“Ross,” Sean yells. “Ross, we need to talk. I choose you. I froze like a total moron, but you have to know it wasn’t because I want him back. I want you, even if it can only be for a few more days. I couldn’t let you walk away thinking I didn’t love you. We can’t be Allie and Noah and go years and years with misunderstandings.”

My heart leaps into my throat, hard, like a whale jumping through the water and crashing against the surface. I want to hear everything he has to say, but Sean absolutely cannot see me and Drop like this. How did he get in?

“The hedge door was open,” he shouts, as if he can read my mind. I think back and don’t remember closing it. I was so caught up in talking to Drop that I must not have shut it.

The front door swings open. It’s unlocked too. What the flick was I thinking?

“I’m coming in,” Sean says. He steps through the doorway, his perfectly dimpled face searching the room. His body is lit from the nearly full moon so I can see the way his whole being slumps when his eyes land on the open bathroom door. The same one that Drop didn’t shut when they came in, too excited to get to scaling.

Sean’s eyes find mine, then drift down to my fin, lying on top of another, the dark purple of Drop’s scales making mine stand out even more.

Sean doesn’t say a word. He just sighs, gives a weak wave, then turns and walks out the door.

What have I done?

     Sean     

Of course this would happen. Of course this shit would happen! Are curses real, because somehow the universe wants to shove it in my face when people I like have feelings for someone else. First Dominic and Miguel, now Ross and another mer? How did they even find one? They were supposed to be here alone!

I stomp down the porch steps, surprised my angry footsteps don’t snap the wood in two.

“Sean, wait!”

I hate my whole freaking body for turning and walking back up the porch steps to see Ross through the front door. They crawl out of the tub and flop to the floor, then drag their whole body out of the bathroom. A huge part of me wants to barrel into the house and pick them up while they struggle with their fin. But theirs isn’t the only fin in sight, and thanks to Kavya and that stupid PowerPoint presentation, I think I have a pretty good idea of what Ross and this other mer were doing. All while I was debating how to tell Ross that I love them. Yet again I was wasting time trying to get someone to love me who doesn’t give a fuck about me at all.