Wrecked (23 page)

“Oh.” Christian nodded and Miranda followed his gaze to the matches.

“Can I take these?” Christian asked shyly, passing them back and forth from palm to palm.

“Yeah, I don’t care,” Miranda shrugged, disappointed that was all he had to say. Why was it that every time she went out on a limb, he didn’t meet her? It was time to change that. The light from the fire was flickering on Christian’s face, and he
looked lost in thought. Her heart twisted in her chest. She just wished things could be
different.

She took Christian’s hand and brushed her lips against his hand. And then she looked back into his eyes, and raised her mouth up until her lips grazed his. She gasped, as if struck by lightning. The kiss was nothing like what she’d felt with Fletch. She knew she had to make an instant decision: keep kissing or leave forever? But before her rational mind could decide, her body reacted, throwing her arms around Christian’s strong shoulders. She felt his hands brush against her back and she felt her own hands in his hair, the warmth of the fire and the softness of the sand and . . .

“No!” Miranda yelled, pulling away and scrambling to her feet.

“Are you okay?” Christian said, his hand brushing her arm. Miranda pulled away and faced the water. This was crazy. What had she been doing? She took a few deep breaths, but they came out all shaky, and then she realized her face was wet. She touched her cheek experimentally and pulled her hand back. Wordlessly, Christian stood next to her, his hand only millimeters away from touching hers. He reached up and brushed a few tears off her face.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.

Normally, Miranda hated that question. If someone wanted to talk about something, why didn’t they just come right out and start talking? And if they didn’t just begin talking about it,
that probably meant that, no, they
didn’t
want to talk about it.

She shivered. The temperature had dropped substantially since the sun had gone down, and it was freezing away from the fire. Out in the distance, Miranda could just make out the twinkling lights of the
Sephie
.

Just then, the fire popped loudly, sending sparks up toward the sky.

Christian jumped. “What was that?” he asked.

“Just the fire. Why? Are you afraid of it?” Miranda tried to joke.

“Maybe,” Christian said. He didn’t sound like he was joking.

“Do you want to swim?” She asked finally. She didn’t care if it was freezing. It was the only place she could think of to avoid kissing and avoid talking about not kissing.

Christian nodded and, not bothering to take off her clothes, Miranda ran into the inky black surf and began swimming. She didn’t know how long they swam, except finally, her lungs and legs burning, she stopped and treaded water in a patch of moonlight. Her teeth were chattering, her arms felt numb, and she knew she needed to get out soon. But not yet.

Miranda noticed a tiny trail of glowing particles that surrounded Christian. “Phosphorescence,” she observed.

“Hmm?” Christian asked absentmindedly.

“Those little bright things floating on the water,” Miranda explained. He
definitely
wasn’t an Islander if he didn’t know. Miranda was vaguely aware that it was just one more thing
she didn’t know about him—while she’d spilled her life story, and all she knew was a first name. “In eighth grade we had to do a science experiment with it. They’re like, little fluorescent microscopic plankton, which is kind of gross. Like, we’re just swimming through their hometown,” Miranda babbled.

Christian shifted from one foot to the other.

“But then my friend Lydia thought they meant something magical. Like if you saw them, it meant . . .” Miranda trailed off. What
had
Lydia said it meant? She couldn’t remember now. “It meant something. See what I mean about superstition around here?” She asked, suddenly sick of talking. Christian swam closer to her. His lips grazed hers. But she didn’t stop him. She continued to kiss, not caring about anything but the way his lips felt on hers.

F
OUR MORE DAYS
,
JUDGING FROM THE SUN JUST GLIMMERING
over the horizon. Christian watched Miranda sleep. Her face lost the guarded expression it had when she was awake, and Christian got a sense of what Miranda must have been like pre-accident. Now, even when she was smiling, her eyes looked pained, as if the act of smiling actually hurt.

He brushed a strand of hair off her face. He knew Miranda felt the same connection to him, that when they were together, their love or chemistry or passion or whatever-it-was-called was palpable. But what would happen if he admitted the truth about himself? Would she think he was a monster? Would Miranda blame him for the accident?

He couldn’t have seen the accident coming. When he’d
Surfaced, the water had been still and calm. There’d been a far-off storm, but he hadn’t thought anything of it. What he’d thought about was how free and easy Miranda and her friends had seemed when he’d been quietly watching them on the boat, how they seemed utterly at ease with each other. It was so different from the fear and distrust that plagued even the most benign of Down Below interactions. He’d been envious, and had gotten closer and closer until . . .

The more he thought about it—the event turning over and over in his memory like a piece of seaglass, worn smooth by the surf—the more he knew Sephie must have started the storm. It was the type of thing she was rumored to do, a capricious way she could show dominance over Up Above. And it wouldn’t be as easy as he thought to find a substitute for Miranda’s soul. There was no substitute. Miranda was unique and passionate and intense and angry and every time he saw her, he wanted to be with her forever. And the only way he could do that was to kill Sephie.

After all, although powerful, she wasn’t all-powerful. She didn’t control death. That was why she stirred up storms Up Above: So she could at least give herself solace in the knowledge that if she did not have supremacy over her own mortality, at least she had it over the ocean.

But if Sephie were dead, there would no longer be the quixotic storms stirred up for her own amusement. There would no longer be the impenetrable barrier between Up Above and
Down Below. There would no longer be fear ruling the ocean and serving as an undercurrent for the affairs on the islands. And Christian and Miranda could live in freedom, Up Above.

But how? His mind kept drifting back to the fire. Legend had always had it that Sephie—that all mermaids—could be killed by flames. But he’d always assumed that water was superior. After all, water could conquer fire.

But fire could conquer Sephie. If that was the legend of humans and mermen alike, it must be true. Or, at least, it was the closest to truth Christian had right now.

But the fire Miranda had started seemed too small and elegant to possibly ruin a force as great as Sephie. Besides, it would never work underwater, and he’d never seen her rise above the surface. Unless there was a way to lure her, then create a fire . . . but that was useless, too. Fires, Christian had learned, burnt out quickly, and often required a few tries before a blaze started to grow. He wouldn’t have time.

Miranda stirred on the sand, and Christian closed his eyes, pulling her more tightly toward him. She relaxed into Christian’s arms. It was clear she trusted him. The question was, how could she ever trust him once he actually told her the truth?

M
IRANDA WOKE UP TO THE CRYING OF GULLS
. T
HE SKY WAS
mostly dark with some orange streaks, and she felt groggy and disoriented. She turned and found herself face to face with Christian. He was wide awake, gazing at her with a curious expression.

“Hi,” Miranda croaked. Her throat hurt, her head was throbbing, and the skin around her eyes felt raw. She squinted, trying to get her bearings. What time was it? She reached over her head to her bag and dug out her phone. Dead.

Christian pulled her closer to him and Miranda snuggled against his chest. She was still wearing her clothes from yesterday, which were now completely damp from their impromptu swim last night.

“What are we doing?” Miranda asked. It was a valid question. Even in the best of circumstances an actual
relationship
would be unsustainable. They had nothing in common. For all she knew, Christian lived on the beach. She remembered hearing a proverb that said if someone saved your life, they were responsible for it forever, but she couldn’t remember if it was real or from some half-remembered
Star Wars
movie that she’d watched with Teddy. But in this situation, it sort of made sense. After everything, Christian was still hanging around.

“Do we need to know?” Christian shrugged. “This is the one place we can just be ourselves. No rules. No lies. Just us, talking and . . .” he pulled her toward him and kissed her forehead.

“The ‘and’ part makes it confusing,” Miranda admitted. She brushed a stray eyelash off his cheek that she could just make out in the dim light. She held it up to him. “Blow it off and make a wish,” she said. It was something Gen had forced her to do all the time.

Christian blew the eyelash off Miranda’s finger.

“What did you wish for?” Miranda asked. She wondered if it was the same thing she wished for, even though it wasn’t, technically,
her
wish. All she wanted was for this moment to last forever.

“It’s complicated,” Christian said, wiggling his eyebrows as if to try to make Miranda laugh.

“You’re complicated,” Miranda said, shoving him. Her tone
was teasing, but she wasn’t kidding. He
was
complicated. “I don’t know anything about you.”

“So ask.” He shrugged.

Miranda blinked. She’d been expecting him to evade the question, or make a joke. “Where are you from?”

“Around. My family lives close, but I haven’t spent too much time on the island. I like it.”

“So you’re from the mainland?” Miranda pressed.

Christian nodded, but he didn’t say yes or no. “I sometimes feel like I don’t quite fit with them. You know, they’re the people you’re loyal to, because they’ve raised you and they’ve taught you what’s right, but you wonder whether there might be some other way to do things? That’s what it’s like,” Christian said. Miranda nodded. She felt the exact same way.

“Did they kick you out?” Miranda asked sympathetically.

“No, I chose to go. Now, the question is whether or not I want to go back. Or even if they’ll let me,” Christian said, his eyes taking on a faraway expression. Miranda realized that they were more similar than she’d thought. He obviously had secrets of his own that she hadn’t even had a chance to talk about, because she was so wrapped up in her own issues.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Miranda asked, laughing as she said it.

“What’s so funny?” Christian asked, propping his head up on his elbow.

“You asked me that last night. I hate it,” Miranda admitted.
“When you ask someone if they want to talk . . . I don’t know.”

“I thought you liked to talk,” Christian smiled.

“I do sometimes, I guess. But it has to be with someone I trust. Like my brother, Teddy. He’s younger, but I feel like he looks out for me. Sometimes I feel like I don’t even know what to think about anything until I talk to him,” Miranda said.