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She shouldn’t have to clean up the blood of her rapist, but she merely pecked me on the cheek, gave me a stern look that gave no room for arguments, and we continued working side by side.
Tourists crawled all over Low Isles by the time The Fluke sparkled, and occasionally a kid would wave at us where we moored off the reef, never knowing what we’d done the night before.
Once all evidence was gone and we’d eaten a couple of muesli bars and a banana from the cooler, I turned to Neri, ready to suggest returning to Port Douglas.
But she’d already unlocked the scuba cage, pulled out one of the smaller tanks, a regulator, mask, and weight belt, then marched toward me.
And that was how I found myself three metres below the surface, sucking on pressurised gas, struggling with the extra effort it took to breathe. Neri had given me a basic lesson. Rushed through the explanations of how to equalise my ears and what to expect when breathing using a regulator. I’d tried to tell her I knew all that. I’d learned from the best, even if all my knowledge was theory instead of practical. But she didn’t stop chattering, keeping me distracted long enough to strap me into the gear, march me to the side of the boat, and push me overboard.
I honestly didn’t know how she got me down here.
But I knew how she stopped me from leaving.
I’d never seen anything so....spellbinding.
This place.
This world.
This hidden incredible existence...
I’d been so fucking blind to it. So coloured by my hate and what the ocean had stolen from me that I flatly refused to see its beauty.
I couldn’t unsee it now.
Couldn’t look away.
All my hate dissolved as colour burst around me.
Death didn’t reign here...life did.
Abundant, swift, vibrant life and my heart ached at the thought of Melike becoming part of this world. She’d love it. She’d love all the jewelled colours and sparkling prettiness. She’d never want to leave after finding this brilliant city of coral with its treasure trove of gemstone fish.
No wonder she didn’t find shore.
Why would anyone want to live in concrete and brick when this existed right below our feet?
I sank to the seafloor, dragged by weights, and did my best not to panic. Reminiscent fear whispered not to trust the beauty. To see danger beneath its façade. To see past the gleaming colours to the dull rocks beneath. Rocks that hid stonefish, eels, and urchins.
But even as I looked for danger, I couldn’t help but be seduced by the shoals of fish flittering in the spangling sunlight.
It was like a forest.
A living, breathing, swaying forest full of blinding bright pigment all around me.
The shadows of the deep sea cradled it, protected it, most likely hiding sharks and stingrays and so many other nasty beasts.
But here...on this reef, it was sublime.
Neri dived in, arrowing toward me on the seafloor like a minnow.
Dressed in her red bikini, only wearing the monofin she got for her fifteenth birthday, she moved so seamlessly, so effortlessly, I forgot about the enchanted reef and became utterly enchanted by her instead.
The design on her fin mimicked fish scales, shimmering and opalescent, making her seem like a fucking mermaid. She wore no tank, no mask, no belt. Air bubbles occasionally escaped her nose as she sank beside me, touched my cheek, then tore open a banana that she held in her hand.
Her hair clouded above her, lazy in the current.
And I finally understood.
