I look at him. “Do you wanna pet one or not?”
He laughs and looks around. “Jesus. I feel insane right now.” My heart drops when I think about what he might be implying. That he feels insane because he thinksI’minsane. And maybe my insanity is leaking over to him like spilled ink across a pristine pond. But then he adds softly, “Hell yes. Let’s pet a damn shark.” He pauses. “It’s not that big, is it?”
I shake my head. “No.” And I close my eyes again and say to her (I feel distinctly the shark is a female), “Okay. If you want to come, you can come.”
She moves quickly, her nose butting up against my knee within only a couple of seconds. Adam doesn’t see her at first, but when he does, he says, “Holyshit. Sky. You said it wasn’t big!”
“She’s not. She’s small for a sand tiger shark.”
I bend down and dip my hand into the water, and she swims around me, bumping up so that my fingers glide along the top of her head, and down her body. She is smooth, with the slightest hint of soft ridges, the way the most gentle of sandpaper feels when it’s touched as gently as possible. She’s absolutely gorgeous. The color of the warm sand under our feet. Almost six feet long. “Wow, you’re so beautiful,” I coo.
“Sky. What the hell is even happening?” Adam whispers. He’s closer to me now, an arm out, but I don’t think to pet her. He’s ready to grab me and take me away.
I make my voice calm, to show how unbothered I am. Maybe it will calm him, too. “It’s okay. I told you. She wants to be petted.”
Adam shakes his head. “Okay. Okay.” He bends and drops his hand into the water, and she immediately approaches, slowly, as though she knows how afraid he is. He leans just a bit and slides his fingers over her head. She darts back my way, and I do the same with my hand, gliding my whole hand over her slippery skin.
“Fuck. You’re right. She’s like a puppy.” He exhales a laugh.
The shark darts around us once more, grabbing one last, short petting session with the both of us, and then she slips away to deeper water. “She got bored,” I say with a smile, turning toward the skyline. It’s gotten cloudier, but more of the pale, bright meringue pie topping sort. In the distance, sun rays fall in sheets of yellow gold, lighting the water in swaths of glitter.
Before I can process it, Adam presses his wet, warm body to my back. He wraps his arm around my belly and pulls me closer to him, so we are flush—my shoulders at his chest, his hips at my lower back. “Sky,” he says, placing his chin to the back of my head. I feel his breath at my scalp. “My heart is still racing. I can’tbelieve I just petted a shark. My hands…” He tightens the one that’s now at my hip. “They’re still shaking.” He chuckles breathlessly.
“Do you need me to distract you?” I don’t dare move. He feels so good this close. I want to pretend that it’s not from a fear response. I want to pretend he’s touching me because he’s mine.
“Please. Distract me,” he responds.
I want to think of something sexy to say. Something enticing and hot, something that will make him want me in the ways I’m beginning to want him. But the thing is, I’m still scared by my response to Adam. I’m still leaning against him, feeling the hairs of his chest against my shoulders, feeling his warm, solid form, and the only conclusion that keeps blaring through my brain isNot close enough! Not close enough!
By the sheer power of my will, I don’t blurt out anything slutty, or even flirty. Instead, I say, “I haven’t been back to the tree.” I take a step forward and Adam releases the hand he’d had on me. When I turn around, he’s pink-faced and breathless. He glances at my lips and then away so quickly, I wonder if I imagined it. “The tree?” he finally asks. Then he shakes his head quickly. “Right. The tree. Where you were for those eight years…”
I nod. “It’s right over there.” I point to the patch of woods where we’d come from. “What if we went there? For your story? You can accompany me for my first time back.”
Adam takes one big, shuddering breath and nods. “We could do that. Sure. Of course.”
I didn’t exactly dress for hiking, but luckily, the big oak tree is on flat ground, and it’s not too far off trail. I remember how frustrated Sage was after she found me…howcloseI’d been that whole time. And none of us ever knew, not even me.
When we reach the oak, it’s about midday. Sunlight falls straight into the forest through the openings in the canopy, like someone holding out their hand for poured honey milk. The tree itself is ancient, the kind of tree that makes you feel like you’re in the presence of something wild and holy, like it could have been here before creation somehow.
Its branches open like a hug from all directions, some of them so large and heavy that they rest on the forest floor. The bits of its leaves that catch the honey-milk light are edged in gold. Adam whistles when he follows my pointer finger to it. “Whoa,” he says, his voice soft with reverence, and we both just stare at the tree for a little while, the same way you’d stop and marvel at an unexpected clear night full of stars spread across the black sky like crushed quartz on a chalkboard.
I walk forward, to the trunk that might be as wide as a car and a half or so. It had to be this large for me to be able to lie down inside its hidden chamber for years and years.
I have to bend down to the trunk opening to get inside, but once I’m in, I can stand. Adam follows me, his eyes wide. He looks around and frowns. “It’s kind of weird that there’s yellow leaves in here.” He sticks his head back out to glance at the forest floor, then comes all the way back inside again. “And only in here.”
It’s true. And it is weird, but weird in an expected way, if you understand the inexplicable happenings of the old gods. It’s as though they unrolled a little carpet in here, made entirely of leaves in the color of marigolds and sunflowers and expansive Cranberry sunrises from the viewpoint of Nadia’s roof.
“Sage and Nadia found me here. I was with them, as a ghost. And my body was…” I point to the ground, where several leaves flutter, though there is no discernible wind. “Completely fine. Completely asleep.”
“How did you get back in?” His voice is soft and his eyes…he’s believing me this time. He’s opened his heart, just like he said he would. He’s trying.
“Nadia said, just step in. I don’t know how it happened, to be honest, but I do know that—” I close my eyes and take a breath. I don’t want to cry right now. When I open them, Adam’s closer, like he’s ready to hug me, or grab my hand, whatever I need. “I do know that I wanted to live. I wanted to eat cherries, I wanted to swim in the ocean, I wanted to pet Coffee—”
“Coffee?” he murmurs.
“My favorite fox.”
This makes him smile, that megawatt one that makes his eyes glitter and crinkle up and his dimples deepen all the way in.
