Ursuline’s tentacle wrapped around my leg, and that broke the tension between us. I surged forward to lean against their strong, warm tentacles, just collapsing there. A moment later, their fingers threaded through my hair as they gave a tentative stroke. Relief shuddered through me at their touch, that they weren’t angry at me for what I’d told them.
“I’ve been a fool,” they said, their voice threadbare. “I…I get messages from my family. I’d taken those as enough all these years.”
“No calls?” I asked, my brow furrowing.
“Not for a long while,” they said. “Though calls between above and below the surface have never been too reliable.” Still, their expression darkened with realization.
The truth dug in, deep and ugly. Because if Frederick was willing to commit all sorts of unconscionable acts, there was no guarantee those messages were either from the sender or done without coercion.
“Jason’s going below,” I stated, needing to reassure them in some way. “He’ll be able to check in on your family.”
Their tentacle tightened on my leg, their fingers stilling in my hair. “I’ve had a feeling in my gut for a while now. That something was wrong. Yet whenever I messaged my family, they’d reassured me they were fine. That everything was okay.”
My stomach twisted in knots. I couldn’t imagine the heartache they’d suffered all these years.
“But I’ve been cut off from everyone back in New Atlantis for so long,” Ursuline said. “Most who escape to the surface…most of us don’t want to return.”
Their pain echoed Jason’s, how he’d often shut down at mention of his past. How he’d avoided going back for so long. The relief and guilt they must feel at being away from what they’d left behind had to be so staggering. So complicated.
I stroked my fingers along the tentacle wrapped around my leg, and Ursuline let out a ragged sigh.
“Come with me,” I murmured, my heartbeat thrumming.
They’d say no. I knew it, deep down. They couldn’t throw away their family’s safety for me. Even if I didn’t trust the Tritons to honor a deal in the slightest.
“I want to,” they admitted, their voice hoarse. My gaze drifted to the closed door, as if listening ears might be outside. I now understood for a fact we weren’t safe anywhere inside this place. They might not be able to give me an answer now, but I’d just dropped this bomb on them.
Maybe, maybe they’d realize escape was their best option too.
I squeezed the tentacle wrapped around me and rubbed my cheek against the one I leaned against. “I’m going to figure a way out of here. I’m not sure where I’ll land or how I’ll do it, but I can’t stay. Not knowing what my marriage to Arielle will do.”
“No, you can’t,” they agreed.
They stroked the tip of their tentacle along my leg, and they began to run their fingers through my hair again. The motions soothed me unlike anything else, even though my heart still ached. We agreed that I had to escape, but the idea of leaving them behind tore my heart in two.
“Where would I even go?” I asked aloud. If anyone would know the inner workings of how to escape the Tritons, I was sure Ursuline had given the prospect plenty of thought over the years.
“Fuck,” they swore, their voice as ragged as my heart. “Sunshine, I’ll make sure you’re taken care of.”
Even if they couldn’t be there.
Gods, the idea of a future without them hurt. In my time at the Triton household, I’d grown closer to them than anyone in my entire life. They’d shown me more care and consideration than I’d ever experienced growing up. And my soul called to them, like the tug toward the stars in the night sky, inexorable and inescapable.
“I knew from the moment we met that I couldn’t keep you,” they murmured, almost as if to themself. “I can’t keep anyone. Not in this lifetime.”
Their pain lay heavy in the air, a suffocating blanket that crushed my shoulders. My eyes stung, and I chewed on my lower lip, not sure what to say. I wanted them to come, but I understood the risk. They had family who they loved. Family who depended on them. And if my gut feeling was wrong, that their family was still safe and the Tritons were upholding their end of the deal, then running off with me would put them all in danger.
I couldn’t imagine the weight they carried on a daily basis. The pain they shouldered.
“What if you could?” I asked, even though indulging in this would slice me open even more. I stared down at the floor, unable to look at them without breaking down. The warmth and smoothness of their tentacles at my side offered the solidity I craved right now, but if I looked up at them, I’d break.
The quiet in the room was laden with a thousand regrets.
“If I could keep you, we’d wake up in my apartment every day,” they said, continuing to stroke their fingers through my hair. I shuddered from the touch, from the sheer imagining. “You’d be covered in flecks of paint like you are now, pursuing your craft. I’d be working for non-profits to help advance monsterkind and protect those in vulnerable situations. I’d come home and make you scream over every surface possible, take every hole until you were trembling.” They let out a heavy sigh. “We’d go on trips tothe ocean and swim and bask in your sunshine. I’d make you pancakes for breakfast on lazy mornings and take you to game nights with Cillian and the others. We’d…live. Every day and every moment belonging just to us.”
The tears slipped down my cheeks. I wanted that future so badly I could feel it hovering in the air before me, just there to grab. My chest spasmed. It aligned with everything I’d longed for, and I didn’t doubt for a moment this was the soul I’d waited for my entire life.
And now I’d be leaving them behind.
