I opened the door without bothering to knock—first because I didn’t think he’d hear me and second because even if he did, I doubted that he’d let me in. He was lying on his bed, face buried in a comic book.
It took him a minute to notice me, but when he did, he shouted, “Get out!”
“Rio—”
“Did you hear me? I said get out!”
“I want to talk to you—”
“Why should I listen to anything you have to say? You’ll be gone in a few days, and who knows when you’ll be back?”
The truth of those words nearly brought me to my knees. “Maybe that’s why you should listen. Because you don’t know when you’ll see me again.”
“Your choice. Not mine.”
“What about your choice? What about when you turn seventeen?”
He snorted. “Well, I’m not going to make the same choices you did. I’m not weak like you and Mom. I won’t run out on Moku and Dad the way you did.” He scrambled off the bed, crossed to where his iPod was docked. Turned the speakers up super loud—a giant get lost signal if I’d ever seen one.
“I love you,” I told him, getting ready to leave.
“What?” he asked with a sneer. “I didn’t hear you.”
“I said, I love you!”
“Yeah.” He gave me a dismissive nod, then turned to fiddle with his tablet. I was almost out the door when he turned the music back down to a semireasonable level. Still, I almost missed him saying, “You’re leaving.”
I stared at him. “What?”
“I can always tell. You get the same look on your face. I’m right, aren’t I? You’re planning on leaving tonight, aren’t you?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Typical.” This time when he crossed the room it was to get up in my face. “Do you ever get tired of just walking away?”
“Every day of my life.”
He looked uncertain, like my response had surprised him. “Then why do it?”
I didn’t know what to say at first, didn’t have a clue how to explain to Rio how things were without freaking him out completely. But then I looked at him, really looked at him, this boy who was almost a man. And I knew I couldn’t prevaricate or sidestep the question. Not anymore. Not when, in a few years, his safety would depend on it.
“Rio, there’s a lot going on under the ocean. Battle lines have been drawn. People are dying. More will die if I don’t try to stop what’s happening.”
“But what about us? Don’t you want—”
“It’s because of you that I’m trying to stop what’s happening. When I turned seventeen I was thrust into the middle of a warzone with barely any help or direction. I don’t want that same thing for you or Moku.”
“I won’t be mer.” He tilted his chin defiantly.
“I’m totally on board with that. But I thought the same thing, right up to my seventeenth birthday. Things change, Rio.”
“Only because people change them.”
I smiled sadly. “Sometimes it’s circumstances, not people, that cause the change. Sometimes all you can do is go along for the ride.”“And sometimes you can get off the ride! You can choose, right now, not to go back. But you won’t do that.”
“I can’t do that.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I’m sorry, Rio. I never meant to hurt any of you.”
He shrugged, turned away. I knew I should leave—Rio had made it clear he didn’t want me there, and Mark was waiting for me downstairs—but I had to try once more. I put a hand on Rio’s shoulder, expecting him to shrug it off even as I did.
Except he didn’t shrug at all. Instead, he grabbed on to my hand with every ounce of strength he had. I could feel him shaking. I hugged him then, and he turned. Hugged me back. His arms were so tight around me that I could barely breathe. But I didn’t care. My brother was hugging me.
Rio was hugging me.
Tears welled up in my eyes, but I blinked them away. I wanted to remember every moment of this night, didn’t want emotion to blind me when I thought back on it.
“Be safe, Tempe.”
Those three hoarse words shattered me, and I pulled away. All but rushed for the door. I needed to get out of there or I’d never make it. I’d never go and it would be open season on all those I cared about.
I stopped when I was halfway out the door. Reached into my clutch and tossed him the piece of green sea glass I’d been carrying with me for months. He caught it, looked at me inquiringly.
It was more than just sea glass; it was a memory. One of our mother’s memories, specifically. And unlike most of the ones I found in her sea cave, this one was a happy one. It was about Rio and Moku and me, and I thought he should see it.
“Keep it,” I told him huskily. “When you turn seventeen, you’ll know what to do with it.”
“How?”
“Because I’ll be there to tell you.” It was a vow, one rife with resolve. I would see him again.
His face lit up, and I knew that somehow I’d said the right thing. It was enough, at least for now. “Good-bye, Rio.”
His smile faded. “Bye, Tempe.”
I closed his door on the way out. It was a fitting metaphor.
I paused in the hall, took a few deep breaths. At least he and Moku had Sabrina, I told myself as I struggled for composure. I might hate her, but they didn’t, and it would be good for them to have someone to lean on while I was gone. I knew I should be unselfish, that I shouldn’t care about her taking my place. But it still hurt.
I struggled to compose myself. It was almost over. Just a few more good-byes and then I’d be free of this place.
I glanced back at the closed door. Or locked out of it.
I straightened my shoulders and headed for the staircase and my next good-bye. And pretended not to feel the tears rolling silently down my cheeks.
“In case I forgot to say it earlier, you look beautiful.” Mark pulled me into a loose embrace, buried his face in my hair with a long, low sigh. “I’ve been wanting to do that all night,” he whispered, his arms tightening around me.
I tried to relax into him, to hold him as tightly and sweetly as he was holding me. But I couldn’t. Not when, inside me, everything was screaming. I’d made the decision earlier to end it and I knew that I needed to do just that—right here, right now—but all I could see was his face. All I could feel was the unsteady rise and fall of his chest under my ear and all I could hear was the fast, heavy beating of his heart.
This was Mark, my Mark. The boy I knew better than anyone else in the world. And because I knew him, I knew that what I was going to say would devastate him. And still I would say it. What kind of heartless bitch did that make me?
Not heartless. Heartbroken.
He nuzzled my cheek, breathed me in like he wanted to take me deep inside himself. I knew how he felt. After all, hadn’t I put off breaking up with him all night because he was already deep inside of me? I was certain I could feel him in every pump of my heart, could smell him in every breath that I took.
Reluctantly, I pulled away and started moving again. We were walking on the sand, only a few feet away from where it met the roiling, angry Pacific. Though the storm had passed a while ago, the water still remembered it, the waves choppy and disjointed as they crashed against the shore.