Who We Are (The Seafare Chronicles 2)

The little box. I open it. Alice and Jerry Thompson gasp.

Two rings, side by side. Silver catching the harsh lighting. One’s bigger than the other and it’s this one I lift out. It’s heavy. An inscription on the inner curve: O & B Forever. It’s on the little ring too.

Before I know what I’m doing, I’m running. I’m running down the hallway. I’m running through the doors. Running out into the night, the parking lot. I fumble with my keys because I’m practically blind with rage and fear and somehow I make it in the car and start it up and tear out of the parking lot without hitting anyone. I’m driving and driving and driving, retracing my steps from earlier in the night until I’m back on the beach.

Back on the beach where I’d begged that bastard God to give me back what is mine. I tear down the hill, the sand flying up around me.

The only sound is the waves. The ocean.

I look up at the sky and scream. No words come out, but the anger is like fire, and my mind is ablaze because I hate God. I hate him so fucking much. He’s done this to me. He’s trying to take from me. He won’t ever let me be happy. He watches and watches and watches for ways to make my life miserable. It’s unfair. I get something finally, something that resembles happiness, that resembles a life, and he takes it away from me.

My feet feel wet, and I realize it’s because I’m knee-deep in water, still screaming. But I seem to have found my words: “You give them back, you fucking asshole! They’re not yours! They never belonged to you! ” The box clutched into my hand cuts into my palm, like it’s telling me, “I’m here, I’m here,” and I have to stop myself from chucking it as hard as I can out into the ocean. The ocean whose waves are now at my waist.

“I’ve done everything! I’ve given up everything! What fucking more do you want me to do! You bring them back to me, goddammit!”

I don’t know how long I’m doing this, how long I scream at God as the waves crash around me. One knocks me over and my head goes under, and saltwater goes up my nose and I choke, sand and grit in my eyes. I break the surface as I stand, sputtering out my anger, trying to inhale, to fill my lungs, but I can’t seem to catch my breath. I try to curse him again, but I begin to retch instead, my stomach cramping painfully. My head is pounding, and I can’t tell if the roar is coming from inside me or from the ocean. The ground feels shaky underneath my feet, and there’s a sense of being pulled as the waves recede and my feet are buried further in the sand. My voice is going hoarse now, and I don’t even know if I’m shouting words anymore. I don’t know if it matters.

Eventually things begin to fade around me, and all I’m aware of is the box in my hand—

o & b forever

—that I’ve gripped so tight that it’s cut into my palm, and the saltwater stings as the blood drips down my fingers. I remember the first time he said my true name—

bear bear bear

—and the first time he held me when the earthquakes threatened to break me. I’d been frightened then—

i’ve something to say don’t be scared

—but he had been my protector, my watcher, my brother, and friend.

Then it hits me that I’m thinking of him already in the past tense, like—

it may not yet be legal

—like he’s already gone, like he’s gone and I’ll never see him again.

This tears at my heart, and I gasp out again, only to have more water pour in my mouth. I can’t see because I’m blind and—

so won’t you please please please

—then there’s a voice in my head, but it’s not the voice, because that voice sounds like me, because it is me. This voice is different, and it’s shouting my name, and I wonder if it’s God. I wonder if it’s that bastard God finally responding to me, finally talking back to me. If it is him, I’m going to kill him. I’m going to make him wish he’d never decided to fuck with my family. There’s a small rational part of me trapped under the waves that scoffs at this, telling me of course it’s not God, and how could I ever really think so? God, it says, is not one to respond to threats, not even if they’re meant with every fiber of your being. God doesn’t have time to listen to such an insignificant little speck such as yourself because he’s too busy fucking everyone over. God deals in pain, it whispers, not resolution. You won’t

get what you want by drowning in waist-deep salt water and screaming at the sky like it means something. That never solves anything.

I hear all this and more, but that voice gets more insistent and grows louder in my ears, and only then do I feel strong arms wrapped around my chest, and I’m being pulled out of the water. The cold air hits me then, like being buried in ice, and my teeth start to chatter, and my ears and nose are so cold that I start to shake. I want to fight whoever this is off because I’m not done. I haven’t finished my say. I struggle weakly in their arms, but they’re much stronger than me, and no matter how much I kick and flail my arms, I’m not released. If anything, the grip grows stronger. There’s strength there, and it reminds me of him, reminds me of my man, and the anger is black and all-consuming, and I howl at the fucking sky and at that fucking God. I’m no longer articulate, but my voice is still there, loud and mournful.

And then I’m out of the water and dropped onto the sand. My would-be rescuer collapses beside me, shivering and breathing heavily.

Isaiah.

“Bastard,” I mutter as my teeth chatter. “You fucking bastard. Leave me alone. I’m busy.” I try to get back up but fall down again as Isaiah shoves me hard.

“What the fuck were you trying to do?” he snarls at me. “You trying to kill yourself? Jesus Christ, Bear!”

“Just having an argument,” I retort. “None of your business. Go away.

Leave me alone.”