“Deal.” She stuck out her tiny hand.
I reared back as if she’d aimed the promised speargun at me.
She didn’t lower her arm, although an embarrassed flinch crossed her face. She tried to cover it with a grin, but I couldn’t unsee it. Couldn’t unsee the way she watched me with the same sort of longing I’d looked at the jug full of water.
My heart quickened.
There was...something.
Something that shouldn’t exist.
I couldn’t stop myself as I reached out and wrapped my much bigger hand around hers.
She sucked in a short breath, making my nape prickle. Her blue, blue eyes landed on our linked hands, and with the softest exhale, she whispered, “It feels different, doesn’t it?” She looked up, freezing me in her far too bright stare. “I mean...different to when I touch my mum or dad. Different to when I touch my friends. Different to even when I’m stroking Sapphire and her babies.”
Her fingers flexed in mine, sending the faintest current through me.
I tugged my hand from hers, burying it beneath my casted one. “It’s because you saved my life.”
“It is?” Her eyebrows met her hairline. “Why?”
I flexed my fist, willing the tingle to cease.
A flash of my mother making up stories for Melike when she struggled to sleep haunted me. Those stories had been the only thing that could calm Mel enough to dream, especially as we ran for our lives.
Swallowing against another onslaught of despair, I murmured, “In my language...my name means lion. Lions don’t belong in the sea, and if you hadn’t found me, I would’ve sunk and—”
“Become a sea lion.” Neri giggled. “There are sea lions, you know. They don’t have paws, but they do have big teeth and strong flippers.”
“Are you going to let me tell the story or not?”
“Is it a happy story?”
“Aren’t all stories happy?” I winced.
I’d learned the hard way that wasn’t true. Not at all.
“Not sometimes,” Neri whispered. “Not always.” Coming closer to me, she rested her hand on my cast.
I was grateful I couldn’t feel her skin against mine, but her nearness did worrying things to my heart.
“I’m so sorry. About your family. I meant what I said about them being with the whales now. I know you’re sad, but they’re oka—I mean...they’re safe now. Just like you are. Here. With me.”
I couldn’t breathe.
Couldn’t move.
She looked down then back up again, keeping her chin low and watching me beneath thick eyelashes. “What’s your name? It must be cool if it means lion.” She hopped onto the bed, making me shift away. “My mother called me Nerida because it means sea nymph. That’s cool too. Or at least, I think it is. She said a fortune teller at a local fair told her that one day I would live beneath the waves.” Her eyes turned dreamy. “I can’t breathe underwater yet, but I keep trying. Keep scaring my dad when I manage to hold for ages, and he’s probably going to have a heart attack when I figure out how to be a real fish, but...oh well.”
I held her stare.
I fell into everything about her.
Guilt roared through me.
Grief made me suffocate.
I needed her gone.
Crossing my arms, my tone cooled. “I think you should probably go.”
“Go?” Her mouth parted in shock. “But why? I thought...” Her shoulders slouched. “I thought we were friends.”
Her pain became my pain.
I flinched.
Ah, fuck.
How had this happened?
I squeezed the back of my neck. “Look, I—”
“Are you harassing that poor boy again?” Neri’s father appeared around the flower curtain.
I scrambled farther away from his daughter as if I’d been caught doing something punishable by death.
His weathered face broke into a grin as soon as he saw me. “You’re alive. And hopefully, back in one piece.”
I clutched my cast and bowed my head in respect. “Thank you, sir. Thank you for getting me care—”
“Jack. Please. Call me Jack. And you’re more than welcome.” Raising his hand, he dumped a heavy duffel on the end of the bed next to his daughter. Giving her a quick squeeze, he tapped her on the nose and tutted good naturedly. “We told you to stay with us while we finished filling in the paperwork. Yet what did you do, little fish? You ran away again.” He huffed and rolled his eyes as he stood to his full height. “Always slipping through my fingers. Making me wonder where you’ve swum off too.”
“I came to see if he was alright. I overheard the nurse say which ward he was in.”
“You’re too smart for your own good.” Jack ruffled her hair and turned to his wife as she appeared. “Anna, look at where our no-good daughter ended up. Harassing the patient.”
Anna smiled, her pretty face so similar to Neri’s with big eyes, petite nose, and expressive mouth. Her hair was darker but only just, losing the battle with salt and sun. “I’m glad to see you’re stronger,” she said, throwing me a smile even if it was a little reserved.
Striding forward, she ordered, “Neri, help me with this table. We’ll scoot it closer to the bed and have ourselves a picnic before we go.”
“Go?” The word slipped from my lips despite myself.
“Yes. It’s getting late. We have to be up at four again tomorrow. The humpbacks have begun migrating back to warmer waters to calf.”
That was not the answer I was expecting. “You help whales give birth?”
Jack chuckled. “Nah, we just watch. And take photos. And notes. And everything else really that will document their habits and secrets.” He helped Neri wheel a large table that’d been pushed by the window toward me on the bed. “My wife and I are marine biologists.”
“And me!” Neri piped up, throwing herself back on the bed beside me as if she belonged there.
I forced myself not to look at her, focusing on her parents. “I’ve never met a marine biologist before.”
“Well, now you have.” Anna dropped the brown paper bags and drinks she’d been carrying, before dragging two hardback chairs from behind the curtain separating us from another patient. “We get to spend every waking moment doing what we love.”
“And one day, I’ll be the bestest biologist there ever was.” Neri grinned, tearing into the bags and passing me something wrapped in grease-shiny paper. “Here. It’s from our favourite burger joint. I made Dad grab you something to eat before we came back to check on you.”
Jack huffed and unwrapped a juicy burger full of crisp lettuce, battered fish, and oozing white sauce. He bit into it. “It’s called the Nemo burger. Kinda wrong, really, to name a food after a children’s movie, and even more wrong for people who study fish for a living to eat it, but...hey.” He shrugged and took another huge bite. “That’s life, I guess. Food chain and all.”
Neri munched beside me, watching me intently as I slowly unwrapped my burger.
Just like my thirst had attacked me and made me lose all decorum, my hunger snarled to shove the food into my mouth as fast as humanly possible.