Of Poseidon

there won’t be any witnesses in case I grow a fin at an inopportune time.
    Peeling off my shirt, I wade in. I don’t know how close I am to where Chloe died. I didn’t recognize the hotels around us, but the place Rachel booked for us is more luxurious than the affordable-enough room Chloe’s parents reserved. It doesn’t matter. Chloe isn’t here.
    And neither am I, not really. At least, I’m not the same Emma she brought down here. The one who followed her around the halls at school like a white shadow. The one who stayed a few feet behind her while she flitted around like a bee, pollinating each of her social groups. A wispy, forgettable phantom.
    I wonder if Chloe’s bigger-than-life personality would have room for the upgraded Emma. An Emma who lied to her mother to jump a plane with a strange boy-fish. An Emma who’s already waist-deep in the water without an ounce of terror splintering her nerves. An Emma who’s more prone to pick a fight than stop one. Maybe upgraded isn’t the right word for the new me. Maybe it’s more in the neighborhood of different. Possibly even indifferent.
    The humidity is almost thick enough to drown in. Any second I expect rain to mingle with the tears as they slide down my cheeks. So much for indifferent.
    I dive in.
    The gulf is nothing like I remember it. Of course, that’s because last time, the salt hurt my eyes. Also, the water felt cool and refreshing against the suffocating Florida heat. Now, like the hotel Jacuzzi, the Atlantic, and every puddle between here and there, the water feels lukewarm.
    It’s almost as frustrating as Galen’s game of hot and cold. Thing is, I’m not sure it’s a game. From his expression, there’s out-and-out war going on behind the scenes. He leans in, pulls away. Leans in, pulls away. It’s like a battle between good and evil. I’m just not sure which one he thinks kissing me is.
    Probably evil.
    Which is pathetic. For the next twenty-four hours, I’m going to be stuck in a hotel room, unsupervised, with a guy who’s trying his hardest not to kiss me. Lovely.
    I swim my grouchy self along the sloping bottom, making a game out of how many crabs I can irritate into snapping at me. Most are good sports and have a go at it. Even if one actually latches on to my finger, it won’t hurt anymore than a clothespin. But my strategy only works for so long before Galen and his succulent lips creep back into my thoughts. He’s like the club remix of a song I already hated, one I couldn’t get out of my head the first time around. One that plays over and over and over.
    I wonder what Chloe would tell me to do. God, I miss her. Unlike me, she was a connoisseur of all things male. She knew when they were cheating. She knew when they were talking trash to their friends. She knew when they wanted her number even when all they asked for was a pencil. She would be able to take one look at Galen and tell me why he won’t kiss me, how to make him, and where to hold our wedding reception.
    Too irritated to go farther, I turn around. The smell of metal hits me like a wave. Smell? Is that even possible? Then I see it. A cloud of blood. The ripple of a struggle. A fin. Two fins. I scream. It hears me. They hear me. They stop thrashing, pieces of a dead something falling around them like confetti. Bloody confetti.
    Turning back around, I already know I’m dead. The good news is, two sharks will kill me faster than one. Two sets of jaws have a better chance of slicing an important artery right away. It should be quick. Part of me wants to stop and get it over with. The other part, the bigger part, wants me to swim like mad. Fight and kick and gouge. Make this their hardest kill ever. Hope they choke on my thick Syrena bones.
    I hear the swish of their approach and tense up. One of them rams into me, knocking air bubbles from my lungs. I cry out and scrunch my eyes shut. No one wants to see their own death. A jaw clamps around my waist, powerful and tight. It lunges us forward so fast my head snaps back. This is it. I wait for the penetration of teeth. It doesn’t come. Just keeps swimming. I’ve heard of alligators doing this, of snatching its prey and taking it somewhere else. Saving the meal for later. Saltwater is probably a great preservative for keeping a corpse like me fresh.
    I force one eye open. And gasp. Not a jaw around my waist, so powerful and tight. A pair of arms. Arms I’ve memorized every contour of.
    Galen. And he’s so