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There was no destination in mind when I left, and we end up on a rocky cliff overlooking the ocean. I can see Phantom’s Cove off in the distance and consider trekking the last fifteen or so minutes to get there, then decide to park myself exactly where I am now.
The effects of the liquor have started to wash over me. I’m warm, light. I probably shouldn’t have had so much on the walk. I should probably take a break for a while.
Leaning back on my hands, I breathe in deeply. The ache from earlier is back. Or maybe it never really went away.
Even after all these years, I have wounds that refuse to heal. My mom. My old home. Him…
“You good?” Rhenn asks, watching me in a way I don’t quite understand.
Drunk me has never been good at masking her emotions. She’s a mess. She’s weak.
I stare out at the sea. The water seems so much bluer here, the skies so bright.
It is not my water. These are not my skies.
“Do you ever look at your reflection and just hate what you see?” I ask. His focus on me narrows. “I like to think when my mom left, she imagined my life would have turned out differently. That the foster homes would have been filled with loving people who wanted to help lost children, that they weren’t only in it for the money. If she knew what it was really like, she would have stayed with me. I wouldn’t have been passed from one crowded room to the next. I wouldn’t have been forced to live with creepy Mr. Ambrose.” My words catch at his name.
I was just a little girl.
Surely if Mom knew, she would have come back.
“Mr. Ambrose,” Rhenn starts, speaking with a sense of caution, “he liked the money?”
Bile forms at the back of my throat, a bitter taste I’ve never been able to wash away, even as I drown it with another swig from the bottle. “He liked the kids.”
I was lucky enough to get out of there after two years. My new home had more yelling, but it didn’t have him. The only downfall to leaving that hell was that I was separated from the only person I did have. The one equally fragile person who helped me get through it all.
That was my second home. It wasn’t my last.
“Things got better as I got older. You get really good at learning how to block everything out.” Though running away at seventeen helped. “And then I end up in this shithole, with you and all the other assholes who hate me.”
Rhenn picks at the grass, no longer looking at me.
“Anyway,” I continue, adding pep to my tone. Drunk Sumner is turning out to be a real downer. “Life has been pretty freaking peachy.”
“Not everyone here hates you,” he says, drawing my focus back to him.
“Fine.” I sigh. “Everyone except a few wolves who probably only like me because they like everyone.” I start to laugh. “Freaking wolves, how weird is that? How have I accepted any of this to be my new normal?”
“What do you mean?”
“Witches, creepy mermaids,” I gesture over him, “you. Everything here is only a fairytale where I’m from. And fairytales are supposed to be happy.” Digging the heel of my shoe into the rock, I take another drink. “This place sucks. At least I had friends back home.”
“Really? Because from everything you just said, your life before here sounded pretty shitty.”
“Yeah, well, it’s shitty here too.” I stand, and the blood rushes to my head. “You all make it shitty.”
Finding my footing takes longer than it should. The ground is trying to move from underneath me. Drunk off my ass or not, though, I refuse to sit here and sob. I’m tired of feeling like crap about the things I can’t change. So instead, I’m going to flip this depressing as hell mood around. Besides, the sea is calling me, and who am I to deny its plea?
One foot in front of the other, I rush forward, thrusting myself over the cliff’s edge.
“What the hell are you doing?” Rhenn calls from behind me, but it’s too late to answer, too late to go back.
I’m already falling.
I draw in a deep breath, breaking through the cold water’s barrier.
It’s so quiet beneath the surface. So incredibly quiet. If it were an option, I might stay down here forever, leaving everything behind in the world above.
