Of Poseidon 02: Of Triton

from his grasp. “Emma? Is she—”
    Grom tucks his hands behind his back. “Emma is uninjured, Galen.” The delicate way he swims toward Galen. As if Galen is a bubble and Grom is a lionfish. The way his mouth pulls down, as if fishing weights were hooked to each corner, tugging his mouth into a grimace. The tortured way his eyes search Galen’s. As if he’s asking Galen to say the words so that he doesn’t have to.
    “Tell me,” Galen says, breathless.
    Grom clasps Galen on the shoulder and gives it a gentle squeeze. “I’m so sorry, Galen. We didn’t realize they brought her back to the island. We thought she was safe on the boat.”
    “No,” Galen whispers, backing away from the stricken Triton king. “No.”
    “We found her a few buildings over. The humans locked her in a room with bars. She couldn’t…”
    Galen clenches his teeth. “Not Rachel. Not Rachel.” The room seems to cave in on him, or at least that’s how it feels. No, not the room. Not this insignificant room with its fragile, exhausted frame. The whole world. The whole world, with its life cycles and seasons and tides, is caving in. The whole world is pressing in on me. All of it. On my chest. So heavy.
    “The boat was headed in the opposite direction. Away from the island. I saw it myself.”
    Grom sighs. “It must have returned during all the confusion. Maybe they came back to help and didn’t know what to do with her?”
    Galen nods, closing his eyes. He will probably never have the answer. He will never know how Rachel came to be imprisoned on the island while he and his sister flooded it. While he and his sister sent wave after wave to drown her.
    He shoves his fist in his mouth and screams into it. Then he screams again. And again. Grom keeps his distance, his hands laced together in front of him, useless in so many ways. Galen stops, holds his own hands in front of them. He examines them, scrutinizes them. It’s not fair that I call Grom’s hands useless when these hands did nothing to save Rachel. They couldn’t even prevent Toraf from getting hurt. Or Emma.
    “Don’t do that, little brother. Don’t blame yourself.”
    Galen’s laugh is sharp, bitter. “Did I ever tell you how we met?”
    Grom shakes his head almost indiscernibly.
    “I saved her,” Galen says, nearly choking on the words. “From drowning. Ironic, isn’t it?”
    “Calling it ironic is like saying she was always meant to drown. Don’t read too much into it, Galen. Be kind to yourself.”
    “What does that even mean, Grom? Do you even know? What, I should try not to think about her if the memory is too painful? Is that how you survived all these years without Nalia?” As soon as he says the words he wants to snatch them back, to hide them back in his heart, in his serrated heart where vicious things like that shouldn’t even exist. “I’m sorry, Grom. I—”
    “Take a moment to compose yourself. We’ll be waiting at the surface for you.” Grom slinks toward the door, but pauses at the threshold. He turns back to his brother. “I am very sorry, little brother.”
    Galen watches as Grom propels himself out of the room. He’s not sure if it was his words or his actions that took the vitality out of the normally confident stroke of Grom’s fin. Probably both.
    Galen closes his eyes. How much more can I take?

23

    I KNOW the expression on Galen’s face. Not because I’ve ever seen it before on him, but because I’ve had the same look. The same feelings lurking behind the expression.
    First, your mind is blown. You can’t accept that this person who was just with you at breakfast is now dead. She is floating in his arms, and he is gently stroking her cheek as if somehow her eyes will flutter open. Sometimes the waves nudge her head, so it looks like she moved. But she didn’t.
    Soon, the memories of her will flood him. Their normal daily routine, the way she laughed, her favorite food. After Chloe died, I remembered the way Chloe would spritz her perfume into the air three good times then walk into the mist. Simple, everyday things that made them the person they were in your eyes. Even now, I remember the expert way Rachel cooked in high heels.
    Then, with all the memories comes the guilt. You remember all the opportunities you had—and missed—to show them you loved them. Did they know? Did they really know how much I cared about them? I berated myself all the time when Dad died. I could have been so much nicer. I could have