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“Oh, believe me, it was.” I shared her smile. “It was even worse when he scolded me in Turkish. Over the years, I’d hounded him to teach me, but by the time I turned sixteen, he regularly slipped into his mother tongue and cursed me with words I didn’t fully understand, yet somehow made every part of me burn alive.”
I fanned myself dramatically. “Here I was, a young woman desperate to act on the urges he gave me, frantic to kiss him, going crazy with the need for him to look at me the same way I looked at him, and he’d just chuckle if I made a blatant attempt or glower if I tried to be sneaky.”
“Sneaky?” Margot asked.
My cheeks heated, even now, so many years later. “I remember the first time he shot me down so badly, my chest literally felt like it would crack in two, and I cried into my pillow for hours. It made things extremely strained between us.”
I didn’t mention that the strain lasted until I did something even more stupid. I’d done something that finally pushed Aslan over the edge, and if I counted him giving me mouth-to-mouth as our first official kiss, then our second...good God, I would burn in hell for how he’d made me feel.
“Okay, now I’m dying to hear all of it.” Margot jiggled in her chair. “But...seeing as we’re going chronological, tell us about the second time you got him into the sea.”
I smiled at the fresh-faced journalist and sighed.
She would eventually feel everything I had and get the opportunity to experience the highs and lows of exquisite lust and everlasting love. I would be jealous if I hadn’t found the love of my life at twelve and spent the last six decades loving him.
I’d had my happily ever after, and I was ever so grateful.
Getting cosy, I settled into my tale again, but this time, I didn’t narrate like a storyteller. I let myself fall back, way back, all the way back.
I stepped into the shoes of Nerida ‘little fish’ Taylor: a fifteen-year-old girl, marine biologist wannabe, and young woman desperately in love with the boy who lived illegally in her garden.
Chapter Eighteen
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Nerida
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AGE: 15 YRS OLD
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(Sea in Chinese: Hai)
“SO, CAN I GO? PLEASE? IT WOULD mean so much to me. I swear Zara’s parents will keep me safe, and it will be so good for me to experience a few nights in the rainforest and not the sea. They’ve already booked the site, said they’ll keep us fed and safe, and I promise I’ll do all my chores without you having to nag me. I’ll do all the gross jobs on The Fluke, and I solemnly swear I’ll stop moaning about going to a school on land while you guys spend all day on the ocean. Come on, Dad. It’s my birthday. I didn’t ask for a big party. I’m not giving you grey hairs by sneaking out with boys—even though I totally could. I’m a saint, really, and I’ll literally do whatever you want if you just let me go camping with—”
“Dear God, I give up.” Dad chuckled, placing his hands over his ears in mock protest of my lengthy stream of pleading. “I yield. I yield. You can go.”
“Ah! Really?” I leaped up and danced on the spot, not caring that it would seem juvenile to the brooding, ever-watchful boy finishing off his beer beside me where we sat outside.
Tonight had been homemade pizza night, and we’d all had fun designing our own toppings before Mum brought out a dolphin-shaped cake with fifteen candles stuck into the poor creature’s silver-grey icing.
Wrapping paper from my gifts littered the floor around my chair, almost catching fire from the smouldering mosquito coil beneath the table.
I hadn’t wanted a big party. I’d wanted to spend it exactly like we had, with the added bonus of finally wearing my father down.
“Oh my God, thank you, thank you, thank you!” I ran to where Dad sat at the head of the table and wrapped my arms around him. Planting a big kiss on his sea-weathered cheek, I grinned. “I’ll never ask you for anything else. I swear.”
“You said that last week when I finally caved and bought you that monofin for your birthday. Wish I hadn’t to be fair. You’ll only kill yourself faster.”
“Monofins are what all the free-divers are using.” I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face. “Plus...it makes me look like a mermaid. Bi-fins are totally out.”
“Bi-fins are so much safer,” Dad argued. “They don’t trap your legs into one, and you can turn so much faster underwater—”
“But they don’t have as much propulsion, and if I want to chase the freediving record, I need to make every kick count.”
“Not getting into another debate with you, Neri. Just...promise me you’ll be safe, in all your endeavours, that’s all I ask.”
