Ross

When the locker room door squeaks open and I lock eyes with Sean, my heart jumps into my throat. This is it. Finally. He keeps hesitating, the clown fish unsure if it’s safe to leave their anemone home. Eventually he makes his way out, and I hope beyond hope that he’ll run up these steps and wrap me in his arms and listen to my apology.

But that’s not at all what happens. He stops hard at the bottom of the stairs and crosses his arms in front of his chest. “What do you want?”

After waiting so long to have this moment, all of my thoughts gush out at once. “I’m here to tell you that I’m sorry, Sean. There’s nothing between me and Drop. I thought I needed a reminder of what it was like to be mer, but I realized the second we got in that tub that it’s you. You’re the one I’ll always want, even though I have to go back home. I know it now, for sure. I can’t give my body up. I can’t give my life up. But it will always be you, Sean. I need you to know that. I need you to—”

“What’s the point?” Sean’s scream stops me cold. “How is me knowing that you’re sorry going to change anything? It won’t change the way my heart stopped when I saw you with that mer. You just want me to accept your apology so that you can go back to the Blue with a clear conscience. Well, guess what? You’re not forgiven.”

I instinctively look over my shoulder. He shouldn’t be yelling about where I’m from. We don’t know who’s around. As I make sure no one overheard, it hits me that I shouldn’t have to be doing this at all. Sean shouldn’t even know that I’m mer to begin with.

I lurch to my feet and stomp down the bleachers, ready to meet his anger head-on. “Oh, boo-hoo. Don’t feel so sorry for yourself. This whole thing started because of you. I wasn’t the one who lied and said we were together when we weren’t. I wasn’t the one who pushed myself into the pool all those weeks ago. If you had just kept your mouth shut, if you had just stuck to yourself instead of putting your nose in my business, none of this would’ve happened!”

Sean backs up a step when I get near him. Even though I’m pissed, it hurts. I don’t want to see the guy who used to pull me toward him stepping back like he can’t get away from me fast enough.