by Orchid Leigh
33
“What about this one?” I held up the yellow, moth-eaten T-shirt to Peter.
He was lying on his bed, doing a bad job of pretending to be interested in the task of packing his stuff, the task I had happily assigned myself. They were leaving tomorrow, and his room was still unpacked, and his mom was on him about it, making him stay in until he finished the job—a threat he didn’t seem to be too bothered by.
Peter glanced at the shirt. “I don’t know, Ellie. I’ll just do this later. I’m just going to throw it all in a big bag, anyway. You really don’t need to go through all of it.”
I frowned at Peter’s casual indifference, then turned to the T-shirt in my hands. “Can I have it?”
“You want that T-shirt? It’s got a bunch of holes in it.”
I put it to my nose. “It smells like you, though . . . and it’s soft.” I brushed the soft fabric against my cheek.
“Sure,” said Peter with a smile. “Do you want my stinky socks, too?” He pushed his feet in the air and waved them at me. “They smell like me.”
I threw the T-shirt at him, and he caught it with a smile.
I turned back to the closet and pulled out more shirts. “So you’ll be going to school over there?”
“Yeah,” huffed Peter. “Mom won’t have time to homeschool. It’s stupid. I was mostly doing it myself, anyway.”
I folded a T-shirt midair and placed it in the box beside me. “I think it’ll be good for you.”
Peter huffed again. “Why is that?”
“You’re going to see, Peter.”
“See what?”
“That I’m not the only one.”
“What are you talking about?” He looked at me, confused.
“Give me a break, Peter,” I said with a smile. “Those girls over there . . . they are going to be swooning. Girls here?” I pointed a finger to my temple and drew circles. “Completely crazy.”
He rolled his eyes at me. “We all know you’re the crazy one. But if it works out for me.” Peter shrugged happily and stretched his arms up behind his head.
“Well, don’t be too brooding and cute,” I warned. “Because I’m not crazy, and you’re going to see that very soon.”
Peter rolled off the bed and walked over to me. “Hey, even if you had to worry—which you don’t—you wouldn’t have to worry.”
“Yeah?” I asked hopefully.
“Geez no,” he said with pained eyes. “Do you think I’d be that stupid? I really should be fighting with my mom to stay here. It’s actually ridiculous how foolish moving away from you is. I’m just still in denial, so it hasn’t really hit me yet.”
I reached up and gently punched his shoulder. “Then keep your promise,” I said. “And come back to me someday.”
“You can count on it,” he said with a steady nod.
I turned and pulled another shirt from his closet. I was tearing up again and knew I needed this distraction. Peter took the shirt from me and hooked it back onto the rack. “Why don’t we get out of here?”
“You’ve got to pack.” I glanced around his messy room.
“I’ll get to it later,” he said. “It’ll take me two minutes. Really.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I don’t want to spend my last day with you here packing all my crap.” He pushed the ragged T-shirt he was holding into my hand. “And you can have the shirt.”
I smiled and brought it to my nose, inhaling deep and long. “Ah,” I muttered.
“You know I’m right in front of you, right?”
I lowered the shirt and leaned into Peter, taking in a shaky breath. He smelled better than the shirt—a fresher, full-bodied, and absolutely heartbreaking version of it. I closed my eyes and lingered in the agonizingly knee-melting scent, breaking a little more with every inhale. I opened my eyes and looked at Peter. Yep, I was going to cry. I took another shaky breath to calm myself.
“Hey, you okay?”
I sucked up my tears. “Yeah,” I said. “Where do you want to go?”
“Would the lake cheer you up?” he asked with a smile.
I smiled back.
Peter grabbed my hand and my backpack near his door. “Let’s go,” he said, pulling me out of the room.
“Hey, Mom,” said Peter as we headed down the stairs.
Mrs. Evans had made way more progress with her packing than we did. The living room was a warehouse of boxes, and the only thing left in the kitchen was a pizza box and some paper plates and cups. She came around the corner with a crying Liam in her arms. “Mom, we’re going to go out for a little while,” said Peter.
“Is your room packed?” she asked.
“I’ll do it later.”
Mrs. Evans looked at Peter, anxious and exhausted. “I’d rather you do it now, Peter.”
“Please, Mom. I promise.”
She eyed us both with a sigh, looking torn between wanting to be nice and needing to be packed and ready. “All right,” she said, giving in. “But not too long. I’m serious, Peter.”
“Got it,” said Peter, heading toward the door.
We opened the door to a drizzle of rain. Peter held out his palms. He turned to me. “It’s not too bad. Do you still want to go?”
“Yeah,” I said with a nod.
Something warm and fluffy brushed against my leg. I looked down at the black lab by our feet. I knelt and rubbed her belly. “Let’s bring Shadow.”
Peter grabbed the umbrella.
~
“Are you cold?” asked Peter. “I forgot you were wearing shorts.”
“No, I’m not cold,” I said. I wasn’t. I was perfect. We were walking along the edge of the lake. Everything was gray: the sky, the water, the pebbles. Even Shadow running up and down the beach with her misty black coat added to the drab gloominess of the day.
And it all fell in line with my mood, which was perfectly fine with me; a sunny day would have made things so much harder. At least the weather was allowing me to mope.
All the ice was gone from the lake, and the pitter-patter of the rain on the surface of the water was a drone of sweetness to my ears. The water rippled and bubbled with millions of raindrops plunging down into its surface, happily rejoining its liquid family.
The cold, misty air was fresh and smelled new . . . and somehow hopeful. I breathed deep and steady.
We were huddled beneath the umbrella together. Peter bent down to pick up some rocks, and I lowered myself a little when he did. He handed me a stone. “Whoever gets closest to the boulder wins,” he said with a smile.
“You’re on.”
I got out from under the cover of the umbrella. The cool rain on my skin was welcoming. I stood at the edge of the water and tossed my rock through the air, toward the boulder. The small stone was lost in the canvas of gray, but it plunked into the water a second later, landing a few feet short of the boulder. I flopped my shoulders. “Oh God, that was terrible.”
Peter laughed and handed me the umbrella. He took his rock and whipped it through the air. I waited for the plunk, but instead, it dinged and bounced off the boulder before falling into the water. I raised my arms and the umbrella to the sky and cheered. “You did it!” I skipped over to him and put my arms around him, bringing the umbrella over us again. “Amazing!”
Peter laughed. “That explains it,” he said.
“Explains what?”
“You just easily impress,” he said with a smile. “It explains you and me.”
The rain started to pick up, and I lowered the umbrella to just above our heads. The pitter-patter sounded loudly on the stretched plastic.
I looked at Peter, my arms still around him. My eyes were full and brimming. “If you only knew,” I said, shaking my head at him. I blinked, and the tears pushed down my cheeks. I kept my eyes closed and listened to the pouring rain.
Peter pulled me into a hug. “This sucks,” he said.
“Yeah, it sucks,” I agreed with a quiet sniff of my nose.
I let go of Peter and handed him the umbrella. I reached behind him for my backpack. He pivoted for me and I unzipped it and pulled out my phone and earbuds.
With a tap on his shoulder, I turned him back around. I attempted to smile but managed only a weak one, and my eyes wouldn’t try at all. “We’re already crying, so . . .” I placed a bud in my ear and then tucked one into Peter’s. I pushed play on our song. Holding onto my phone, I reached my arms back up and around Peter, pulling myself as close as I could.
He held me tight, and we swayed to the music, and I cried like a baby the whole time.
34
“I can’t believe you’re leaving me in this one-horse town all by myself,” I said, shaking my head. “You’re the only thing it had going for it.”
Peter leaned into my ear. “And the mermaids,” he whispered.
“Yeah,” I said with a quiet smile.
“You’re going to stay away from them, right?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I promise.”
“You can test out those tail fins in our own lake,” he said, gently kicking the side of my shoe. “There’s no need to go back down there.”
“Yeah, don’t worry,” I said. “Really, I won’t. I’ve learned my lesson.”
“Okay. I just want to make sure.” He was eyeing me doubtfully.
“Peter, I should have listened to you the first time. Trust me, I’m not going back.”
“Good,” he said with a satisfied nod.
We were standing outside by his mom’s car. They were getting ready to set off just behind the moving van that had already left.
“Are you about ready, Peter?” his mom called from the porch as she locked the door. Peter glanced over his shoulder and nodded at her.
“I guess I’ve gotta go,” he said, his voice breaking a little.
I met his tear-filled eyes. “Yeah, okay,” I said, my own face a leaky faucet. I sniffed uselessly at my drippy nose.
“Oh, wait,” said Peter, using his sleeve to dry his eyes. He opened the car door and pulled something out. “I never got a chance to get you anything.” He handed me a rolled-up booklet. “I hope this is okay.”
I uncurled it with a happy smile. He had made me a comic book.
On the cover was a young mermaid with a navy-blue tail and blonde hair—with a bright red streak in it just like mine. I flipped through the pages and laughed.
“She’s on a quest,” said Peter. “For a lost treasure that contains a key that will save her city, and, well . . .” He stopped. “I guess I’ll let you read it for yourself.”
I closed the book and started to cry again. “I love it.” I reached up to hug him, and he put his arms around me and pulled me into a tight hold.
“Okay,” I said, moving away. I tilted my head, debating whether or not I should.
Peter looked curious. “What?” he asked.
I smiled at him but swayed in my uncertainty a little more. I sighed and pulled my backpack around in front of me. I unzipped it and pulled out my journal—my new journal, the one I had started since moving to Ocean Lake. I breathed nervously and handed it to Peter.
“What’s this?” he asked. He leaned against the car and flipped through it. A smile grew big and wide on his face. “You’re giving me your journal?”
I nodded. “I wanted you to know.”
He laughed and scanned the pages some more. He held up a pencil drawing I’d done of a drippy, bleeding heart—his name unmistakably written in white script letters in the center. “Wanted me to know what?” he asked with a smirk.
I blushed and brushed up beside him on the car. Peter leaned into me and kissed my forehead, and I closed my eyes and sighed at the sweet touch.
He looked back down at the pages with a laugh. “You’re drawing mermaids now?” he asked, pointing at one of a mermaid with a pretty emerald tail. “It’s amazing.”
The drawing was of Granny Leira, or what I thought Granny Leira as a young mermaid would have looked like. I gave her a bright emerald tail to go with her luxuriously bright red hair.
“Yeah, I hope that’s okay. I tore out a few pages of my mermaid babble, though. I just left the drawings. The rest is mostly about you . . . I swear.”
“You didn’t have to tear them out,” said Peter, bumping my shoulder beside him. Peter turned another page. He tilted it to me. “Shouldn’t that say Mrs. Cordelia Evans?” he asked slyly, pointing at where I’d written the name with just Ellie.
I buried my head in my hands. “Oh God, I don’t know why I decided to give this to you—so embarrassing.”
Peter closed the book. “It’s the nicest thing. I don’t even know what to say.” He pushed off the car and turned to face me. “You really are like a dream . . .” His eyes fell to his feet. “And this is the part where I have to wake up, I guess,” he said, shuffling them on the dirty pavement.
“Don’t wake up,” I said. “You don’t have to.”
Peter leaned into me and put his arms around me. “Thank you, Ellie,” he said. “For everything.”
I shook my head against his shoulder. “Stop thanking me like you’re never going to see me again,” I said. “This is not goodbye, okay?”
“Okay. No goodbyes. That’s easier.”
We held on for another short minute. Then Peter squeezed me tight one last time before letting me go. He quietly stared at me with a sad smile on his face. He reluctantly tilted his head toward the car door and opened it. “I’ll see you later, Cordelia.”
“See you later, Peter,” I said with a breaking heart.
He got in the car with his mom and Liam. They were buckled and ready, and the car was rolling away before I was.
I waved at Peter as they drove off, and then he was gone.
35
I lay in my bed, gazing at the stars through my skylight. I smiled as a shooting star flashed by. I closed my eyes and made a wish. My wish was that Peter would come back. I sighed, knowing it wasn’t going to happen. He had already been gone a week, and I was already missing him.
I turned over in my bed. I stared across my room at the small cabinet near the top of the stairs. I got up and walked over to it. I opened the door and pulled on the light.
I stared at the stack of shoeboxes inside. This was where I had found my locket. It was safely back in Dad’s office now. I had finally gotten the chance to return it this afternoon, and I sure was relieved to have that weight off me.
I picked up one of the shoeboxes and rummaged through it. More photos. I smiled brightly as I went through them. I was delighted to see they were pictures of Midnight and some of the other unicorns whom I had never met.
“Oh my god,” I said, putting my hand to my smiling lips. It was Levvi and Starla sitting together on the porch just outside. From the looks of it, all the pictures had been taken outside in my own backyard. I laughed at the thought.
“How have I never seen these?” I wondered aloud. Then a thought came to me. I quickly picked up the same box I had opened the night we first moved in, the one that had the photos of Granny Leira mixed with the bright, blurry ones. It came as no surprise that all the bright, overexposed photos that had been in this very box were now perfectly developed pictures of my unicorn and mermaid friends. And Granny Leira was with them, too.
These must have been taken toward the end. She was older in them, but she had the same warm smile I’d seen on her before, when she posed with her husband and children in the aged photos from long ago.
I picked up the photos one by one to look at them until I had a stack in my hands. I started to place them back in the empty box when I noticed the paper that lined the bottom had a slight bulge in it. I pulled back the liner in order to release the photos that I was sure had gotten stuck there, but instead, I found a folded piece of notepaper.
I put the photos down and opened the paper. It was a letter, and it was addressed to me. I read it quietly, then sat pensive and peaceful and smiling with the letter in my hand.
I
was jolted out of my reverie when my phone rang. I hurried over and grabbed it from under my pillow.
“Hello,” I said eagerly.
“Hey, Ellie. It’s Peter.”
I fell on my back and floated away in a puffy white cloud.
“Hey, Peter,” I said with a smile.
“Sorry I haven’t called sooner. We know nothing about setting up phones. Me, my mom, and Nanna—none of us. You’d think we’d come out of an eighties sitcom the way we struggled. It was pathetic.”
I laughed. “You should have given it to me before you left.”
“Yeah, I should’ve. I actually had it, too.”
“So this is your phone? Just yours?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“Good. It’s about time your Mom gives into the future.”
“Yeah, well, I told her I was going to stay there with my dad if she didn’t get me one.”
“Was that an option?” I asked, somewhat hopeful.
“No. Not really. He doesn’t have custody. Maybe someday, though.”
“Yeah, maybe,” I said but thought better of it. “But I think you’re probably better off with your mom, right?”
“Yeah,” agreed Peter.
The line was quiet.
“So how do you like it over there?” I asked.
“Ah, it’s all right. I mean, it’s kinda cool, I guess. I think you’d like it. It’s more like a city . . . There’s museums and coffee shops and stuff. Probably nothing like New York, but it feels a whole lot bigger than Ocean Lake did.”
“That sounds great,” I said with a breathy laugh that was a mix of a little happy for him and a little sad for both of us.
My next breath came in shaky. “I can’t wait to visit. This place has gotten even smaller since you left . . . if you can believe that.”
Peter was quiet on the other end for a second. He sighed. “I miss you, too.”
