Page 161 of The Otherworld

Nothing but silence. I shoulder open the door and step inside. The room is empty, sunlight peeking through the curtains. I’m about to head back to the kitchen when I notice something strangely familiar lying on her bed.

Adam’s journal. That black leather one I always used to see him carrying around.

What’s Orca doing with it?

I pick it up and take a closer look to see if it’s just similar to Adam’s. But no, that’s definitely his handwriting. Looks like a bunch of scribblings about philosophy and science, with some gibberish mixed in. Wasn’t he teaching himself Latin for a while? That must be what it is—Latin. Still doesn’t explain why Orca has it on her bed.

I’m about to close the journal when something falls out. A tiny pink flower pressed thin as paper.

That’s weird.

I frown, reading what’s written on that page. It almost looks like a poem.

Untouchable beauty

Are you real or fantasy?

Lost to the world, yet found

to that which really matters

Not a word passes your lips that isn’t

Honesty

Yet all I feel in the presence of your wild soul is

Mystery

All I feel is my own soul coming undone

“What the hell?” I murmur under my breath, turning the page to read the rest. That’s when I see something even stranger.

A letter to Orca.

From Adam.

Orca,

I wish a world existed (in another universe, maybe) where only we two lived. It would be a world with nothing but ocean and this one little island. I wish the “Otherworld” didn’t exist, not so that you didn’t long to see it—but so that I didn’t have to belong there. I don’t belong there. I belong with you. And you don’t belong there, either. We’re not made for this world, you and I. We’re made for each other.

Orca, I’ve fallen in love with you. I can’t remember when I started to feel this way about you. I was in over my head before I knew it had begun. And now, I never want to leave you. I want to wake each morning to the sound of your voice; I want to hear every idea you have about philosophy and science and life. I want to be with you every day, every hour, every minute.

I know we can’t. I know there’s the matter of your father and your life on the island. The last thing I want to do is ruin that. But I have to tell you the truth. I have to tell you what a beautiful and unique person you are. Your innocence inspires me to make this world a better place… if only a small corner of it, just for you. I almost don’t want you to see the Otherworld, because it is so flawed and polluted, and you deserve a perfect world. Because you are perfection itself.

I, on the other hand, am so far from perfect. It’s probably a good thing that we can’t be together. If we were, I would feel so unworthy of your goodness, your grace, your purity of spirit. I cherish those things about you—and so, like the moral scientist, I must leave you wild and free, where you belong… however much I may want to bring you into my world and make you my own.

I love you, Orca Monroe.

And that’s why I’m letting you go.

No way.

No.

Goddamn.

Way.

---