When the Tides Held the Moon

by Venessa Vida Kelley

“I see someone brave and beautiful and too noble for a world as unjust as mine,” I said in Spanish. “With a heart as wide as the ocean if it was willing to bring a lonely, broken thing like me into it. You saw a man starved for air and tenderness and gave him both. You are so much more than a fool like Morgan could ever comprehend.”

Río had taught me how to breathe. Though he hadn’t meant to, he’d taught me how to cry, and later, to swim. As he touched me with the same sureness I saw in his eyes, I realized I had something important left to master. “Teach me how to love you, Río.”

“My soul is yours. If you want it.”

If Río’s soul was an ocean, then I’d found the sea floor.

Qué milagro. I understood what heartsong meant now.

“You would like the ocean, I think. Can you imagine it? A liquid universe, infinite in its mysteries, and still it holds you as though you are its most precious star. A place where, no matter which sea realm surrounds you, you are always home.”

“A prison the size of a lake is still a prison,” he snapped in frustration. “I need the ocean.”

I hated myself most of all. I was about to lose a genuine article in a sea of impersonators, the only person left who truly knew me, and I understood with bone-crushing certainty that part of my soul would go with him, never to revive.

“I ain’t a smart guy like you, Benny.” A bittersweet grin crossed his lips. “But if there’s anything I’ve learned just being human in this lousy, jacked-up world, it’s that love and hate—they got something in common. They put blinders on you, so’s you can’t see nothing but whatever it tells you to see.

Humans. Complicated creatures of earth and light and shadow, just as merfolk are as varied as the waves. I am humbled to learn how mistaken about them I have been.

I’d dropped my English because Spanish has so many words for declaring love, and I needed to use them all before it was too late. And though his tears were invisible in water, we both wept to the sound of promises whispered like prayers through the glass about a future where time couldn’t chase us, where my heart would beat for him for as long as he wanted it—until the oceans boiled and the rivers dried. Por los siglos de los siglos.

I wrapped my arms around his chest and imagined the glow of relief in my heart bleeding into him to stop his shaking, knowing with crushing certainty that I’d never hold anything so precious ever again.

Why did new beginnings feel like the end of everything? “Like the lagartijos that shed their skin many times before they die, every change strengthens us. But staying soft in here”—she pointed weakly to my chest—“is up to you. When next you shed your skin, you must hold on to the love that lives in you and wants to be free, even if that love is . . . different.” Even then, she knew.