Undertow (10 page)

She shivered and struggled to breathe.

“Are you okay, Issa? You look kind of sick.”

Kelly jerked the car back into the left lane, but the car veering into traffic was the least of Marissa’s worries.

“Everything’s dying,” she whispered.

Parking was a crazy mess at the airport. Christmas fell on a Friday, creating a long holiday weekend. Like Jim, hordes of travelers decided to fly home on Sunday afternoon. Kelly bitched while she made slow rounds through the parking lots. With all of Kelly’s attention sucked up with the search for back up lights, Marissa was left alone in her tortured anxiety.

The oceans are dying.
The thought enlarged each time she rolled it over in her mind, collecting her mental energy like a snowball accumulating snow. It crowded out all of her other worries: the impending introduction of Jim and her mother, the upcoming academic quarter, Jim, her mother. None of that mattered now.

“Marissa, did you hear me?”

Startled, she inventoried her surroundings: the dashboard, windows steamed from her hyperventilation, a man’s voice cracking over acoustic guitar. She dropped her eyes and dug her nails into her palms.

Kelly reached over and tapped her shoulder. Marissa trembled as her control began to waver.
I will not cry
, she ordered herself.
Not even with Kels
.

“Damn it, Issa! What is
wrong
with you?” Softening her voice, she said, “You’re scaring me, okay? You seem so weird lately. What’s going on with you? I think you’re starting to lose it, girl. All that crazy talk the other day . . .”

“I’m fine, really. Okay? I’m fine. Just drop it, please.”

Biting her lip, Kelly searched Marissa’s face and waited a minute before replying. “Okay. But I think you need some help, Marissa. You haven’t been yourself since you left Drake.”

“I don’t even know who I was before I left Drake,” Marissa snapped, unable to keep the bitterness from seeping into her voice.

“Well, I do. You were
Issa.
My friend. The girl who held me up while I was falling apart. If it weren’t for you, I’d be dead now. You
made
me get help, remember?”

“You were sick, Kels. I couldn’t stand watching you do that to yourself . . . the cutting, the starving. What else could I do?” She’d almost lost her and still might. Marissa noticed her jeans were tiny again, a size one at most, and doubted she’d won the other battle, either. The scars would be there forever either way.

“Like I said, you saved my life, even if I hated you for it at the time.”

And Kelly
had
hated her for telling: for eight horrible months while she got treatment, she’d refused to speak to Marissa at all.

Now her eyes were compassionate but her voice resolute. “All that stuff the other day, mermaids and drowning and rescues—it’s crazy. It was just a dream, Issa. Maybe you got stuck in that dream or something.” She reached out for Marissa’s hands, still knotted in fists. “It’s
your
turn this time. You need help.”

Sixteen

P
rofessor Thompson gestured at Marissa and seventy other students from the lectern left of center stage. Marissa slouched in the fifth row and tuned his voice out. Instead, she watched his hands. Despite her new interest in ocean life, the material was still a bear. Getting through this quarter was going to be tough.

Her mind conjured an image of the only marine life she cared about. She didn’t even know his name. How long could she keep thinking of him as
He
? But it didn’t seem appropriate to invent a name for the creature who haunted her thoughts.

Since returning to Corvallis the day after Jim flew back, Marissa struggled to hide her peculiar obsession. If her best friend had pronounced her crazy and threatened to force her into treatment, who could she trust?

Entombed safely under her mattress was the notebook, filled with clues: Agnete, the Danish woman wooed by a merman, following him to sea and bearing him seven sons; blue holes, underwater limestone caves formed in the Bahamas, supposedly the origin of Atlantis; tales from a dozen other countries, attesting to the existence of mermaids and mermen.

She could hardly bear the burden of keeping this knowledge hidden. There was only one other time she had a secret so deep that she could share it with no one. Marissa shuddered, and shoved the evil memory away.
That
secret was horrid.

Marissa shivered in the cavernous lecture hall and fidgeted with her pen, trying to focus on the lesson. Her grades last quarter didn’t impress her mother. “I’m not shelling out another dime unless you show that you’re doing your part,” she’d warned.

The professor paced across the stage, mouth opening and closing, hands moving fluidly. His eyes held her focus. Slate blue, they reminded her of the sea.

Marissa forced herself to listen to his words, glad Erin took Marine Bio last quarter. Without her notes, she’d be sunk.

 “Over a period of less than fifteen years,
ending in
about 2003, the top layer of the oceans heated up so much it was equal to two billion of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima. Then, for some reason, the rate of warming slowed dramatically.” He jabbed the podium with his finger.

Bombs? She tried to decipher his words. Something horrible was happening, she understood that much. Her mind raced at the implications: what if they couldn’t survive?

Fists pounded on the hollow door. Marissa ignored the knocking and continued pacing from her dresser to her desk as she had done for the past two and a half hours. She was so close to solving the puzzle.

“Come on, Marissa, open the door!” Erin screamed, echoing through a canyon miles away. Not like the other voices, His voice, whispering so close she could almost feel his breath on her ear. He called to her from the sea, and His voice was the only one she wanted to hear.

 “Marissa, let me in! Now! Or I’m going to call somebody. What the hell are you doing in there?” Erin’s shrill voice wafted through the door.

Damn her, I almost had it,
she thought
.
Seething with frustration, she lunged at the door, swung it open and bared her teeth. Thrusting her face within inches of Erin’s, she growled, “Leave me alone!” She battled her rage into submission and retreated to her room, slamming the door.

Overcome with exhaustion, she collapsed on her bed and ground her fists against her forehead.
Damn Erin.
Then a new thought appeared:
I can find Him. He waits for me, just as I wait for Him.

Triumphant, she rolled across the bed, wrapping the cobalt quilt tightly around her. Her laughter bubbled forth as she imagined Him beside her, the two of them gliding through the water together.

The thought of his hands stroking her skin filled her with longing and desperation
.
She couldn’t bear to remain in this world alone. Convulsing with sobs, she wailed, “Why did you leave me here? Why?”

A gentle rapping at the door interrupted her cries. She lay very still and hoped the intruder would go away.

“Marissa?” Jim’s soothing voice was muffled.

Relief washed over her. Jim was smart, he could help her figure this whole thing out.

“Baby, are you okay in there?”

Jim and Erin exchanged words outside her room. She crawled out of bed, tiptoed to the door, and pressed her ear against it.

“She’s been in there all weekend again,” Erin’s squeaky voice said. “Banging stuff, ripping up papers. Screeching like a banshee, then laughing like a hyena. It’s creepy. She’s only come out to use the bathroom a couple of times. She’s all glassy-eyed. Won’t look at me or speak at all.”

Jim’s voice answered her. “I’ll get her out; don’t stress. You go on and take a break now. Thanks for calling me.”

Marissa crept away from the door and wondered what Erin was talking about. Her roommate made her sound like some crazy person. Obviously, she was in on their plot. But Jim couldn’t be in on it, could he?
No, she was sure of that. He would never believe her insane, no matter who tried to convince him.

Tapping on the door was followed by Jim’s voice: “Sugar, I know you’re in there. Let me in?”

She fingered the cool stone of the pendant hanging around her neck, the Christmas gift from Jim which she wore every day like an amulet. Aquamarine, the color of the sea. Marissa breathed in and exhaled slowly out her mouth as her last therapist taught her. Another deep breath. Reaching out, she unlocked the door and cracked it open an inch.

Jim’s mane of curls appeared in the gap. She opened the door wider, and the smile in his eyes melted away as he surveyed the room behind her.

She turned and witnessed the chaos: pages ripped from her notebook, marked with yellow highlighter and thick black pen, were scattered across the floor, the dresser and the desk; pictures of mermaids, drawn from her memory, were taped to the walls. Her eyes settled on the reflection in the dresser mirror. A wild woman stared back.

“Go away,” she whispered and shrunk back from the door.

Jim evaluated her with a mix of fear and tenderness in his eyes. “Baby . . .”

Her legs gave way and she collapsed to the floor, clutching her knees to her chest like she had the day Bethany died. In an instant, Jim was beside her. His gentle hands were on her shoulders, stroking them softly. “It’s okay, baby; everything will be okay.”

Erin stood still as marble in the doorway, her eyes wide and her hand covering her mouth. After a long moment she dropped her hand and spoke.

“Get that crazy bitch out of here.”

Seventeen

M
arissa zipped her jacket and yanked the hood over her head. The cold front approaching made the air much colder than usual. Wrapping her scarf haphazardly around her neck, she stepped from the apartment into the chilly morning.

At breakfast, she’d pretended everything was normal. Jim had cooked toast and fried eggs, and grinned at her across his tiny Formica table. She managed to make small talk with him. “How’s school going?” she asked.

“Digging Geology,” he said, and when she didn’t laugh at his pun, he nudged, “Where’s your killer sense of humor today? Still sleeping?”

Marissa laughed, confused. She needed to be careful; Jim was her only insurance against winding up at her mother’s. Whatever happened, he could never know the truth
.

“Are you feeling okay today, sugar?” Jim’s brow had that little wavy line she thought was so cute, but this morning her heart didn’t jump the way it usually did when she looked at him.

“Yeah. Sure. I’m fine,” she said. In fact, she never felt better. This morning, she heard Him
singing again, beckoning
,
and knew that soon, they would be together.

“What do you want to do today? It’s blustery out. Feel like snuggling with your big bear?” He stuck out his flat stomach and rubbed it. Jim didn’t look a thing like a bear, and she couldn’t help but laugh.

“Nah. I have to go study today. Library day. Research.” He couldn’t object to studying, she knew. Not with her grades slipping.