Deep Betrayal

again, isn’t it?” She checked herself out in the full-length mirror. “Want me to get the frozen yogurt?”
    That guy . Dark curly hair, hypnotic green eyes, voice like liquid, each word pouring into the next like water tumbling over rocks when he got excited. Calder White. The most amazingly beautiful boy who’d ever tried to kill my father.
    It wasn’t funny. Not at all. But I couldn’t help smiling when I thought of how far we’d come. I’d told Jules plenty about him: how we’d worked together at the Blue Moon Café and how he’d taught me to use the cappuccino maker and steam milk to a perfect foam; how he’d rescued me from a near drowning and later given me a personal tour of the shipwrecks and natural wonders of the Apostle Islands. Of course, I’d never mentioned the most amazing part: thatthe tours had been underwater, with his perfect lips pressed to mine.
    Jules walked gingerly across the floor to the bed. A semester’s worth of white loose-leaf paper littered the guestroom floor. Now that my last final was behind me, I planned to toss it all, but I was enjoying the look of the room, kinda snow-covered.
    A stack of books leaned like the Tower of Pisa in the corner of the room. Trig, physics, humanities, French, three dog-eared novels, and a copy of Hamlet . A tattered anthology of Victorian poetry teetered at the top, flopped open to Tennyson’s “Mariana.” That poem was what I’d fallen asleep to the night before: a poor girl asking when her true love would return. It probably should have made me feel worse, but it was the one thing that made me feel closer to Calder, remembering the sound of his voice as we recited Tennyson on Manitou Island, the cool air evaporating the water off my skin.…
    Jules plunked herself down on the bed and put her hand on my shoulder. “He still hasn’t called?”
    I shrugged.
    “Do you think maybe you should move on? It’s not like this was a long-term romance or anything, right?”
    “Right,” I said.
    “I mean, it’s not like you’re in love with the guy, right?”
    Love. I wasn’t sure what I felt for Calder White. When I first met him, he made me nervous, partly because of his unnaturally good looks, but mostly because he was always just there , too close and too fast.
    Later, I was proud of myself when I figured out what he was, and, after that, repulsed when he told me what he did. I had to work hard to keep my face composed. It wasn’t easy repressing my disgust for his hunting past, just so he’d keep talking and feeding me the information I so desperately wanted—information that would explain my family’s history and put my father’s shame to rest.
    So, okay, I used him at first. But after learning how hard Calder worked against his nature, after really coming to understand him, and now, after all we’d been through … What did I feel for him now? Respect, maybe? Longing? Fascination?
    Whatever it was, it wasn’t as mundane as what Jules was suggesting.
    “Well, if he’s not going to call you ,” Jules said, “have you thought about—”
    “I can’t call him. He’s got a new number. The one I have doesn’t work anymore.”
    Jules crinkled her nose at me. “That’s a bad sign. Is it possible that maybe he just wasn’t that into you?”
    I nodded. I had already considered that. Making the reality of his silence sync with the fantasy of my memories was like trying to fit square pegs into round holes. I’d given up after only a few painful attempts.
    “Don’t be sad,” Jules said. “It’s not like he’s the only fish in the sea. I’m sure if you put yourself out there again, the guys will be lining up.”
    “Heh.” Hilarious . “Yeah. I could do that.”
    “Sure you could. We both could. We’ve got a whole summer ahead of us before everyone splits up for college.The last hurrah, right? Let’s get out there and break some hearts.”
    I didn’t answer, so Jules wisely changed the subject and asked, “When are your mom and dad getting in?”
    “Supposedly tomorrow, but I’ll believe it when I see it.”
    “Oh, shut up. It’s not that far of a drive. There’s no way they’re missing your graduation.”
    “I don’t mean they don’t want to come. I just don’t know if they can.” I’d been calling home every day to talk to Mom and subtly keep tabs on Dad. After what had happened in the lake, I wasn’t surprised when Mom said he’d been on edge.
    She, of course, had no idea about the mermaids,