Page 15 of Between Salt and Serenades
“Didn’t realize what?” I asked, my back still facing her.
“Our transition is pain free, and I know you said the same for hybrids, but I just didn’t realize yours was so…” she paused again, “intense.”
“I basically shed and grow all new skin, teeth, and nails simultaneously. Of course it’s intense.” I tossed a soft pair of leggings over my shoulder then stripped out of the grimy fisherman’s slacks. Aware I was exposing my bare ass to her, I carefully climbed into the fresh new ones. Stabilizing myself on the dresser, I shoved down the flutter in my gut that came with the vulnerability of her eyes on me.
“Do you want me to help you wash that off?” Breena asked quietly. I slowly turned on my heels to examine her fatigued features.
“I don’t need your pity. It’s just,” I paused, “how things work. I accepted that a long time ago.”
“But that’s not how it was for your father. He lived in two worlds, didn’t have to choose.”
“Until he did,” I barked out, the residual flutters in my stomach squelched by her words. “And it got him killed. Are you done asking questions now?”
Breena made a soft, breathy sound as I shifted away from her, but she didn’t respond. What was there to say anyway?
I grunted as I collapsed onto the bed centered between two windows. The mattress groaned under my weight, and I stifled my own moan as my body cried in relief. My spine stretched and settled into the firm mattress; Breena jostled me as she clumsily climbed in.
“What are you doing?” My head swung to look at her and I propped myself up on my sore elbows, ready to use my foot to kick her off the mattress.
“Going to sleep,” she said between yawns as she got comfortable under the light-colored sheets. She pulled them up under her chin, her eyes fluttering closed.
“Not here, you’re not. There’s a perfectly good settee in the other room,” I said loud enough to make Breena open her eyes. Iyanked at the sheets to steal her comfort. The last thing I needed was her in this bed.
“The last surface I slept on was a trunk. I’m not sleeping on that lumpy thing you call a settee.” She pulled the sheets back and held them with a firm grasp. We both knew I wasn’t getting them back from her with that grip of hers.
“Well, at least you slept on the boat,” I bit back. “If you recall, I watched your back so you could rest. Therefore, I’m taking the bed.”
“Don’t act like that was for me. You would have never trusted me enough to keep watch. You can stay here, I don’t care, but I’m not leaving.”
“Fine, but don’t even think of sleeping on top of me. I’ve seen how you seals sleep.” I faced away from Breena to make it easier to forget she was there and my mother and Zellia weren’t. Swallowing hard, I tried to ignore the heat radiating from her under the sheets, wrapping around me, begging for my attention. I squeezed my eyes shut and thought of nothing but the icy waves of the winter to cool down my own heat accumulating in all the wrong places.
“Never in a million years, fish.”
I woke to a clatter in the kitchen. I sat straight up in bed, my heart pounding as I realized where I was. Dreams found me, ones where I’d been back in the water and my brief time on land had all been but a terrible nightmare. I dreamt of an abundant sea and swimming in loops around a spotted shark as we chased little fishes, not out of competition for the last remaining resources, but out of companionship. It was bliss.
Clinking glass pulled me back into my reality. I threw off the sheets, swung my legs over the side of the bed, and made my way into the kitchen.
“What are you doing now?” I asked Breena as she hovered over the stove. Her hair dripped down her back, creating a patch of dark red fabric on the flowy dress she donned. I took a whiff of myself, and the stench that hit my nose was a swift reminder that I, too, needed to bathe.
I guess the fresh water didn’t kill her.
“Didn’t you learn your lesson last night that you can’t eat raw rice?”
She dunked a wooden spoon into a pot and shoveled out a few scoops, dumping them into a ceramic bowl.
“It’s not raw!” she said, shoving the warm bowl of wet rice into my hands. I peered around her to the stove and the pot sitting on top of it, both splattered with starchy water.
“You did not.”
“I did!” Breena said with a smug smile, finding a spot to sit at a small wooden table by the window. She’d cracked open the window, letting a cool summer morning breeze into the room. I closed my eyes for a brief moment as the smell of the sea struck my nose.
A spoon clattered against the ceramic bowl, teasing my eyes back open. I sat down at the table across from her with my bowl of soupy rice.
“I found a little piece of paper in the bag with instructions, so I simply followed them. Or so I tried. I wasn’t quite sure what the rice was supposed to look like when it was done, but I was too hungry to stay in bed and not try to feed us somehow.”
“You can read?” I asked before taking my first bite. It was unflavored and not very pleasant, but neither of us were puking, so I’d take it over the raw fish any day.
“Of course. You think because I live on a secluded island and spend most of my time as a seal that I can’t read and write?”
