Emerge (32 page)

“Tell me it isn’t true.”

“Huh?” My head is reeling. All I want to do is be alone so I can crumple without witnesses. Why is Caspian standing outside my front gate? “Look, Casp, can we talk later? I’ve had just about the worst—”

“Tell me it isn’t true,” he demands again, his arms crossed over his broad chest. He’s wearing a shirt. And shoes. I don’t remember the last time I saw him in anything other than a bathing suit or a thrown-on pair of shorts. If I wasn’t a hairsbreadth away from breaking down, I’d ask him about it. Right now though, I don’t care. I just want him to go away and leave me to my grief.

“What are you talking about?” I ask. If I figure out what he wants, maybe I can get him to leave me alone.

“Tell me you didn’t siren him.”

The words are too crisp, too clear. The sun too bright.

This can’t be happening. I’m imagining this. I must be. It’s some morbid hallucination. Maybe I snapped when I left Clay, and now I’ve gone crazy and I’m seeing things—hearing things—that aren’t real.

I can barely keep my legs underneath me, let alone answer him. He takes my silence for the admission of guilt it is.

“You did.” He tilts his head and stares at me like he’s never seen me before. “I didn’t really believe it. Didn’t want to think … but it was the only thing that made sense.”

“How did you find—”

“
That’s
your response?” he shouts. “I say you’re a siren, and all you want to know is how I found out?” He lets out a few choice curse words in Mermese. Caspian almost never curses. “You must think I’m an idiot.”

“No, I don’t,” I insist.

“Oh, really? How else could I miss it? What other type of ancient, dangerous magic would my grandmother refuse to mention? What else would make someone fall asleep the second you told them to? You asked me all those questions about sireny,” He shakes his head. It’s a relief when his hair falls into his eyes and covers the betrayal there. But then he sweeps it back with one hand and I can’t hide from his accusatory stare.

“Casp, please, it’s not what you think.”

“You didn’t siren him?” Beneath the hate-filled sarcasm lives a weed of hope.

“I did, but—”

“How? How could you? I thought there must have been something I was missing. Some other possibility. If I just came here and asked you, if I were just honest with you … ” He practically spits the word honest. He’s shaking.

“I’ll be honest. I’ll be honest now, okay?” I say, my voice pleading. And I am honest. I tell him about Clay acting weird and moody, about seeing Melusine siren him, about endless hours of research that led to nothing, and about needing to find a way to help.

“And then, we were on this field trip, and she was so mean to him. Casp, she was controlling him. He tried to break up with her, and she was about to sing to him again so he couldn’t. I couldn’t let it happen. I sang this song he’d written. I just wanted to protect him.”

“That worked? Using his own song?” For a second, the academic in Caspian wins out. Maybe if I can hold on to his curiosity …

“Yeah, actually there’s a precedent for it that I read about in—”

“How long ago?” He cuts me off.

“How long ago did I read about—”

“How long ago did you siren him?” His words escape through gritted teeth. He needs answers.

“Four weeks”

“Four weeks? The spell lasts that long?”

My face heats with shame. “It lasts half a day or so. Sometimes more. Sometimes less.” I mumble the words. He’s going to know what they mean.

“You’ve sirened him every day for four weeks?” A mixture of shock and utter disgust darken his face. Seeing Caspian look at me that way breaks me.

I can’t keep up the strength in my legs, so I let my weight clunk down to my knees in the gravel driveway.

“I had to. I had to. She would’ve just taken him back. Please understand! She would’ve … I couldn’t let her. I just couldn’t.”

“So, you did this for him? To help him?”

“Yes!” I exclaim, so relieved he seems to get it.

“That was really your only reason? You’re telling me you didn’t like it at all?”

“What? No!”

“Oh, please. I heard the way you called him your boyfriend.” He spits that word, too. “Are you telling me you don’t like having him cling all over you? Admit it, Lia. It’s been fun for you.”

I shake my head in adamant denial. But I might throw up, because it has been fun. A part of me has had more fun these past four weeks with Clay than I’ve ever had before. That’s why I had to leave him on that beach. Because I couldn’t bear to hear him say he doesn’t feel the same, doesn’t love me—and how could he when every moment we shared was a lie? Spending any more time with him … I’d be too tempted to do it again. To siren him just to keep feeling the way I feel when he’s near me. I’ve promised myself I’ll never do that again. Not ever.

“What did you make him do, huh Lia? Did he kiss you? Touch you? How far did the two of you go?”

“That’s enough!”

“Is it? He’s not your toy, you know. He has feelings.”

“I know that.”

“Do you? Do you know I have feelings?” His voice breaks, but he continues. “Did you even think about what you were doing to me? You sent me into Melusine’s house, and I went because I trusted you. I have always trusted you. Done anything I could to help you. And you didn’t even think about me.” He looks down at my face from where he towers above me. Disappointment shines in his eyes. And hurt. So much hurt.

“I did think about you.”

“Don’t. Don’t lie. Not again. You know how much my family suffers from just the ghost of sireny, and you’ve dragged me into it again. Dragged my grandmother into it. Into this sick game of yours.”

“Caspian, I didn’t have a choice.”

“Yes, you did. You had a bad choice, but you had a choice. Do you understand what you chose to risk? Your choice could affect your family for generations.” His shouts grow louder, meaner. “Your parents. Em and the twins. Amy. Amy’s grandchildren. Her great grandchildren. All of them would be despised if anyone found out what you did.”

It’s true. It’s all true. Tears finally pour down my cheeks as I picture my family shunned by the very Community they’ve worked so hard to build. Pearls mix among the gravel that digs into my knees.

He doesn’t acknowledge my pain. He just keeps talking. Each word twists the hook in deeper. “And don’t forget the human. You think you did this to protect him? You enslaved him. Just like Adrianna did to her human. Just like all those other sirens did. How could you cause that kind of pain? How did you become like those monsters? You don’t care about anyone, do you?”

“Yes!” Now I’m the one shouting. “Yes, I do! I care about Clay more than I have ever cared about anyone. Maybe I made a bad choice, but I did it for a good reason.” I get to my feet, my own conviction giving me strength. “I stopped. Do you hear me? I stopped today. Now that we have enough on Melusine to keep her in line, I let Clay go. Do you think I don’t know his love for me wasn’t real? That every touch … Of course I know! That’s why I stopped sirening him today and why we can’t be together. I’ll never let myself get close enough to him to be tempted to sing again. No matter what I feel for Clay, I’m not going to push myself on him.” I’m shaking now, too. Badly. “Leaving him was the hardest thing I’ll ever do, and I did it because I
do
care.”

Caspian stills. His voice is low, roughened from his earlier shouts, when he asks, “You stopped sirening him? You swear?”

“I swear.” My oath is solemn, my eyes wet. “And I’m the one who’ll have to live with that choice for the rest of my life.”

Silence.

Then Caspian clears his throat. “It’s good you’ve stopped. It means I won’t have to turn you in.” The stark relief on his face tells me that’s a choice he dreaded making. “But I can’t forgive you for this. Not ever. You’re a siren.”

I’m everything he’s always hated.

“Caspian, don’t!” I beg.

He holds my gaze for a long, life-altering moment. Then, just as I left Clay, Caspian leaves me. He turns his back and walks away down the street.

As his tall frame gets smaller and smaller, my heart breaks for the second time today.

“Your face looks as tragic as a beached baby seal,” Lapis says from the living room.

I don’t respond. I barely hear her. I’m halfway up the stairs before she rests a hand on my shoulder.

“Hey, what’s wrong?”

I have no words. I have no tears, either. Maybe I shed them all with Caspian. Maybe I’ve dried myself out. That’s how I feel inside: dried up, withered, dead.

I shrug off her hand and shake my head. “Alone,” I say. “I just need to be alone.” That’s a lie. What I need is to be with Clay. For Caspian to forgive me. But neither of those is going to happen. Alone is all I have to work with.

Lazuli has come up behind her now, and both of them look back and forth between me and each other, unsure what to do. They’re concerned, but I can’t bring myself to care. So, I take advantage of their indecision and retreat to my upstairs room.

Over the next few hours, they take turns trying to get me to unlock the door. When nothing works, they tell me Mom and Dad will be back from the Foundation soon and Leomaris is coming to dinner, so my parents will expect me to come down.

I sit on my bed, clutching a pillow to my chest. I must look like the perfect stereotype of some angst-ridden teenage girl. Only I’m not. If I were a stereotypical teenage girl, I could text my bf a few emoticon hearts, and we’d get back together. But I can’t. I can’t get Clay back because I never had him. And I never will. He deserves someone so much better than me. Someone who would never do what I’ve done. Someone who he loves for real. These last few weeks have been nothing more than a dream. A beautiful, tragic dream.

Well, I’m awake now. I’m awake, and it hurts more than anything has ever hurt. I’ll never have the dream back.

Dry, giant sobs wrack my body. I gasp for air as the sheer force of them cleaves me in two. They go on and on and on until I’m curled up on my bedspread, exhausted. My chest aches, my head aches, and I focus on that because it’s easier than thinking about what I’ve lost.

The sun has set by the time I drag myself from that bed. My parents are calling me downstairs and, while I don’t want to go, I really don’t want to answer their questions about my absence. Without comprehending how I got there, I’m sitting at the dining room table with a plate of food in front of me that I don’t eat. Lapis and Lazuli keep shooting me sideways glances, but everyone else focuses on Emeraldine and Leomaris.

I don’t understand why until they say they have an announcement. Their happy faces seem surreal when I’m struggling with such gnawing sadness.

“We’re getting married!” Emeraldine practically squeals. That’s right, Emeraldine, my proper, self-possessed sister is squealing.

Her words cut through my fog like a jet ski through still waters. While everyone else cheers, I look at Em and Leo. Really look. Their grasped hands lie on the tabletop, and their radiant smiles fill the room. Em has never looked this happy. Leo, too, looks almost delirious with it.

“So, did you two decide to go traditional, or are you sentencing yourselves to seventy-odd years of monogamy?” Lazuli asks. At the looks on my parents’ faces, she adds, “What? We were all thinking it.”

Leomaris comes to the rescue. “We still haven’t decided. We know it’ll be … a challenge to navigate such uncharted waters.” He stops to laugh at his own lame joke, and my father joins him.

“But,” Emeraldine picks up, “we don’t want to waste precious time that we could be spending together worrying about what problems we might swim into.”

“That’s right,” Leo says. “We can’t solve everything. Some things we’ll just have to figure out as we go along.”

He turns and shares a smile with my sister. She melts in her chair and snuggles her head against his shoulder, bringing his hand up to her lips for a kiss. “Some things are worth the risk.”

You know that moment when you’ve been swimming down deep in dark waters and you break the surface and your hair flips back slick out of your eyes and the sun hits your face for what feels like the very first time? That’s how I feel right now. I look at my sister, and I look at Leo. Ever since they were fourteen, I’ve thought they were this perfect couple, with absolutely nothing working against them. But they’re not. They have to work at it. They have to make tough calls and be honest and communicate even when it means risking pain. They fight for each other. And they do it because they love each other.

If I ever want to be that happy, I have to take a risk, too. If I don’t want to spend the rest of my life curled up in my room, I have to stop mourning something I haven’t even lost yet. And I have to stop telling myself I’m not strong enough to face the possibility of Clay rejecting me without resorting to sireny. Because I’ll never be strong enough if I don’t give myself the chance. I have to fight for Clay—even if it means fighting my own fear.

Maybe he doesn’t feel what I feel. Maybe he never did. But how will I know unless I go to him? I have to go to him.