Kavya shrugs. “Because you’ve just been off, man. And you get to be. Breaking up isn’t easy. When Lucy moved, I could feel it for months after. It felt like a hole in my chest, this empty vacuum that just kept sucking out any happy emotion. But, I don’t know, maybe being around Ross has reminded me that all types of magic are out there. There’s literal, my-mom-is-a-merperson type magic, and then there’s magic that we can create. Magic through forgiving someone, through letting them see how they’ve messed up and make it better and come back stronger together because of that. I guess I just don’t think that I’ve helped try to make that forgiveness magic with Dominic. Actually, I was kind of working against it, and I don’t know that I’ve been by you as much as I could as your best friend lately. So I want to help and see if we can repair what you lost. I don’t want you to have that heart vacuum. Ooh, wait, I feel a new term coming on: Heart Hoover. No Heart Hoovers here.”

I laugh and would pull Kavya in for a hug if she wasn’t driving. “Kavya, that’s beautiful. And thank you. For giving him a second chance and helping me make that magic with Dominic.”

“It’s nothing,” she says. “Just don’t lose sight of the goal by trying to make magic with Ross through your wands, if you know what I mean.”

She cackles like an evil genius as we pull alongside the curb in front of Ross’s house. I fly from the car, partially so I can get out of there before Kavya starts to create her follow-up hit to “Banana Hammock Harmony,” and also partially (maybe mostly), because even after everything Kavya’s just said, I can’t stop the buzz of excitement to be with Ross again.

I leap to the door in the hedge and text Ross.

Here ☺

Ross flings it open within seconds. “Where are we going?” they demand. “I don’t like surprises.”

They told me this. Repeatedly. But ever since Ross said yesterday mer don’t really celebrate one individual over the community, it got me wondering if they’ve ever been given something special in their life. Like, they share a birthday with everyone else born on the same Blue Moon, so they’ve probably never had anything done just for them. So, I want to give them this one gift, this one reminder of home. Even if it’ll also serve as a reminder for me to remember our very different paths, at least this can still be a pleasant surprise for Ross.

“I know you don’t like them, but this one’s going to be worth it.”