Undertow by Callie Kingston

there. Let me in?”
    She fingered the cool stone of the pendant hanging around her neck, the Christmas gift from Jim which she wore every day like an amulet. Aquamarine, the color of the sea. Marissa breathed in and exhaled slowly out her mouth as her last therapist taught her. Another deep breath. Reaching out, she unlocked the door and cracked it open an inch.
    Jim’s mane of curls appeared in the gap. She opened the door wider, and the smile in his eyes melted away as he surveyed the room behind her.
    She turned and witnessed the chaos: pages ripped from her notebook, marked with yellow highlighter and thick black pen, were scattered across the floor, the dresser and the desk; pictures of mermaids, drawn from her memory, were taped to the walls. Her eyes settled on the reflection in the dresser mirror. A wild woman stared back.
    “Go away,” she whispered and shrunk back from the door.
    Jim evaluated her with a mix of fear and tenderness in his eyes. “Baby . . .”
    Her legs gave way and she collapsed to the floor, clutching her knees to her chest like she had the day Bethany died. In an instant, Jim was beside her. His gentle hands were on her shoulders, stroking them softly. “It’s okay, baby; everything will be okay.”
    Erin stood still as marble in the doorway, her eyes wide and her hand covering her mouth. After a long moment she dropped her hand and spoke.
    “Get that crazy bitch out of here.”

 
     
     
    Seventeen
     
    M arissa zipped her jacket and yanked the hood over her head. The cold front approaching made the air much colder than usual. Wrapping her scarf haphazardly around her neck, she stepped from the apartment into the chilly morning.
    At breakfast, she’d pretended everything was normal. Jim had cooked toast and fried eggs, and grinned at her across his tiny Formica table. She managed to make small talk with him. “How’s school going?” she asked.
    “Digging Geology,” he said, and when she didn’t laugh at his pun, he nudged, “Where’s your killer sense of humor today? Still sleeping?”
    Marissa laughed, confused. She needed to be careful; Jim was her only insurance against winding up at her mother’s. Whatever happened, he could never know the truth .
    “Are you feeling okay today, sugar?” Jim’s brow had that little wavy line she thought was so cute, but this morning her heart didn’t jump the way it usually did when she looked at him.
    “Yeah. Sure. I’m fine,” she said. In fact, she never felt better. This morning, she heard Himsinging again, beckoning , and knew that soon, they would be together.
    “What do you want to do today? It’s blustery out. Feel like snuggling with your big bear?” He stuck out his flat stomach and rubbed it. Jim didn’t look a thing like a bear, and she couldn’t help but laugh.
    “Nah. I have to go study today. Library day. Research.” He couldn’t object to studying, she knew. Not with her grades slipping.
     “I love you, babe. Work hard so we can play tonight.” He winked at her.
    Marissa cleared her breakfast dishes and gave him a kiss goodbye. She stood at the door, coat on and he gave her a weird look. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
    She just stared at him, unable to figure out what he meant.
    “Ditzy!” He laughed. “What about your backpack?”
    Why did she keep forgetting all the details? She blushed and grabbed the pack from the sofa where she’d parked it after class on Thursday. Hard to study without any texts , she thought. But she wouldn’t need a degree where she was going.
    “Off with you, now! Go forth and conquer books.” Jim shoed her out the door.
     
      
    On Monday in lecture it had all clicked, and she wondered why she never realized the truth before: mermaids were human-like species evolved under water instead of on land, the way that similar creatures appeared on different continents. A rat and a wombat, for example. Maybe they’d branched off from intelligent sea creatures such as