Page 52 of Female Fantasy
Nico was a quiet kid. Reserved. He and Tey always hung out at our house or at Kabobs ’n’ Bits. It never occurred to me that there was a reason he didn’t want to go home.
“They were high school sweethearts, right?”
Nico nods, but his eyes are somewhere far away.
“Next-door neighbors. Childhood friends, too. There arepictures of them together as toddlers. Celebrating birthdays. Trick-or-treating. Playing in the tub. Their mothers were best friends and decided that they were destined to be together. They never had a chance to love anyone else. Falling in love with each other was just this accepted thing, as easy to them as breathing or eating or sleeping. It sounds corny, but their families really believed that fate had placed their houses next to one another. My dad always said it was love at first sight, that once he set eyes on her, he knew he’d never want anyone else.”
A frog catches in my throat. “That’s beautiful,” I croak.
“Sure.” His laughter is clipped. “Right up until he cheated on her. He’d been cheating on her, in fact, ever since they were teenagers. With her girlfriends. With his classmates. With her own sister, my aunt. My mom never saw it coming. Christmas was pretty awkward that year. The family kind of fell apart after that.”
My heart drops as he sucks in his cheeks, trying to mask his emotion.
I have the strangest urge to reach out and touch him.
To comfort him with the warmth of my body, the strength of my arms.
My hands clench and unclench.
“Fuck,” is all I can think of to say. “I can’t believe I never knew.”
“Not your fault, since I never talk about it.” He shrugs. “It’s kind of hard to believe in happily ever afters when the best love story you’ve ever heard turns into a tragedy.”
I think back to all the comments Nico has ever made aboutmy love of romance. The quips about living in a fantasy, refusing to face the harsh realities of the world. His cold demeanor when I told him about my breakup with Kyle. His obsession with preparing for a crisis. His pessimistic worldview.
In order to avoid getting hurt, Nico has been steering clear of vulnerability.
He’d rather feel nothing at all.
“Thank you for telling me,” I say. My hand hovers over his like a drone. “For what it’s worth, I get it. I don’t agree. But I do understand.”
Nico doesn’t respond.
He just reaches out without looking at me and takes my hand in his.
Electricity immediately shoots up my arm, setting my whole body aflame.
We lie there in silence. And this time, when my mind settles on that night all those years ago—what I witnessed, what Nico said—it stings a little less. I’m sure my outlook on life, my blind optimism about love, has always triggered him to a certain degree. I’ve always believed he looked down on me. But maybe he was just protecting himself.
Maybe there’s more to that story from all those years ago.
I must drift off, because hours later, I come to. The room is dark, the bedside lamps turned off. I’m still lying on top of the waterbed in my clothes. But Nico is awake, propping something up against his knees, a glowing orb of light glistening from the heart’s other atrium.
I hear the thumbing of paper, the rustle of a page as it turns.
I open one eye, curious.
And my pulse stumbles.
Nico is huddled over a reading light.
And in his hands?
My copy ofA Tale of Salt Water & Secrets.
“I do not understand what that means,” I repeat to Ryke.
We sit together under a dome made of sea glass, lit by a string of glowing orbs overhead. All around us, colorful fish move in unison, a staccato dance. Art in motion. We are seated at a cement table covered in ancient carvings, sipping small cups of ale and dining on oysters. The moon hangs heavy tonight, shining past the false bottom of the ocean, all the way to our sea-washed skies. At the edge of the orb, a tiny mer plays the sea organ. Its melody drifts over us like the fog of a new day.
