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“Jesus, I’m so sorry about her.” Dylan snorted, tossing his rakishly long hair off his forehead. “I swear she comes highly educated.” Pinching her in the side, he muttered, “This isn’t a fantasy, Margot. This is real. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to interview the greatest visionary of our time. A woman who not only gave her life to the sea but also made living beneath the waves a reality.”
Margot deflated a little, nodded sadly, and consulted her little notebook. “Nerida, how did you envision Lunamare? Did you always believe you could create a liveable undersea biosphere?”
“It’s not just a sphere anymore,” Dylan interrupted. “Over a thousand people now list their address as the Coral Sea.” His eager hazel eyes met mine. “How did you go from being a marine biologist to the architect of a new world?”
I looked back and forth between the two reporters.
I glanced down at my wrinkled hands, and the pangs in my bones spoke of time running out. I’d agreed to this interview because Lunamare was worthy of every publication possible, but...my heart was weary and nostalgic.
Tipping up my chin, I smiled at Margot and gave her the answer to the question she truly wanted. The question that followed me around every time I stepped on shore.
“It is true that I captured the heart of a lion. That I plucked him from the sea when I was just twelve. It’s true that I fell in love with him at first sight, all while he was stubbornly blind. And it’s true that he fell for me...eventually, not because I’m a nymph or siren or some other fantastical myth or legend. He fell because we belonged to each other.” I sighed wistfully. “All it took was for our eyes to touch and our hearts to beat, recalling the song we’d always known, slipping into sync where we belonged.”
“Wow.” Margot blinked. “That’s—”
“A wonderful tale. A romantic one to be sure.” Dylan sniffed. “But not the one we came to—”
“Is he here?” Margot scooted even closer, looking like she’d fall off her wicker chair with eagerness. “Do you think he’d share his side of the story while you shared yours?”
“Margot—” Dylan shot daggers at her, all while her eyes remained soft and dreamy.
I pitied this spritely thing. She hadn’t met the one who would change her life. Not yet. I wanted to tell her that when that love of a lifetime found her, she would know the deepest abysses of despair and the highest hills of joy.
That each day would be perfect, even if there were tears and fears, and none of them would be long enough.
I hid my flinch from her question and covered it smoothly with a smile. “He’s not here, I’m afraid.”
“Oh.” Margot’s face fell. “That’s too bad.”
“Yes...it is.” My lovelorn heart squeezed like it always did when I thought of him.
Lunamare might be my legacy, but Aslan?
He was my reason for existing.
Thanks to him, my lips had been kissed beneath a million sunsets. Our blood had turned to salt from a thousand moonlit swims. And our love gleamed brighter than all the stars.
“How did you come up with the name Lunamare?” Dylan asked, looking pointedly at the microphone and trying one last time to follow the script.
I wasn’t prepared for the kick in my chest. “It’s Latin. My mother was always fascinated with languages and swore she’d be fluent in all of them before she died.”
“And was she?” Dylan asked.
“Not quite. But she did know more Latin than anyone else I knew.”
Margot wrinkled her nose. “Luna...means moon, right?” And mare means...”
“Sea.” I held her stare, willing memories not to drown me.
“So you just combined the two words?” Dylan kept a close eye on me, tasting my reluctance to share.
This tale I wanted to keep close. But...if I wanted to do this, truly do this—truly leave behind the purest parts of me, the truest parts and ugliest parts—I had to pour all my hardships and heartaches into their hands.
Do I have the strength?
Sucking in a breath, I tasted the words before speaking them, learning how it would feel to be honest. To give them everything.
“You said without the moon and the sea, we would never have met,” he whispered.
