A few years ago, he got wasted at a bar and punched a guy. The man pressed charges, and now, my dad is serving time for assault.
About time he got in trouble for something.
“We went out on the lake, and he brought a cooler of beers. Which was normal for him.” I rub the back of my neck, not likinghow that sounds like an excuse. “I just mean, it wasn’t the first time he did this, and I let him get away with it. He was wasted when we headed home. After dark. The only light on the boat was out, and we couldn’t see anything. I tried to get him to let me drive, but he wouldn’t. I tried to get him to slow down, but he only gunned it faster. And then…” The dull thud and scream echo in my ears now.
“Your father was the one who hit me.” Isla’s hand presses to her hip, where the proof lies in the jagged lines of her scar.
“Wehit you. I never should have let him drive.”
The selkie eyes me, her brown gaze piercing into me, as if I were the one with a second skin she was peeling back.
Her nails dig into the covers. “You shouldn’t have left me there.”
“Never,” I rasp. “I didn’t know it was you until I pulled you out of the water. Even then, I didn’t know what I was seeing. You were half and half and bleeding. But I knew your face.”
Isla stares at me. “Owen pulled me from the water.” Her voice wavers.
Shame tugs at my gut as I reveal the lies we offered her.
“He found us after I got you out. He took off your selkie skin and then got my car while I stayed with you. Owen drove while I tried to stop the bleeding. He took us to…” Out of everything I witnessed that night, the next bit is still the strangest.
“Madeline. A witch,” she finishes.
I nod. “I thought Owen went to her house because she was the school nurse. Then, she pulled out that old book and started lighting candles and burning herbs and things. Talking in this foreign language. She healed you.”
Isla slides off the bed, kneeling in front of me. I barely hold up under her focus.
“If you’re going to tell me the truth, then tell me all of it.” Her voice strikes me hard in the chest. “Witches don’t just wave their hands and fix things.”
I hang my head, chastised. “Madeline said she needed a sacrifice of the body to heal yours. I told her to take whatever she needed.”
I run my thumb along the scar on my forearm, remembering the cold slice of her knife into my skin. She held my bleeding cut above Isla’s wound, and where my blood touched the selkie’s injury, skin slowly started knitting together.
For a time, I wondered if my blood in Isla’s veins was what drew me to her. But that was a desperate man looking for a scapegoat.
Because I’d loved Isla Brown well before the accident.
“Witch’s spells aren’t free,” the selkie insists.
I dare to meet her eyes, a rueful smile twisting my mouth. “Mowed her lawn for the rest of the summer.”
Soft, piercing eyes hold mine. “You exchanged yard work to halt my death?”
All I can offer is a shrug. “It’s what she asked for.” I would have emptied my meager bank account. Given her my car. Hell, if the witch had demanded I be her errand boy for all eternity, I would have signed my soul over.
But she just wanted her weeds whacked.
“You were out of it the entire time and then fell asleep after the spell. I wanted to take you to your house, but Owen insisted we go to his. Because of your parents.” I thought he was being ridiculous until my friend laid everything out. “How they’re more worried than most about getting discovered by humans. How they’d probably pull you out of school. Maybe even move away from Folk Haven. That was when Owen told me what you all are. Not everything about you, I’m sure. But how your skins allow you to take on another form. How you only swim on thedark-moon night to keep yourselves safe. We thought you would worry less if you didn’t know I was there. If only another selkie had discovered you. I promised to keep your secret.” I hold out my hands, palms up, as if that’ll somehow show my honesty. “We never spoke about it again after that night.”
Isla’s not looking at me anymore. She stares over my shoulder, but when I turn my head, all I see is a blank wall at my back. Nothing for her to be so entirely focused on.
But if she needs to zone out, then I’m not going to stop her.
I sit still, waiting. And while I wait, I catalog every inch of her, wondering if this is the last time she’ll willingly be in a room with me. My gaze travels over the slope of her cheek to the bow of her lips. Lips she wanted to kiss me with. Her short hair is a bedhead mess I want to drag my fingers through. Massage her scalp until that deep V wrinkle between her brows smooths.
The large T-shirt hangs off her shoulders, hiding all her curves under its blockish cut. I’ll have to rely on the shapes my hands and mouth traced last night for those memories.
Surprisingly, Isla’s hands are what call to me most strongly. They sit limp in her lap, fingers relaxed. As if waiting. Waiting for my hands to slip into them, tangling our fingers, pressing palms together. Holding on to each other to stay steady through this life.
