It’s still screaming when I stomp to my room, slamming my door so hard it rattles the whole house.
I wish I was a mermaid.
If I lived in the sea, I’d never get out,
never let my feet touch the sand.
Because if I was a mermaid,
I could swim the ocean wide with you,
the cold waters melting into warm.
If I lived in the sea, we wouldn’t be here
and I wouldn’t feel like this
because you never would have left me
alone.
If I was a mermaid, I’d fit with you like I should.
If I lived in the sea, I’d fit with me like I should.
If I was a mermaid, I’d sleep in the deep
and play in the shallows,
flipping my tail for the humans on shore.
They’d see a flash of color and shout.
They’d tell stories about me at night.
But I’d never let them get close enough
to hear my heart beat.
Mermaid girl.
Mermaid or girl?
Girl—real or not?
CHAPTER
24
Kate took my phone away. She says I need quiet time to think and get some rest. Well, I say she’s turned into some kind of demon from the deep, complete with red-rimmed eyes and horns. And now Dave’s here and he and Kate are talking, talking, talking out in the living room, probably about all the ways they can make my life miserable.
I lie on my bed and write. I write so much my hand cramps and I have to take a bunch of breaks. Then I scour Lena’s journal, looking for anything to get rid of this knot in the middle of my chest, like my heart’s arteries and veins and vessels are all tangled up.
She gave you up.
I shake my head and flip through the journal, landing on a black-inked entry toward the beginning of the book.
Sometimes I look at J and can’t believe I’ve gotten this chance. I get to love again. I get to be loved again. Two years ago, I never thought this would happen. I had some chances, maybe, but I pushed them all away. Getting sober was so hard—it’s still so hard—I wasn’t going to risk a broken heart again. But now everything’s different. And he wasn’t the one who made me feel like I could do it. It was me. It was me working the program, me going to meetings, me calling D in the middle of the night if I had to. It was me believing that I had something to give someone else, finally, instead of just taking, taking, taking.
I frown down at the page, my heart thumping all over the place. Because… because it sounds like this J person is her boyfriend or something. Maybe he’s just a best friend, but it sounds super-romantic. I tuck this question away and keep on reading.
And now there’s S. For the past few weeks, I cry myself to sleep almost every night, thinking about her. Thinking about how she’s my life and I’m hers. Thinking about how I can’t mess this up. I can’t. Sometimes I look at S’s face and I can’t breathe, I love her so much. It’s the scariest, best kind of pain, right in the middle of my chest.
I reread that part a couple of times, then I check the date on the entry. Lena wrote it in February. Way before she came to Port Hope for me. Way before she even called Kate.
So, if S is me, then…
I read it again. She must have had a picture of me. Maybe Kate sent her some over the past eight years, school photos and stuff like that. But… Kate said she could never get in touch with Lena, whenever she tried. The last number she’d had was disconnected. It had been years since Kate and Lena had talked. That’s what she told me, that day in my hospital room.
But surely Lena had baby pictures of me. That’s one thing I’ve been thinking about, actually. Kate doesn’t have any of my baby stuff because our life together started when I was four. So Lena has to have something. She wouldn’t throw it away, would she?
I sit up and run my hand over the crinkly journal page, imagining Lena looking at a baby picture of me and getting up the courage to call Kate, to come see me, to get her second chance. I try to settle the image in my heart and it almost fits, but it keeps popping out, like a puzzle piece that’s just a hair too big for the only gap left in the whole puzzle.
I close the journal and stick it under my pillow. I feel itchy and bouncy and there’s no way I can sleep after reading all that. They were supposed to calm me down, Lena’s words, but all they did was stir me all up and stick all these questions in my brain.
I slide off my bed and tiptoe down the hallway, peering around the corner and into the living room. Dave’s here and he and Kate are on the couch, their heads super-close. He has his arm around her shoulders, and his hand is playing with her hair.
I stand there for a few seconds, wondering if I should try to talk to Kate about Lena again. Maybe she knows who J is. Maybe she knows… something. I don’t know, anything. But just as I’m about to step all the way into the living room, I realize Dave and Kate aren’t talking.
They’re… kissing.
Finally, they’re kissing.
I wait to feel super-happy, because I’m always teasing them and I know that Dave loves Kate more than anything in the whole wide world. They think I don’t know that he quit music to come be with her, to help her with the bookstore and me, but there’s no other possible reason. His is the kind of love I read about in books and sing along with in songs. Especially his super-whiny songs. That kind of love is the whole reason I want to kiss someone so bad.
But I don’t feel happy. I don’t know what I feel, exactly, but it’s not happy. My chest feels hollow, like I’m missing some super-important part of myself and I don’t know where to find it. Everyone’s got their life, their love stories that make them feel happy and grateful and all soft inside, and here I am with someone else’s heart in my chest while Kate makes all the decisions and then goes and has all this fun smooching Dave.
I sneak back to my room and get into bed. I pull the covers over my head and squeeze my eyes shut so tight, colors explode under my eyelids. It’s all bubbling up, too many thoughts all bumping into each other in my head. My heart pounds like it’s about to bust right out of my chest, and I think it might. I think it really might.
I’m just about to cry or scream or pull out my blue hair, which I really do like a whole lot, when I hear a tiny tap on my window.
I peek out of my quilt and glance toward the glass. It’s covered with sheer white curtains, so I can’t see much. Plus, it’s totally dark outside, almost eleven o’clock. But then I hear it again.
Tap.
Tap-tap.
I throw off my covers and run to the window, shoving the curtains out of the way. I start to kneel on the cushioned bench under the glass, but I guess I’m a little too excited—or scared or nervous that it’s an axe murderer tapping on my window or something—because my foot gets tangled in the bottom of the thin curtain fabric. I pull and tug, but it’s like there’s a tentacle wrapped around my ankle. I bend down to unwrap it, lose my balance, and go down hard. Even better, I bring the whole curtain rod and curtains down with me.
“Sunny, are you okay?”
I yank the curtains off my head and look around my room for the voice. It sounded like… Quinn. But a faraway Quinn.
“Sunny?”
Tap-tap-tap.
I peer at the window and see a hand pressed against the glass, fingernail tapping away. Her face appears a second later, purple curls everywhere, and I swear, I almost cry. I really, really do. But before I can get up and open the window, my bedroom door flies open.
CHAPTER
25
“Sunny?” Kate says, anger and panic mixing around in her voice.
I whip my head back to the window, but it’s completely dark.
“Yeah,” I grunt.
Kate hurries to where I’m sprawled on the floor, draped in drapes with a sore butt.
“What did you do?” she asks.
“What did I do? It’s not like I tripped on the curtains
on purpose.”
She sighs and helps me to my feet and gathers the curtains into a ball before dumping them back onto the floor near my bed. Very un-Kate-like.
“You all right, Sunshine?” Dave asks from the doorway.
“She’s fine,” Kate snaps before I can even answer for myself.
Dave peers at me, eyes narrowed. Then he wiggles his fingers down his head and shoots me a thumbs-up. He likes my hair. I ignore him and he frowns, but I don’t care.
“Go to bed,” Kate says, heading for the door. “You should’ve been asleep hours ago.”
“Yes, Mother,” I say. But I don’t really say it. I spit it, all venom, a name I’ve never been allowed to call her. It feels like a weapon now and I’m going to use it. It must be sharp too, because Kate stops in her tracks, her shoulders heaving up and down. She doesn’t turn around to face me, though.
“Sunny,” Dave sighs out.
“Well, she won’t let me have my actual mom, will she?” I say. “A girl needs her mom, you know. Her real one.”
Dave glances at Kate, who still hasn’t moved. If my words really were a sword, they would’ve cut Kate in half. For real, she’d be in two pieces, blood all over the floor, her heart slowing, slowing, slowing until it finally stopped. I wait to feel some kind of triumph, but I don’t. Instead my throat closes up and my eyes not only sting, but water. Like, a full bloom of tears right in my eyeballs.
I try to hold it together, but Dave can tell I’m about to lose it. Maybe Kate is too. She still hasn’t budged. He comes into the room and takes her hand, so gently and sweetly, it makes all the tears start a sprint down my cheeks. Then they’re gone and my door is closed.
I don’t even wait to make sure they’re out of earshot. Tears blur my vision, and I almost trip over the curtains Kate plopped right in my way, but I shake the devils off and make it to the window. It’s locked up tight, but I get it unlatched and throw it open.
“Quinn,” I whisper-yell into the dark. I don’t see her anywhere. Not that I can see much, but more tears escape out of my eyes.
“Quinn!”
The word doesn’t even sound like her name, my throat squeezing it until it’s all broken up. I’m really bawling now, though I’m trying to be quiet about it. The last thing I need is Kate back in here, all mad but fussing over me just the same.
Trying to be quiet when there’s a hurricane happening in your face is not an easy thing, let me tell you. I’m probably the color of a beet, blotchy and snotty on top of that. I’m not sure I even want Quinn to see me like this, except that I do. I do want her to see me like this because… because…
“I’m here,” a voice says to my left. “I’m sorry, I dove into the bushes when I saw Kate come in your room and I got a branch stuck in my hair and—”
But she cuts herself off because I’m crying even harder now.
“Hey,” she says, real soft and sweet.
“Hey,” I say back, real hiccup-y and gross-sounding. I need a tissue.
“I texted, but you didn’t answer,” she said. “Then I called and it went straight to voice mail.”
“Kate took my phone.”
“Oh. I just… I wanted to make sure you were okay. That was intense. Earlier. With Kate and your… with Lena.”
A fresh batch of tears spills over, but I manage a soggy laugh. “Intense. Yeah. Aren’t you going to get into trouble for being out so late?”
She shrugs. “My mom sleeps hard and I have my phone if she wakes up. Even if she caught me, it’d be worth it.”
I look at her and she looks back at me. “It would?”
“Totally.”
“Why?”
She blinks a whole lot and I think her face goes a little red. But it’s dark, so maybe not. “BFFs, right?” she finally says.
“Right.” Hiccup. Sniff. BFFs are great. The greatest. In my opinion, they’re the number one most important thing in a gal’s life, in anyone’s life, which is why finding a new best friend was a top priority in my New Life plan. But for some reason, I feel sort of let down by Quinn’s answer.
Like I kind of, sort of, maybe wanted her to say something else.
Which is silly. And weird. And New Life Sunny isn’t either of those things.
I shake my head and take a breath and, all at the same time, rub my eyes, which are still leaking. Sheesh, I’m a mess.
“Hey,” Quinn says again, still soft and sweet. Before I know it, she’s climbing through the window and standing in my room.
Quinn is in my room. I mean, she’s been in my room before, but never in the middle of the night and never when I’m a crying mess and never, ever after she’s told me she likes girls and definitely never, ever, ever after I just wished she’d said she came over to check on me because of BFFs and because of something a little bit different than BFFs.
I feel like I’m on my surfboard again, the wild sea under my feet, and I’m trying to keep my balance.
But I can’t.
I’m about to fall. I just know I am. Right into an ocean so big, I’ll disappear and no one will ever find me again.
I feel dizzy. My heart is totally out of control. This was not the plan. This was not on my list of amazing things to do if I got to live. I tap two fingers to my chest, trying to get my heart to calm down, to behave, to chill out because it’s only Quinn.
But this heart is not having it. It keeps pounding, and my breathing keeps huffing and puffing.
“Sunny—”
“I’m okay,” I say, but I sit down on the window seat anyway. I turn and lean my back against the frame, pulling my legs to my chest. Quinn does the same and it’s such a tiny little bench that our knees touch.
“Your hair matches your room,” Quinn says, whispering.
I look around and smile, picking up a long chunk of my hair and holding it against the walls. “It totally does.”
“I love it.”
I let my eyes meet hers. “I love yours too.”
She takes a shaky breath. “I’m sorry about what happened. I feel like it’s my fault.”
“What? No way.”
“But I brought over the hair dye.”
“Kate’s not mad about my hair,” I say. “I mean, she is, but it’s more…”
“Lena?”
A knot balls up in my throat. “Yeah. Lena.”
“What’s it like?”
“What’s what like?”
She shrugs. “Being you. All this stuff with your heart and now Lena. It’s… wow, Sunny. It’s a lot.”
I swallow hard. No one’s ever asked me that before. Not even Kate. Not even when I was sick. She’d ask how I was feeling. She’d ask if I wanted to talk about Lena. But she’s never, ever asked what it was like.
I take a deep, slow breath and feel my heart pounding under my ribs. Then I tell Quinn what I’ve only ever told Lena. That it’s weird, to be alive. That it’s weird to have someone else’s heart, someone who died, and that sometimes I’m not sure what parts are me and what parts… aren’t.
As I talk, I watch Quinn play with her fingers. Her nails are painted a pretty rose-gold color. I reach out and grab her hand. I tell myself I just want to look at her nails a little closer, but I’m not really sure about that.
I keep on talking, though. Then, somehow, Quinn’s hand gets under mine and I move my fingers so they’re tangled with hers and we’re holding hands. We’re holding hands like we did under the waterfall, like I always dreamed of holding hands with a boy.
Like I always wondered about holding hands with a girl.
Except now it’s not practice and it’s real. I know it’s real, because I’m saying really real stuff to her and when I open my eyes, she’s looking right at me and I know she gets it.
“That sounds hard,” she says when I finally shut up.
I shrug. “Sometimes. But I’m alive, you know? And I shouldn’t be. If my donor hadn’t died when they did, I might have died too.”
Her eyes get shiny and she nods. �
�That’s so sad. And weird, because… I’m so glad you’re alive. And if I’m glad, does that mean I’m glad they died?”
I give her a tired smile. “Welcome to my brain.”
She squeezes my hand and I squeeze back. We don’t let go.
“So, what’s it like being you?” I ask.
She huffs a laugh, but then she sees I’m serious, that I really want to know, and she’s quiet for a while. Her thumb moves over my first finger, back and forth, back and forth, making me feel all warm and happy.
“Lonely,” she finally says.
“How come?”
“You know I hate all the traveling, right?”
“Right.”
“But it’s more than that. Like, all that stuff I told you that happened with Sadie back in Alaska. I just… I never fit anywhere. For the past couple of years, I was pretty sure that I liked… that I… well, you know.”
I swallow hard. I don’t blink. I don’t breathe. Luckily, she doesn’t look at me and keeps on talking.
“So, even if I’m not the only brown girl in whatever town we’re in, I’m always nervous that I’ll… that someone will…” She sighs and shrugs. “I just can’t find any real friends, you know? My mom calls it ‘finding your people.’ But what if you can’t? What if people you thought were your people laugh at you and forget about you?”
I nod, still unblinking and unbreathing. I thought Margot was my people, but I was way wrong. Kate and Dave are my people, but they don’t know about all my wonderings, wonderings that I hoped were long gone but that keep creeping back into my head and heart. Then there’s Lena, but there’s still so much I don’t know about her. So many holes and gaps in the eight years she was just a mermaid under the ocean.
But here’s Quinn. Quinn, who’s holding my hand. Quinn, who maybe, just maybe, not only wonders, but knows.
“I can be your people,” I say, really super-quiet. Because Quinn is amazing. Quinn is smart and beautiful and she got laughed at too. She got betrayed too, and she’s still here, being herself. She’s still sitting in my room, holding my hand, like maybe, when I asked why she was here a few minutes ago, she wishes she’d given me a different reason than BFFs too.
The Mighty Heart of Sunny St. James Page 19