by Sara Ella
Coral took the small piece of cardstock and stuffed it in her bag without a glance. “May I go now?” She couldn’t stay in that office one more minute. It was too much to try to understand why this strange woman was being so kind.
“My door is open.”
When she was free, Coral swiped at her dry eyes and ran to the coastline. Shells bit at her soles and the water tugged at her ankles. She looked up at the white houses along the hills with walls of windows and balconies that overlooked the ocean. Then she wrote. She wrote until she couldn’t write any more.
For an afternoon, Coral forgot about the prince she was supposed to find and the hatred she was meant to have.
Instead, she thought of colors, and the music they once made.
Twenty-Six
Brooke
After
I find Jake alone in the gathering room.
It’s different, warmer than my previous venture here. Another two months until summer, but I can already feel the new season inside this room. Yellow daisies dress the windowsill and the heat from the afternoon sun bathes every surface in an orange hue.
I welcome the colors that have started to grow vibrant again with winter’s end.
“Our first real one-on-one.” Jake draws my attention away. “I can hardly believe it.”
“Me either.” Nerves unearth old insecurities. I find my neutral perch on the chaise I sat on my first day. This time I fold my legs beneath me and sit back, allowing myself to get comfortable.
Jake sits across from me, and I brace for the thousand questions she’s kept at bay these months.
I fidget with the tassel on a throw pillow.
“Nice bracelet,” Jake says. “Is that new?”
The question takes me aback. I glance at my wrist. At the pearls I’d tossed in a drawer earlier this year. Why did I put them on this morning? Nostalgia?
“They were a gift.” I don’t elaborate.
She doesn’t push me. “You must have so many stories, Brooke.”
I start, stare. This is the part where I’d normally let off a smart remark, up my defense. But I’m tired, and despite the fact that freezing to death is months behind me, I’ve never quite been able to shake off the cold. I tuck my socked feet in between the cushions and sigh.
“Whenever you’re ready.”
I avoid her gaze, but a glance sideways reveals she holds no tablet. No clipboard. No recorder. I’m still skeptical, but . . .
Has Jake ever given me a reason not to trust her?
“Why did you save me? You knew I wanted to die.”
“I knew you thought you wanted to die.”
“Same thing.”
“Is it?”
I rub my arms, shift so the sun finds my skin. “I don’t know.”
Jake stands. She lifts the lid off the ottoman a few feet away, withdraws a knit blanket. She sets it on the edge of the chaise, a few inches from my thigh. An invitation.
Finding her seat again, she nods. “It’s okay not to know, Brooke. That’s the first step toward healing. Knowing that we don’t have all the answers all the time. Understanding there isn’t always a why and sometimes we feel the way we feel because we do. And that’s okay.”
I want to believe her. So. Much. I’ve been prodded with questions from the doctors at the hospital. People from my past told me to move on. But Jake has allowed me to be exactly where I am.
And here I wanted to believe she was another villain in this tragic tale.
“What do you want, Brooke? Right now. Right here. Do you want to die?” Her forward question holds nothing back, but a sensitivity lingers there too.
I don’t respond for a stretch. Then, “I want to start over.” It isn’t until I say the words aloud that I realize they’re true.
“Fathoms is the perfect place to do that. When I received a call about you last fall, asking if we had an opening, I sensed you were someone special.”
It’s the first time we’ve talked about it. What brought me here. And who I left behind. “She wanted what was best for me, I think.” I only wish I noticed sooner.
“You’ll be eighteen in December.” Jake clasps her hands between her knees. Hunches her back. “We’re here for the now, but we also try to help young women like you who are nearing adulthood. I know the idea of school can be overwhelming, but we have opportunities. College campus visits take place over the summer. We set you up with a student mentor. It’s a great experience and one I highly recommend.”
A few months ago I would have laughed at the idea. Rolled my eyes. Now expectation and possibility swell, awakening something inside. “Okay.”
“Glad to hear it. Course tutors come in on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I’ll shoot a message to your tutor and let her know you’d like some program information. Do you have any particular interests?”
“Reading. And writing. Sometimes.”
“Have you ever thought about writing down what happened?”
I shrug. I’ve more than thought about it. “I’ve tried. But it’s like reliving the past. Going through everything all over again. I can’t even talk about it. How am I supposed to write it down?”
“That’s one way to look at it.” Jake taps her lips with one finger, then gestures toward the bookcase. “But what about writing it as if it happened to someone else?”
“Someone else?”
“You know, like a story you’re removed from. It still becomes concrete. Valid. Permanent. But putting those experiences on a page, through the eyes of your characters, the control shifts. Rather than those thoughts controlling you, you have the power. You’re free.”
Free? Impossible. “I’ll think about it.” I haven’t written anything in ages. How will I know where to begin?
“That’s all I ask.” She rises, then pauses at the sliding barn door. “When you use your voice, whether through speech or the written word, it has a way of healing. And healing is what we’re all about here at Fathoms.”
Healing? I’ve been a firm believer there’s no coming back—no healing—from what happened.
Now I only want the hope she’s offered to be real. And it’s in this small admission to myself that I know I trust Jake. It feels like nothing and everything at once.
“It’s free time now.” She checks her watch. “It’s as good a time as any to get started. Maybe even make a phone call to a loved one? There’s a landline in your room.”
I nod at the hint.
Jake disappears and closes the door softly, leaving me alone with only the folded blanket and my thoughts for company.
The phone. When was the last time I picked one up? I’ve been so angry with the person who sent me here. And now?
Her voice is the only one I want to hear.
I take the blanket and wrap it around my shoulders. Upstairs, I find my door, my name now written on a hanging chalkboard sign. The familiar handwriting matches the quote in the journal I found on my first day.
I touch the loops and flourishes, tracing the letters that make up me.
“You are not nothing. And neither am I.”
Hope’s statements sink in as I enter my room. I’ve never been able to shake them. In a way, it was Hope’s words that brought me back. That kept me going when I should have been gone.
I leave the door cracked, close my eyes, and ground my breaths. My memories find me when I’m alone. Sleep is my usual defense. Now Jake’s nudges spark and awaken.
I find the phone on my nightstand. I don’t have the number memorized, so I dial information. When the operator answers I say, “Ocean Gardens Assisted Living.”
She tells me to hold. The seconds stretch to a full minute before she patches me through. When a man answers, “Ocean Gardens, how may I direct your call?” I ask to be connected to room 104.
The line goes silent.
My heart races.
The man comes back on the line. “I’m sorry, there’s no answer. Would you like to leave a message?”
I hang up without
responding. The past dances before my vision, taunting, teasing. A prelude to the nightmares that will inevitably follow when sleep takes over.
Instead of giving in, I walk to the window and fling the curtains wide, letting all the light in. Then I remove the sea glass bottle from my bag and set it on my desk as a reminder.
I imagined plenty that night.
But finding this bottle? That was real.
I sit and switch on the desk lamp. The leather journal challenges me to open it. To ruin its perfect white pages with my not-so-perfect story.
“It’s you and me.” I stretch and flex my fingers, choosing a simple black pen from the cup at the corner of the desk. Pen because I can’t erase it. Pen because if I’m going to do this, I’m going to make it real. I open the cover and find the quote Hope wrote on my first day. It’s been joined by a second, this one perhaps even more prominent than the first.
“Life damages us, every one . . .”
—Veronica Roth
“Hope, how do you know me so well?” I ignore the second part of the quote. I’m not ready to go there yet.
Life does damage us. But I’ve at least decided to give this damaged life a chance. Fairy tale or not, I flip to a fresh page and put down the first words that come to mind.
“Once upon a time,"
And so my story . . . her story . . . begins.
Twenty-Seven
Merrick
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Grim glanced out the rearview mirror. He kept the car idling, in case they needed to make a quick getaway.
Merrick slunk low in the passenger seat as he had become accustomed to doing the last several months. “No,” was all he said. In fact, this was so far from being a good idea he almost told Grim to make a run for it right then.
Almost.
The metered beach parking lot was busy. He didn’t dare tell Nikki to meet them at Grim’s house—aka the castle, aka the secret hideout. It had taken a fair amount of groveling to get her here. Now he wondered if she was coming at all.
Was this what Merrick had resorted to? Hiding from the law? If his mom hadn’t left, they wouldn’t be in this situation.
No, he wouldn’t blame her. This was his father’s doing.
“Is that her?” Grim lowered his sunglasses and jerked his chin toward a red convertible with its top and windows up.
Typical Nikki. She wanted the show car but would never risk ruining her perfect hair. It was part of her charm, of course, and a small piece of Merrick knew he’d missed her, though not in the way she probably missed him.
“Yeah,” Merrick said, straightening. “That’s her.” He checked himself in the sideview mirror to make sure his fedora and Ray-Bans were in place, then he turned up the collar of his jacket.
Grim snorted and shook his head.
“Too much?” Merrick asked.
“All of this is too much, 007. But it’s my day off and this is quality entertainment.”
Merrick turned his collar back down and headed toward Nikki’s car.
When he reached the pristine paint job with custom rims, he knocked on her passenger-side window. The door unlocked with a click and Merrick jumped in. “Did you bring them?”
Nikki lowered her sunglasses and gripped the steering wheel with her perfectly manicured fingers. “I don’t hear from you in months and that’s the first thing you say to me?”
She was right. He was a real piece of work. “I’m sorry. Hi.”
“Hi?” She gripped the wheel tighter. She turned and gave him the face that had gotten him into trouble in the past.
“Nik . . .” He wanted to comfort her, but he didn’t want to keep leading her on. He couldn’t be that guy anymore.
“Oh please, Merrick. I am so over it. And no, I didn’t bring them. Your dad has your house under constant watch. What was I supposed to say? That I needed your old photo albums because I wanted to bring them to his son who had kidnapped his daughter?”
Ouch. Right again.
“I did, however, manage to talk to him.”
Merrick swallowed. Whatever came next would let him know if he could trust her or if it was all over. He’d taken a risk and this was the moment of truth. “Okay.”
“You doubt my skills?”
“No.”
“Whatever. You think because I wear heels and drive this car that I’m an idiot. News flash, Merrick, I was accepted to Berkeley.”
“Yeah?” He was a jerk. Merrick didn’t even know she’d applied. “That’s great.”
“Thanks.”
“What are you studying?”
“I’m going to get my gen eds out of the way, but eventually I plan to go into the medical field. I want to help people.”
Wow. He didn’t know her at all. He’d judged her by her last name and the way she dressed. He wanted to apologize for all of it but found himself saying, “I’m happy for you,” because “Sorry” sounded too easy.
A sense of regret and failure washed over him. He would be nineteen next year and he hadn’t applied to a single university. The college brochures collected dust in his desk drawers at home. Every time he’d tried to look at them, an overwhelming pressure set in. A twinge of jealousy hit him. Nikki had it all figured out.
“Anyway, I went to see your dad.” She circled back to what they’d been discussing in the first place. “He misses you.”
“Fat chance.” His father might miss having control, but he certainly didn’t miss his disappointment of a son.
“Why do you do that?” Nikki asked.
“Do what?”
“You think your dad’s the worst. But, Mer, he’s really not.”
“Says the girl whose father signed a deal to merge companies.”
She looked down at her lap. “You know about that?”
“I keep up with the news.”
“That’s not why I’m here.”
“Sounds to me like you’re taking his side. Did he follow you?”
“What?” Her eyes narrowed. Moisture glossed her doe eyes. “No. Of course not . . . I wouldn’t betray your trust. I’m not you.”
This conversation was going nowhere. “Tell me what he said, Nikki.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t. You clearly don’t trust me and honestly, Mer, I have no reason to trust you.”
Merrick waited.
Nikki sighed. “I kept it casual.” She rested her forehead on the steering wheel. “We met for lunch and I told him I was going to Berkeley, and he happened to mention your mom went there, you’re welcome. I thought it might at least give you a clue to her past. Maybe someone there knows or remembers her.”
Merrick wanted to kiss her for how awesome she’d been, but he refrained. No matter the physical attraction between them, his heart wasn’t in it.
“I deserve better, Mer.” Nikki straightened and checked herself in the visor mirror.
“Yes, you do.” Out the window, he saw Grim’s car, still idling. He wanted Nikki to be happy. Grim was her opposite in every way. He was a mess, he wore shorts and flip-flops, which Nikki would hate, but they had one thing in common.
They were two of the best people he knew.
“Come on.” Merrick reached over, turned off her ignition, and tossed her keys in her purse. “I want you to meet someone.” He stepped out of the car and skirted the bumper to open her door.
“I see the gentleman in you hasn’t burned off with all this sun.”
“Hey, I’m not all bad.” He turned on his charm, but this time it meant something. He led her to Grim’s car.
His friend promptly rolled down the window. Then he whistled. “Hello, Dolly!”
Oh, man. Merrick scratched the back of his head, waiting for Nikki to react with an eye roll or some sort of snobbish lip curl.
Instead, she batted her eyelashes. Was that a blush? “Are you seriously driving an ’89 Camaro?”
“Why yes, ma’am, I believe I am.” Grim lowered his sunglasses and winked.
Nikki opened the
door for herself and hopped inside the front seat.
“Looks like she’s riding shotgun,” Grim said to Merrick, but didn’t take his eyes off Nikki.
Merrick moved to Grim’s side and climbed in behind his seat. He sat back, listening to Nikki and Grim talk shop and cars and horsepower and all the stuff Merrick had never learned or cared about because he’d never needed to. He had a license, passed his driver’s test, but he never drove. Anywhere.
As Grim pulled out of the lot and cruised toward the highway, a shift took place inside Merrick. He’d been too quick to judge. Too fast to make assumptions about people based on first impressions and a few trivial facts.
Merrick poked his head between the front seats. “Hey, can you drop me at the high school?”
“Sure.” Grim flipped the blinker switch. “Any particular reason why?”
“I need to talk to the counselor who comes to the library on Wednesdays.” It wasn’t a total lie. He would talk to Miss Brandes. She might know where he could find Coral.
Merrick peeked at the date on his phone. Friday. He couldn’t wait almost an entire week to see her again.
He shot a text to his sister. She hadn’t checked in yet, but he wasn’t too worried. Grim’s mom had come back to town for the weekend and offered to hang out with Maya for a bit.
How’s it going with Aunt Ashley?
Maya’s instant reply helped him release some of the tension he’d been carrying.
We went shopping and she took me for tea and now we’re collecting seashells. I don’t need a babysitter, as I am almost 11, in case you’ve forgotten, but if I have to have a nanny I pick her.
Merrick frowned. He’d specifically told Aunt Ashley he preferred his sister hang out at the house. It appeared Maya pulled out all the stops and persuaded her otherwise. He hated that they had to keep Grim’s mom in the dark. She was a bit of a free spirit. Didn’t believe in television and traveled “wherever the wind took her,” as Grim put it. She had no idea they were hiding. She’d learn the truth eventually. She might even figure it out when Merrick got to asking questions about his mom.
