I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Celia
I’m sitting with Jude on one of the wooden benches that face the Pavilion in the early afternoon sun. It’s the last week of the real summer season, so the crowd is small but rowdy. They leap onto rides like warriors overtaking enemies, down cotton candy and Cokes like they won’t eat for the next few years—they mutter about cutting their vacations short because of the oncoming hurricane, are dedicated to a goal of riding each ride before the park shuts down early in preparation for the evening’s storm. Jude has his guitar, and has played a few songs, collected a few dollars in the case, but now he’s mostly just making jokes at the tourists’ expense. I’m trying to laugh, but it isn’t working.
“Tell me what’s wrong,” he finally says. His eyes are serious, despite the fact that the noise from the strong-man machine is almost louder than his voice.
I don’t know how to tell him without telling him everything. All the things I’ve kept from him, the reason we met, what really happened when I pulled him out of the water. My power, even. Instead, all I’ve done is lie.
He hates lies.
I want us to be a normal couple. More than that, I don’t want to admit I lied. I don’t want to admit that if he has Nightingale syndrome, it’s for Naida, not me. Jude pushes the guitar to one side, wraps his forearms and hands around mine.
I inhale. “Remember how I told you about my friend Naida? She…” When I pause, Jude laces his fingers with mine, runs his thumb along the side of my hand. I lean into him even though it’s hot and we’re both sticky with sweat.
“Something’s wrong. Something serious,” I finally say.
“What is it?”
How do you explain that the dark half of a girl who lives underwater seems to be dominating the human part of her personality? I sigh. More lies.
“She’s different. And she remembers how things used to be a long time ago, and it’s depressing her that she can’t go back to that time. Does that make sense?”
“A little. What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know how to help her.”
I rest my head on his shoulder, inhaling the scent of fabric softener and sunscreen as he thinks. “Maybe you can’t,” he finally says.
“I have to.”
“But maybe you can’t,” he says. “I tried to help my mom for years, and finally I had to realize that there was nothing more I could do. I tried, I did my best, but… I had to let go of the past, of our past together, and think about the future.”
“It’s hard for me to let go of the past,” I mutter. “It’s like a phobia.”
Jude smiles a little. “I still can’t let go of that fear of the water. I thought you and I might walk on the pier tonight, but I keep avoiding the subject because the prospect of it makes me dizzy.” He smiles at me a little.
“Come on,” I say, rising. I offer him my hand.
“I shouldn’t have said anything,” he says, glumly taking it.
“Probably not,” I agree. We start toward the pier. Rides are beginning to shut down, lines of angry people sent away. The hurricane isn’t supposed to be big, but they always take warnings seriously.
The pier juts out ahead—with the dark clouds, it looks like it’s a bridge straight into the storm. I remember seeing Jude playing here the night we met, before everything changed. One stupid board sticking out from the pier changed everything.
I feel Jude’s hand tense as we grow close. It’d be easier if I looked at his memories, saw what he’s remembering about the night—then maybe I could help him through those areas.
But instead, I ask, “What are you thinking about?”
“About how right here, I was playing a song I wrote about an ex-girlfriend. Maybe me tripping was her revenge.” He tries to laugh, but it’s a choked sound. He pauses as we step from the pavement onto the pier’s wooden steps. “It was the worst feeling, drowning. I remember when I felt your hand on my arm, pulling me up. I thought you were an angel.”
“An angel?”
“I know it sounds stupid, but yeah. How else could anyone have found me in the middle of the water, dark like it was, if she wasn’t an angel?”
Naida. She’s his angel. I’m just pretending. How long can I keep this up without telling him the truth?
We walk down the center of the pier, far from the railings. Jude is meticulous about where he puts his feet, walking slowly, carefully. We get to the spot with a new floor plank that replaced the one he fell over, yellow compared with the dingy gray of the others. He stares at it, then slowly walks forward, places his hand on the railing he flipped over, keeping his body stiff and far from it.
“Are you all right?” I ask.
He nods. “I know it was a freak accident, and I’m not the type to have irrational fears, really. It just… remember how I said it was like the ocean sucked the music out of me?”
“Yes. You found it again, though, when you went to the shore.”
“I…” He pauses a long time. “I feel like it didn’t just take something from me, it put something in my head, too. Like now the ocean is in me all the time. I can’t escape it.”
I don’t know what to say—that sounds like something Naida would tell me.
Jude looks from where we’re standing to the water, to the church, and back again. “How did you do it, anyway?” he asks. There’s nothing accusatory in his voice, but my heart speeds up a little.
“What?” I feign ignorance.
“Save me. You made it from here, down the pier, down to the shore, and then you swam out for me in the dark. I swear, I remember being at the bottom of the ocean. I didn’t realize how big a distance you had to cover till now, to be honest. How’d you do it? Do you have superpowers?” he tries to joke, but the words aren’t entirely teasing.
My mind formulates a dozen lies, then lies to support those lies, then lies to support those lies. I build a masterpiece of falsities in a matter of heartbeats, ready to share. The water brought you closer to shore. I was already farther down the dock. I know the path to the church well enough to run it. The moon was bright enough that I could see you in the water.
“There was someone else.”