by Sara Ella
Coral pushed away from the table and took her bowl to the sink. “I’m tired. I think I’ll go to bed early.”
“Don’t worry about the dishes, dear. I’ll get them.”
She didn’t argue. Her grandmother lacked the energy to wash, but so did Coral. She slept eight to twelve hours easy every night. How was she still this tired? “I guess this is good night then.”
“Sit down, please.” Her grandmother gestured toward the sofa. “This will take a minute. There’s something I want to discuss with you.”
Coral’s bed called to her. The state of sleep held her nightmares, but it was also the only time any sense of freedom surfaced. “I’m tired, Mee-Maw.”
“I understand. I’ll be quick.”
Conceding but groaning, she dragged her feet to the small living room and sank between the cushions, hugging a throw pillow to her chest.
“I’m getting old.” Her grandmother took the love seat across from her. “The cold weather is bad on my joints.” She massaged her weathered hands. The visible blue and purple veins looked like tiny tentacles, spreading and reaching beneath her skin.
Coral stared past her grandmother to the open window beyond. A warm breeze fluttered the curtains. “It’s seventy-two degrees outside.”
“Yes, now it is. But winter will be here before we know it. Without you here, I won’t be able to walk up and down the steep stairs. The cottage is no place for me anymore.”
What was she getting at? Was she sending Coral home? There was a time she’d wanted that. But now? Now that would be worse than anything. She couldn’t go back there. She wouldn’t.
It wasn’t home anymore.
“I’ll move into an assisted living facility at the first of the year. Miss Brandes has offered to drive you to Fathoms Ranch herself.” The old woman slid a brochure across the coffee table between them.
Coral took one look at the brochure’s cover and blanched. A trio of laughing, smiling girls sat on a porch swing. A green lawn made up the background. In the distance, a few horses grazed and rolling hills finished off the lush landscape.
“Is this a joke?” She shoved the brochure back the way it came. Those places were all the same. She’d never been to one, but she had a good enough idea. She wouldn’t argue, but she wouldn’t jump up and down either.
“It’s for the best, dear.” Her grandmother slid the brochure toward Coral again. “Please. They can help you heal. You’ve hardly talked about River’s suicide since it happened. You don’t take your medication consistently. I’ve spoken with the program director on the phone. She sounds—”
“Nice?”
“Real.”
Real. Right. No such thing.
“It’s for the best,” her grandmother said again.
The best. Right. Okay. Fine. Whatever. She didn’t have much of a choice, did she?
Perhaps the best thing would be for me to slip into the nothing for good.
The thought sank deeper and deeper into her mind until it anchored to her heart. She would stay through the early winter until her grandmother moved. And then . . . ?
Then she would embrace the nothing. For good.
“After Christmas.” Her grandmother rose on shaky knees. “We’ll make the transition over winter break, okay?”
Solace smoothed Coral’s expression as she imagined the feeling of nothing. She longed for it. The release crept near her fingertips.
She held on to the hope she would finally, finally be free.
She didn’t want to feel.
She didn’t want to be.
She didn’t want to wake from the Abyss any longer.
Coral only wanted to go back, to be one with the sea once more. The season would soon change, and the colors would fall from the trees like so many broken tears. Soon those colors would fade to winter’s gray and vanish as if they never were at all.
Those colors would become nothing.
Coral would become nothing.
Nothing but a color washed up and out and away.
The Disease had finally won.
Coral became as sea foam.
And sea foam could not survive when Red Tide came.
* * *
I sit back and take three grounding breaths, focusing on each inhale through my nose. Each exhale through my mouth.
Reliving real and raw memories—emotions—from my past stirs old anxieties, setting every nerve on fire. I close my eyes. This is now. Here. The memories may be triggering, a word Jake so often uses, but they are only memories.
They happened. The feelings tied to them are valid.
But they don’t have to define who I am now. Today. They are only a part of me. If anything, they make me stronger.
I close the laptop.
Tuck them away.
And save them for another chapter.
I sip at my rose-colored tea and take a bite of scone, watching as the locals walk up and down the sidewalk beyond the booth’s window. To look at them, you’d think they live the happiest, most glorious carefree lives.
But maybe that man in the green ball cap with the almost painted-on smile is suicidal.
Maybe that young woman with her designer bag and eyes glued to her phone suffers from anxiety, depression, or even PTSD.
That’s the thing about mental illness. It has many faces. And most of them look pretty normal. You’d never know the person is slowly dying inside.
Another sip of tea warms my throat as the bell above the shop door tinkles. My pulse forgets its rhythm when a mess of black hair appears in the corner of my vision. I turn. Can’t seem to recall my name.
“I heard you were in town.” Merrick sits without an invitation.
I find my words and hide my delight behind one hand. “Mee-Maw or Nikki?”
“Both.” He shrugs, resting an elbow on the table. “Nikki texted me yesterday. Said she’d be bringing you with her on her weekly Grim visit. Your grandmother called me this morning.”
I laugh, shake my head, and scoot to the right to give him room. I haven’t seen him since the funeral. Even so, his nearness feels easy. Natural. A breath of air I didn’t know I needed because I’ve been under for so long.
“How did you know I’d be here?”
“Because I know you.” He pops a bite of scone in his mouth, again without invitation. “You can’t resist a good cup of tea and the finest scones in town.”
“True.” Once, I believed I wanted nothing else but to be alone. To live inside that nothing my character saw as an ever-looming Abyss.
Now I see alone is not the answer. It wasn’t for my sister. Or for Hope.
“What are you working on?” He eyes the laptop, dipping half a scone into the cream, then swallowing the piece whole. “I have to say I’m shocked to see you without your tattered old notebook and pen.”
“I’m a little shocked too, to tell you the truth. Jake—my therapist—gave it to me.” I run a hand over the shiny apple on the laptop’s closed cover. “I promised her I’d use it, so I’m kind of stuck now.”
He chuckles. A sound that soothes my ache for him to scoot closer. “I remember Jake. I met her the one time I visited Maya at Fathoms.”
My eyes widen. Merrick? At Fathoms? When?
He seems to catch the question in my eyes. His own stare exudes meaning. Understanding. Pain. Hope?
And I know. The same day I chose to end it, he was there. Did I sense his nearness in my dreams? Is it possible I imagined him with me in the cave because he almost was? Had I stayed at the ranch house that night, instead of running away, would we have crossed paths?
Too many what-ifs.
The air falls silent between us. I sense he’s waiting for me to say something, anything. But what? Do I ask how he’s doing? Is it too soon to talk about his sister?
Am I finally ready to talk about mine?
“Read anything good lately?” He breaks the silence after finishing off my plate and flagging down the waitress for a refill.
The question feels loaded. The opposite of small talk.
I look down, deciding how best to answer. Is it me, or is he closing the gap between us? I swear he’s a few inches closer than he was a minute ago.
But he’ll never be close enough. Not until I let him in. “Have you read anything good?”
He tilts his head, studying my face with eyes the color of raven’s wings. “I’d like to.”
Don’t freak out. This is happening. This is happening now. One step closer.
I open the laptop again, find an early chapter—the only one I’ve never edited or rewritten or revised.
Merrick peers at the heading. “Red Tide?”
I nod. He knows what happened. He was there. But to see it from my perspective—from Coral’s eyes—makes him a true and permanent part of my world.
“Read it to me?” He leans back and clasps his hands behind his head.
Fear races across my pounding heart, begging me to put this whole thing in reverse. When I swallow and begin the first line, my words catch in my throat.
But then Merrick closes his eyes and I know he’s taking in every syllable. Not judging. Simply waiting. For me.
Always for me.
I clear my throat. I read of my oldest sister and Red Tide—suicide. Of how she slit her wrists in the ocean on our annual family vacation to the West Coast that January. Our tradition. Our escape.
My father couldn’t bear to be anywhere near our home on the anniversary of my mother’s death—my birthday.
I go on about the four sisters who were miscarried before my time and the way my father never looked at me. Jordan comes up, as does Duke. I bare it all. My heart and soul and all the shattered pieces in between.
When I finish the chapter, I hesitate a moment before finding Merrick’s wide-eyed gaze. He’s staring at me with so much hope and promise, I almost can’t bear the weight of it.
“Thank you.” He reaches across the table and stops short of taking my hand.
I so want to take that final leap, to close the distance and tangle our fingers. To remember the taste of his lips on mine and drink in his summer scent and finally believe he’s real.
A true Prince who puts all fairy-tale charmers to shame.
My hands fidget in my lap. Then my phone alarm blares “Hedwig’s Theme,” making us both jump and drawing stares from the other customers I hadn’t even noticed until now. Spell broken. Moment gone.
“Time to go?”
“I have to meet Mee-Maw.”
He slides out of the booth and rises.
I gather my things and shoulder my bag as he walks me out into the autumn sunshine.
I have to head right. He needs to go left.
Merrick has one foot off the curb and one hand in his pocket when he says, “I need to tell you something.”
Anything. Everything. Always. “Okay,” I say in the most casual tone I can rally.
“I’ve been holding on to this.” He withdraws a piece of jewelry from his pocket.
The sight stings. My pearls stare back at me. The old Brooke wants to grasp for an accusation. Instead, I ask, “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” I reach for the bracelet.
“This was your sister’s.”
I nod.
“You’ve never told me her name.”
Haven’t I? “River,” I say for the first time in ages. The way my father and Jordan refused to talk about her felt wrong. So I say it again. Louder. “Her name was River.” She was real. She existed.
And her story needs to be told.
“Pretty. But I’m partial to water names that start with B.”
His wink is all that’s needed to send flames up my neck and cheeks.
The emotions I used to dread blossom. I don’t push them away this time.
“These were so important to you. Why did Maya have them?”
“I gave them to her for her last birthday. She needed them more than I did.” The heavy truth of it slices a fresh wound.
“She’d want you to have them back. But I’d like to hold on to them a little while longer. Is that all right?”
I sigh. Trust him with one more piece of my soul. “Of course.”
With a final signature grin that’s all Merrick, he crosses the street. First River’s and then Hope’s bracelet remains clutched in his right hand as he waves.
It’s a common gesture but one that promises another tomorrow.
A good-bye that says this isn’t forever, and I’ll see him again sooner than I’d hoped.
Forty-Seven
Merrick Prince
Merrick held fast to the pearl bracelet. The last piece of the puzzle.
All he had to do was take it to the jeweler his dad had contacted. If the guy could trace the original maker, Merrick would find the man who had broken River’s heart. He had no clue what Brooke might do with the information. Confront the dude? Tell him off?
Or perhaps it wasn’t as complicated as all that. Maybe knowing would be good enough, help her move on. Give her the last bit of closure she needed for River’s story to be complete.
He hopped inside the two-year-old black Toyota Corolla his dad had loaned him. It had Bluetooth capability, keyless entry and start, and even a built-in GPS. It may not have been a Tesla—which Hiroshi Prince could totally afford—but Merrick wasn’t complaining. He had a car. No chauffeur to wait on or waiting on him. Just him and the wheel and the open road.
The leather seats smelled of freedom.
With a good three-hour drive north ahead of him—if he didn’t run into traffic—Merrick set his music library to shuffle and relaxed low in the driver’s seat. When he pulled onto the curving Coast Highway with nothing but the ocean to his left and billion-dollar homes to his right, a sense of peace he hadn’t experienced in years settled in and made itself at home.
“So this is what it feels like not to hate Dad,” he said to his reflection in the rearview mirror. To the empty passenger seat.
All these years. All those hours clenching his fists, ready to take a swing the second his father dared to get physical. Merrick had spent so much time expecting the man to prove him right, he’d never faced the truth.
Hiro was rough around the edges, sure. But he wasn’t the bad guy Merrick had often made him out to be.
The sun passed over the car’s roof and blared through the driver-side window. Merrick adjusted his visor and donned his sunglasses. The rock song that had been playing faded out and a new one faded in.
He stiffened. He’d forgotten this song was on here. Tempted to skip to the next in line, his finger hovered over the stereo controls.
But as the lyrics played on, the singer’s voice disappeared and a different voice filled his mind.
This was Amaya’s song. Or one of them, anyway. Merrick could almost imagine she sat cross-legged in the seat beside him, singing at the top of her lungs without a care or worry in the world. His memories transported him to this time last autumn.
When they’d sat on their family room couch.
And for about two-point-five seconds, everything seemed normal again.
* * *
“Are you going after her or not?”
Amaya sat cross-legged on the couch. An old Sorry! game board rested on the cushion between them. It was missing a few pieces, but the game worked well enough. “Sorry.” She slid her yellow piece into Merrick’s red one and grinned.
He placed the pawn back home and looked around.
Since the summer ended and Merrick’s sister had gained another chance at life, again, everything changed between them. At home with their dad plus a new therapy and medication regimen, Amaya was herself again. She was eating. The color had returned to her cheeks and she didn’t snap at Merrick between syllables.
“Have you heard from Brooke at all?”
Merrick drew a card, then moved a few spaces forward. “She doesn’t want to talk to me.”
“Yes she does.”
“Did she tell you that?”
&nb
sp; “She doesn’t have to, big brother.”
“Would you stop already?”
Maya took her turn, moving another one of her pawns inside the safety zone. She only had one left on the board that could be sent home.
He grunted. His sister—the board game queen. Even games like this one that required no strategy whatsoever. He’d never beat her. The only reason he’d agreed to play was to make her happy.
“What about a letter?” She stretched both arms above her head and yawned. “You could write to her. Girls love that.”
He laughed. If only everything could be as simple as it seemed in a Disney movie. “It’s more complicated than that. It wasn’t our time.”
Amaya took a sip of her cocoa and glanced at her phone.
Merrick eyed her. “You’re staying off social media, right?”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, Dad. I know the rules. Our actual dad password-protected those apps so I can’t even get into them. And that new tech his team created to monitor all devices in the house basically means I can’t do anything online without his approval.”
Merrick was sure there were other ways his sister could get into her accounts, but he didn’t push it. “I want to make sure you’re not opening a window for those girls to bully you again.”
“Who said they were all girls?”
“I only thought—”
“Your move.”
It took every ounce of willpower he had not to press the issue. He drew a card and moved a new piece onto the board. “There.”
“You sure you want to do that?”
“Yep.” He stared out the bay window overlooking their street. Cars rushed past and colors changed. Fall never lasted long enough, giving in way too soon to the long winter ahead.
Amaya took her turn. Her pawn was only a few spaces behind his now. “Dad wants to do a family dinner on Friday.” Her change of subject didn’t help her angle. “He asked me to ask you.”
“I can’t.”
“What’s the excuse this time?”
“I have a thing.”
“Oh. Right.” She rolled her eyes dramatically and air quoted with her fingers as she said, “A thing.”
This conversation had become more awkward each time she asked, but what was he supposed to do? Their dad was clearly making him sweat it out until Merrick believed he was out of the woods. The moment he thought he was safe . . . bam! Hiro would press charges and Merrick would be in handcuffs for kidnapping and child endangerment.
