“You wrote the song. You don’t need to thank me for that,” I tell him.
“Maybe…” Jude says. He puts his hands in his pockets, sways a little. “But I feel like you put it in my head. Like a muse. Is that weird?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.”
We’re quiet for a few moments, listening to the waves.
“How did you know I’d be here?” I ask him, keeping my eyes trained on the water.
“I didn’t.” Jude shrugs. “I just thought I’d check. Are you all right?”
“You asked me that last time.”
“Last time it was because you were crying. This time it’s because you look… sick. Green, sort of.”
“I’m fine.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” I say, looking away. How long can I continue tricking him into thinking I’m human if he’s already noticing it? A cloud passes in front of the moon, and I almost sigh audibly in relief. If he knew what I really was, would he run? He should. If he’s smart, he’d run and never look back.
Jude sits down in the sand near me, just out of arms’ reach. “So, what are you really doing here all the time?”
I could give him another short answer, an answer that doesn’t really answer him at all. But I’m tired, and I’m starting to wonder if my sadness makes me more human than even Naida’s memories do. I look his way, hoping he doesn’t notice how dark my eyes are. “I’m trying to remember the girl I used to be.”
“Used to be?”
“A long time ago. She was happy; I’m not.”
Jude nods knowingly—really knowingly—before speaking. “I’m familiar with being miserable with your life. I understand.”
I don’t know how to answer, so I stay quiet.
“I played the song for a girl,” Jude finally says when the silence is too much to bear.
That’s right, he played it for Celia—I remember talking to her about it, but only vaguely. Those memories belong to Naida. “She loved it,” I say, perhaps a little too knowingly.
“Yes. It seemed a little weird, playing a song for one girl that was inspired by another.”
“I inspired the song, or just the parts about the ocean?” I ask, raising an eyebrow.
Jude looks sheepish, guilty. “Both. I’m not sure why. When I look at you, I think about music. It’s like you’re singing to me even though you aren’t.”
I nod, look down. Molly sang to him, sang our songs to him. He thought they were beautiful, but not for the right reasons. Not for the same reasons he thinks Celia is beautiful, not for the same reasons he might love her.
“Play it for me?” I ask. He looks up.
“I’d have to go get the guitar from my car,” he says, but he’s already rising to do so. I nod, and he turns to hurry up the path, like he’s worried I might vanish before he gets back. I sigh as the clouds move away from the moon—it’s risen so that moonbeams are streaking down straight onto the side of the church. I can’t stay here, not without Jude realizing that my skin color is far too wrong for me to simply be sick.
I rise, let a cry of pain escape my lips, but I force my feet along the beach, toward a section shaded by the shadow of the pier. The sand here is a little wetter since it’s closer to the water—it still hurts, but it’s not quite as excruciating to stand. Being closer to the waves also makes me calmer, like it slows down my heart, soothes my mind the way the water soothes my wounds.
Jude jogs back down the path, guitar over one shoulder. I see a moment of panic when he realizes I’m not by the church, but then he finds me.
“You moved,” he calls out.
“I do that,” I answer through teeth gritted from the pain. I have to relax—he’ll know. I keep waiting for him to come closer, but he’s frozen up by the dry sand, staring at something. I follow his line of sight out to the waves.
“You’re still afraid?” I ask.
“I liked what you said about the ocean,” he answers, “but that doesn’t change the fact that I almost died. I can’t stop thinking about the way it felt underwater.” He looks between me and the waves, like he’s afraid to take his eyes off either of us. He can’t move.
I can. It hurts, but I can. I force myself to stand straight, to walk forward—still in the shadow of the pier but closer to the dry sand. The urge to cry out is overwhelming, the urge to drop to my knees and crawl even more so. But I can’t let him see, I can’t let him see. The shadow hides the trail of bloody footsteps behind me as I grow closer, closer. Please, stop hurting me, I beg as it burns through my stomach, around my shoulders, behind my eyes.
“Thanks,” Jude says when I’m nearer to him. I nod, sink to the ground. I want to cry. I don’t. Why didn’t I just go into the water, disappear?
Because I want to hear his song. Jude turns the guitar around to his front and positions it. He looks at me, then starts to play, keeping his eyes on mine. I feel trapped, locked in his gaze, but I don’t dislike it. I don’t dislike it at all.
The song sounds like the ocean—it rises and falls, notes splash forward and harmonize with the sea behind me. It sounds like one of our songs, I realize. The one Molly sang to Jude the night I saved him. I close my eyes; the song makes me think of home. It makes me forget the pain, the hurt, the longing. It makes me feel like I did underwater before all this happened, before Jude, before Celia—it makes me feel peaceful. No conflict, no doubt, just me and my sisters and the ocean all around us.
I open my eyes and begin to sing.
My words and Jude’s music turn around each other in the air, matching the ocean, matching the darkness. Jude is still looking straight at me, his eyes widening as each line leaves my lips. We’ve long forgotten where our songs came from, yet we never forget the lyrics even when we’re old. Jude takes a step toward me, another; his face is still, his eyes locked on mine like he’s seeing something beautiful for the first time. Another step. I continue to the next verse.
Yes. Come to me.
Another step. I back up. Closer to the waves, closer to the water. Follow my song, so I can pull you under—the voice in my head feels dark, like it’s not my own.
I shiver. No, no. I don’t want to drown him. He says he thinks of music when he looks at me. He turned our song into his own—he must feel something…. Could he love me? Is it possible?