Teeth(42)

“I can’t be with you all the time!”

He glares at me. His eyes are as shiny as the surface of the water.

I say, “I don’t go over there that often. But she doesn’t leave the house, you know? She gets lonely.”

“I get lonely! I get lonely, you *! I hate humans!”

“What do you expect me to do? Fuck! You can’t just stand there—”

“Stand here?” His mouth hangs open. “Did you just say stand here?”

“—and f*cking scream at me because you finally figured out you’re not my whole world.”

“Fuck your world! Fuck you and your human names your mom gives you and your brains and your lungs and your everything, because I don’t need any of it! This isn’t your world anymore! Take a look at where you are, *.” He splashes me with a webbed hand full of water. It’s so cold it burns. I scoot back.

“You can’t handle being f*cking splashed!” He says, “You can’t even handle being here if I don’t keep you safe.”

“Yeah, let’s not talk about who’s saving who.”

“This is my world!”

Except it isn’t his world. It’s the fish’s world. And he’s not a human, but he’s not a fish, either. And it’s all crushing him and I don’t know what to do because I guess I’m not even a real friend or something.

And he goes, “I don’t even know your world,” and f*ck, he better not cry.

Because I don’t know what to do. I invited him to live in my house, for f*ck’s sake. That was the furthest I could go. How much of me does he seriously think is available right now?

I have other shit.

I close my eyes and breathe as deeply as I can. “Teeth . . . ”

What does he want me to do, grow a tail and swim with him forever? Forget about my family?

I won’t let myself picture it. I won’t think about it. I won’t imagine how nice the water must feel in the summer.

Because it’s impossible. So there’s no point in thinking about it. There’s no point in looking at him and wondering . . . because it just doesn’t make sense.

And thinking this truth hurts, because pretending I didn’t know it was so easy.

“I am so pathetic,” I whisper.

He mumbles, “I’m a fish.”

I guess he doesn’t know what pathetic means.

I need to get out of here. My lungs feel like they’re pushing through my rib cage, and where he splashed me is still stinging. And I don’t even know if we’re arguing anymore, but we’re staring at each other like there’s so much more we need to say, but he doesn’t know the words and I am not going to be the one to say it.

Because I have enough shit going on right now, and he was supposed to be the easy part.

And I might throw up.

I need to get out of here, but I can’t leave him like this. So I say, “Don’t you f*cking dare go down to the marina on your own, okay? I mean it.”

And then he just snaps. “You don’t tell me what to do! Don’t you ever tell me what to do again! I hate humans!” He pushes off the dock and swims away.

I don’t stop him.

I shouldn’t give a shit that he’s going. That they’re probably going to catch him and beat him hard before they let him go. It shouldn’t matter to me. He’s just a fish.

I run into my house, ignoring my parents, who for some reason choose tonight to demand to know where I’ve been and why I’m all wet, and I run up to my room and I scream. And I’m ripping pictures off the walls—not even the pictures of him, because those are all hidden away—the ones of my family, my parents and my f*cking f*cking f*cking brother, and I’m breaking my lamp because I threw it and I’m screaming.

And over the ocean, which started screaming and thrashing when I did, which knows exactly how f*cked up this is, which is trying to swallow the fishboy before someone else swallows him, no one can even hear me, and no one even has any idea.



But I can hear him.

The ocean might be louder tonight than I’ve ever heard, roaring and growling, but I sleep right through it. I only wake up for the train whistle scream, the shriek of sharp teeth gnashed together, the hoarse warble from deep in his throat. The word please.

Magic word.

The silence.

It’s just the wind. It was just the wind, and it’s dying down now.

It’s nothing. It’s just this ghost of this boy who used to be.



I skip breakfast to go out early with peroxide, because I don’t have anything else to bring for a peace offering. And I can’t just walk around feeling like this, like I’ve swallowed a bucketful of sand. If that means I need to grovel, then fine, I’ll f*cking grovel.

Because there’s always someone who’s more powerful, and ever since Teeth fed me that fish, it’s become really clear which one of us will sacrifice more than the other.

They better not have hurt him too badly.

“Teeth?” I get up on the dock and wait for him to come out.

He doesn’t.





eighteen


IT GETS COLD ENOUGH TO MAKE OUR FIRST FIRE. DAD’S WORRIED about the smoke and Dylan’s lungs, but he does really well. I think he’s happy I’ve been at home more. He glues himself to my lap and talks my ear off about the starfish he found on the shore this morning while he was out in the sand with Mom.