Forgive My Fins

He looks like he wants to respond, to say something about my compliment. I can feel a conflicting emotion in him. Some mix of pride and frustration and anger. I’m confused. Why would my comment make him angry?

Like I’m compelled to defend myself, I say, “I just meant that you—”

“I care.” The anger is there, an undertone in his voice. An intensity in his eyes. “Sometimes I think I care too much.”

His gaze falls away, shifting to the ground between us while he drags one finger in a swirling pattern through the sand.

“Eye contact,” Calliope chides. “Quince, it’s your turn.”

He doesn’t react immediately. For several long seconds he keeps making spiral designs with his finger. When he looks back up, the anger is gone, wiped away with one shutter of his thick-lashed lids. “Lily doesn’t think before she speaks.”

Grrr. I do think. I just sometimes think things I shouldn’t say out loud.

“Wonderful,” Calliope says, making notes on her clipboard. “Now we can—”

“Hey,” I complain, “we were supposed to say positive things. I bought your ‘no fashion sense’ argument, but how was that last thing a compliment?”

“Lily, you shouldn’t judge—”

“You don’t have a filter,” Quince interrupts. “You’re honest, sometimes to a fault, and straightforward. Too many people say what they think others want to hear.”

I scowl, still not certain that was praise.

But apparently Calliope isn’t as doubtful. “Excellent.” She’s practically clapping. “Let’s move on to the second part of this exercise.”

Great. The first part went so well, I can hardly wait for the second.

“Now that we’ve established things you admire about each other,” she says, “it’s time to address the other side. I would like each of you to share one thing you would change about the other person. Try to make it a positive criticism instead of an attack. If you like, you might also touch on how you can help them achieve that change.”

Well, at least this will be easy. I have a list as long as the Bimini Road of things I’d like to change about Quince.

“Quince,” she says, “why don’t you go first this time?”

All the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. If all of his “compliments” sounded suspiciously like criticisms, I’m almost afraid to hear an actual criticism.

“If I could change one thing about Lily,” he begins. Then he’s quiet for several long seconds, like he has to think really hard about what he’s going to say. Just when I’m debating whether this is because he has too many things to choose from or because he can’t think of anything he’d want to change, he says, “I’d want her to see beneath the surface of the people around her.”

What does he mean by that? What does he know about how I see other people? I see all the way down to his depths. And Shannen’s. And Bro—Oh. That’s it. This all goes back to the Brody thing.

Figures.

“Is this about Brody?” I demand, already certain of the answer.

Calliope hushes me. “Explore that, Quince,” she says. “Why do you think that needs to change?”

He kind of groans before quietly saying, “Sometimes I think Lily is too…self-involved to see more than—”

“Excuse me?”

“—what she wants to see.”

“Self-involved? Self-involved?!?” I jump to my feet, unable to sit still. “Let’s talk about self-involved, Mr. Kissing Unsuspecting Girls in Libraries.”

“Lily, please,” Calliope says. “Sit down so we can discuss this rationally.”

“I didn’t mean it like that, Lily,” Quince says—and don’t think him using my actual name is going to calm me down this time—as he stands up to face me. “It’s just that you’ve been so caught up in Brody for so long and…” He runs his sandy fingers through his hair. “You don’t really know him. You’re in love with an image. And honestly, it’s a little…”

My body stills. There’s something ominous in the way his sentence trails off. And honestly, I’m itching for whatever that brings. “What, Quince?” I demand. “It’s a little what?”

He groans again, jamming his hands into his back pockets before looking me straight in the eyes as he says, “Shallow.”

For a good ten seconds my mind is completely blank. No coherent thoughts form—it’s like I’m a jumble of words and feelings and…pain. That’s what comes next, an overwhelming pain. This is worse, even, than when Brody turned me down for the dance. A thousand times worse.

“Lily, I—”

“No,” I say, stopping the apology I know is coming. I don’t want to hear it. “It’s fine.”

Calliope clears her throat. “Lily? Would you—”

“You want to know the one thing I would change about Quince?” A feeling of empty calm washes through me. “The fact that he’s bonded to me.”

He doesn’t have to say anything for me to know he’s feeling the same pain his words inflicted on me. I should be glad for that—it’s why I said what I said. But instead I just feel…nothing.

Calliope stands and, very businesslike, starts gathering her belongings. “I think I’ve seen enough.”