoughtfully, and I find myself watching her. Red lipstick stains white-white teeth.“I can't explain. I got scared, I guess. I really like you.”
“I'm scared, too. I mean, you're my friend. And there is a lot at stake for me with these kinds of things,” I tell her impatiently before checking my words. “I mean, because I don't have a lot of friends.” True, and yet not the truth that I meant.
Brooklyn shifts her feet, unsure of herself. “I would like to talk to you at school. I want to go to movies and dinner with you. Sometimes I want to fall asleep with you there, and I want to wake up with you. I can do those things, but I need you to promise me something.”
“What?” I ask, and I know already I would promise her the world.
“Don't fall in love with me,” she says. I touch my bracelet, a flush creeping over my nose and cheeks.
“I can promise that won't happen,” I tell her.
Her smile is electric.
And so we resume our friendship. We talk to class and eat lunch in the spring sunshine. She chats at me and I listen in my near-silent way. She talks about clothes and movies and books and theater and history and weaves stories for me as though she'd been there and done everything. We see films on Saturday nights, only now my hand is always safely twined with her larger one, our fingers twisted like soft serve ice cream. Melting together. We kiss after dark in the street, on my sofa and on my kitchen table when we can't make it to the living room.
I never ask when she knew she was a woman. I accept it because it's her.
I find that it never bothered me anyway.
She brings it up, though. On the grass, stretched out on a bright day when the sun was blinding and every student's thoughts were far from school. Her face tilted to the sky, she asks.
“Do I bother you?”
“No. Why would you?” I wonder. Her white teeth bite down on her pink lipstick coated lip. Make-up, hair, clothes – my friend is always changing.
“Because of how I look?” she prompts.
“No,” I tell her again, soft and serious this time. My cuff buzzes and I wonder if it feeds off of my nervous energy. “I mean, it's what you are. It's who you are. If you were anything else, I wouldn't love you.”
It slips out, and it's not how I mean to word that, but it's there. I hadn't meant to tell her, and I hadn't know I'd fallen. But the way her face falls, I know it was the wrong thing to say. I regret it. My wrist is cold from where my cuff has fallen off, and that's when I realize it's true. I love her. I love this woman. No matter the body she was born with or the way she presents herself, whatever she is, I love her. The thing is, I'm just as surprised by my confession as she is. My siblings had struggled with their love, unwilling to admit it to themselves. They fought the curse and in the end, it was broken. For me, it was almost as easy as breathing to love her.
Well. For five seconds it was easy.
“I wish you hadn't said that,” is her quiet reply. “I really wish-”
“It's alright,” I whisper back, finding the blinding light of the sun suddenly cool. I pick up my bracelet from where it lays on the grass. Brooklyn is sad and I made her so. I feel it in waves rolling off of her. She doesn't say anything when I push myself to my feet and leave.
I need the water.
My kind are not bound by the water like the Mer. We don't have to live by the sea if we choose not to. But sometimes, when we're upset or hurt or worried, we can find comfort in its presence. I need to sleep, to feel the ocean pulsing around me. I need to lose myself while I hurt. I swim out and dive under the waves, down down down to the sandy bottom where no one will find me. I sleep for days. I'm missing class, blowing my good grades, but I ache and I need to be alone. Nestled in the cold waters, the icy deep darkness, I sleep, curled up like a sunken statue. A forgotten marble girl.
I emerge days later, clothes dripping with water as I pull myself up out of the surf. She's waiting for me on the beach, a thermos and several towels by her side. I'm startled to see her there. I wonder if she knows how long I was under. She doesn't look at all surprised.
“How did you know?” I ask her. She taps a long finger against her pert nose.
“I could follow your scent to Heaven, Eileen,” Brooklyn tells me.
Her burden is so different from mine. A canine creature sent to eat a hundred hearts in a hundred years. If she succeeded she would find humanity, if she lost she would disappear, and she could only eat the hearts of those who truly loved her. She tells me about herself while she bundles me into warm towels and wraps my hands around the thermos lid full of hot coffee.
“I had one left, with only two years to get it, and I just never wanted you to be the one,” Brooklyn says quietly, scanning the water, not looking at me. “Because it meant I would lose you.”
“It's yours, you know,” I reply, shivering, teeth chattering. I would sacrifice anything to keep her safe. “I'm offering it to you.”
“I won't take you,” Brooklyn says fiercely, her tone so strong I look at her. She's nearly crying. “You're too important to me.”
“But you'll die without it,” I point out. I reach out to squeeze her hand.
“I'll die if I do,” she says gravely. Her dark eyes look into mine. “You're the first one that I ever cared for. The first one who accepts all of me.”
“Well, that's just how I love you,” I whisper. We can't change what we were born to be, either of us. We can't fight and I certainly can't live without my heart-
I look at my wrist.
Or can I?
I wrap my bracelet around her wrist, and I know I'm not the only one who feels the power in the air shift. Something is different, the atmosphere charged with some sort of addicting electrical feeling. I don't know if I've broken her spell (it's unfair if I haven't because she has set me free), but at least this way she knows she has my heart.
Amelia & the Circle
It's never easy.
I don't want anyone thinking that it's easy.
It takes more than just one day deciding to stop hating yourself for things that are out of your control. It takes more than just deciding to be happy, but those are all good steps to take when you're trying to survive in this world.
Maybe it started with the compliments my sisters and brother gave me. Maybe it started the moment my family gave me the key. All I know is that one day I just got so tired of being sad all the time that I decided to change it. Baby steps. Those were the key. Start with not wanting to hurt your sister's feelings by denying her compliment to you. Never tell her that her perception is wrong just because you don't see what she see
s. Stop worrying about what the scale says or what the magazines show you, and worry about how you feel on the inside. Buy yourself pretty things to wear. Even if you feel like a pig in peacock feathers, lie to yourself and tell you that you're beautiful because it's not a lie and you really are. See the magic inside you.
At least, that's how I did it.
All the selkies have fallen in love and it's been time for me to move on. I've found a new job, a new place to live. My wardrobe is stocked with lovely things that I wear to make myself feel good, and I can't get enough of shoes. I let myself say thank you when strangers tell me I'm pretty, and I let myself feel good.
I locked the key away in my jewelry box. I know the curse isn't over. One day I'll love myself enough to love someone else. We'll have beautiful children and we'll want the world for them. I'll want to tell them how much I love them, but it won't matter because they won't feel it like I do. I'll give the oldest the key and I'll let the cycle start all over.
Curses might be broken, but they never really fade away.
