Chapters (34)
But I’ve seen what they did, Luce wanted to say. You know I’ve seen the whole thing! Then she noticed the way Dorian’s face was shutting down, closing like a door, and stopped herself just in time.
“I mean, I know all the other mermaids, like, even Anais, can just look over at me and see my uncle—everything he did. I was afraid at first that you’d be able to see it too . . .” Luce said it as gently as she could.
“I can’t see anything. I just know what you’ve told me.” He sounded very stiff, and he wasn’t looking at her anymore.
“But you know everything now, and you’re going to keep thinking about it—”
“I know because you told me. You didn’t have to. You could have made up a different story and I never would have known.”
Luce was quiet for a minute. She wanted Dorian to say that of course he was like her, that he was basically a merman stuck on land. But he couldn’t give her that, she realized. The idea hurt him too much. Just like Catarina, he couldn’t stand to have anyone know the truth.
“We don’t need to talk about it again, Dorian,” Luce said softly. He kissed her, and each kiss was as lush and slow and thrilling as a flower opening inside her skin.
She was amazed to find that he could touch her so tenderly—that he could stand to touch her at all, really—even now that he knew her story. Although whenever they paused for an instant, she noticed that he seemed to be having trouble meeting her eyes.
Maybe he did really love her, then, even though he knew he was supposed to hate her . . . Dorian had even more reason to despise mermaids than the rest of humanity did. If he could truly forgive her for everything, even for his little sister who’d been left to decay at the bottom the sea . . .
If he could yield up his heart like this, it must mean that she was actually forgivable, and that all her fellow mermaids were, too.
Maybe other humans would also see the situation that way, someday. And maybe the mermaids could even forgive them in return.
His hands stroked through her hair like waves of possibility. Like hope.
The broken world might yet be whole again. She twisted closer, kissing him more deeply still, and softly bit his lower lip.