part0014

The newly christened Kristy Gonzales, however, knows that exceptions are often prone to shoving majorities out of the way. Intoxicated vows mistakenly spoken in the presence of a Vegas Elvis, ending in annulment. The groom who cheats with one of the bridesmaids. At the reception. Or the bride who catches one of the groomsmen going down on her brand-new husband.

But it’s different when a marriage ends involuntarily. There’s a voracious hollowness that can never be sated, no matter how hard you try to stuff it with empty calories.

And in those rare instances when your spouse leaves you and tries to come back? Forget about it. They’ve become something new altogether. A unique beast.

Daniel didn’t leave Kristy on purpose, though. No, that never would have happened. She knew that at the time, and she still knows it now. He was one of those mate-for-life types, like penguins or seahorses. Most people roll their eyes at such statements. They presume there’s always one side pulling less weight in a long-term relationship, that there’s darkness lurking behind the constant smiles shown to the public. And, in certain cases, they’d be right.

But something needs to be clarified.

“Leaving” is an inaccurate term in this instance. It implies an act performed of one’s own volition. Daniel didn’t leave Kristy at all. He was taken from her. Vanished in the heart of their Hawaiian honeymoon. The sea claimed him, made him one with the barnacles and the coral, nourishment for the long-forgotten creatures of the deep.

Their love, swallowed by saltwater. Perished in paradise.

Kristy and Daniel are running away from the rest of the universe. After this honeymoon ends, Kristy has vowed to never run from anything ever again. It’s the last thing she wants to do. Too many years of escaping responsibility, sidestepping reality. She’s found her perfect rock and wants nothing more than to cling to it, to bring it with her everywhere she goes.

On this stretch, it’s too early in the morning for the locals, too late for the less adventurous tourists who have no desire to leave the safe confines of Waikiki. But Kristy’s got herself a hell of a husband, and he’s scanning the coast, looking for the perfect place to stop and soak in some life. Kristy loves him so much she just might puke.

“Babe . . . pull over, pull over!” Daniel’s tone seems culled from childhood. Kristy slows down, finds a safe enough spot on the side of the road to stow the Wrangler. She leaves it unlocked. It’s a rental. Hands latched, they cross the road after looking both ways because life is somehow more precious when there’s someone to spend it with forever.

“Don’t know,” he says. Quiet enough to avoid disturbing the blissful sounds surrounding them. The wind singing. The sea dancing. “Just feels like it was calling to me, I guess.”

Daniel releases his grip and darts ahead. He hops over a dented guardrail, reaches the cliff first, slips, and teeters toward the edge. Kristy shrieks, then mentally slaps herself for falling for yet another of her man’s infamous pranks. His laughs are good-natured, and he keeps them going until she joins in. Then she swats him in the chest, calls him an asshole, and he grunts.

Kristy peers over the cliff’s edge. The view is idyllic, a movie moment forever burned in her brain. And now she agrees with Daniel’s last statement. They had no choice in the matter. This spot has chosen them.

A near-vertical drop. No stairs for convenience, but a clearly carved dirt path down the side makes for a somewhat easier trek down to the beach. The daring lovers of the past have put in the work to make it possible. Because Kristy and Daniel are young and subsisting on spontaneity and passion, they aren’t yet concerned about how to climb back up. They’ll find a way. They always manage.

It isn’t completely private down here—a few other couples have claimed the space as well—but it’s close enough. No screaming children. No sunbathing crowds. The water is such a shock of blue it’s almost impossible to tell where the ocean ends and the sky begins. Within moments of their bare toes wiggling through the virgin sand, Daniel swears on his life this is the same beach featured in the famous love scene in From Here to Eternity . His conviction is convincing. Kristy doesn’t buy it, though, and hasn’t even heard of the film, but she pretends to go along with it.

The cove is a liquefied runway. Jutting from the shore is what can best be described as a hot tub formed by erosion, perfect for the two of them to intimately share. As the tide goes out, it leaves them with barely a splash of water to sit in. When the tide returns, it is magic. The water floods the roughly formed circle and rises to their chests, bringing with it all manner of aquatic life, fish with colors so east and west of the spectrum they might as well be extraterrestrial. Daniel knows the scientific names of nearly all of them. Every class, order, family, and genus. Kristy expects nothing less from a freshly graduated oceanography major, nicknamed Aquaman by his closest colleagues. A man who has spent more hours of his young adult life navigating the sea than keeping his legs secure on land.

Daniel loves the ocean and everything in it. No—“loves” is an understatement. He respects it. Believes he should have been born of its wet embrace, conceived within its depths. He’d choose to live in the salty water if his body were capable of adapting.

Her husband’s affair with the sea was evident as early as their first date. And she’ll never forget the bizarre conversation he instigated that evening.

“You know, dolphins are sexually confident creatures,” Daniel had said mid-meal, his cheeks chipmunked with onion rings. “And here’s the really weird part. There’s actually people who’ve come clean about their attraction toward dolphins and how they’ve . . . uh . . . mated with them.”

Kristy had gagged so hard she’d almost spat out her quinoa burger.

“I find it fascinating,” Daniel continued. “Scientifically, I mean.”

She tried to hold back a wicked grin. “So what you’re saying, is that if tonight turns into a second date and a third, and so on, I shouldn’t be shocked if you suddenly attempt to bring some sort of Flipper fetish fantasy to the bedroom?”

Daniel kept a straight face, eyes darted off to the side, and Kristy’s stomach dropped. Then he broke character, releasing his signature caw that she’s since grown to adore.

“Surprised I haven’t seen a viral video of one of these dolphin-lovers proposing or something,” Kristy said.

“Well, dolphins aren’t known to be monogamous.”

“Oh, so they’re like the sluts of the sea, then, huh?”

A pause. They both tried but failed to withhold their laughter.

Their fingers touched.

“I’m sure there’s exceptions,” Daniel said, smiling with his mysterious eyes. “Always are.”

At first she’d thought herself ill for falling for a man who beamed with childlike glee when speaking about people who yearned to have sex with dolphins, but Daniel possessed many odd little quirks such as these. Never drinking soda on Sundays. Speaking openly about his personal experience with delayed puberty. Getting up to watch the sunrise to help him sleep in better. Believing Jaws 3-D was scarier than the first film because of how often he’d gone to SeaWorld as a child. It was these quirks (as well as her own) that had brought them closer and eventually led them here.

To this beautiful cove.

To this very moment.

They hog the hot tub-shaped rock until wrinkles form on their fingertips. The other couples give up on their turns and move on to enjoy the rest of their day elsewhere on Oahu. More heaven for Kristy and Daniel to steal for themselves. No one is willing to go to war for romance as much as newlyweds.

Daniel motions across the water to a tiny cliff. Behind it, there’s an intimidating wall of rock. The cliff houses what appears to be an underwater cave, barely forty feet from where they sit and splash. Daniel grins and Kristy sees the devious child that still resides within him. Kristy grimaces and shakes her head, but the next thing she knows they are heading toward it. She wades, her feet barely touching the bottom. Daniel chooses to swim, revealing a grace he’d be hard pressed to replicate on land. A malcontent mammal who wished he were a fish, a being who yearned to split his time between both worlds.

A clawed hand here, a clutching foot there, and Daniel is atop the ledge, five feet above the surface, six at best. He flexes his arm with faux machismo and shows off the nautical star tattoo on his bicep. Kristy rolls her eyes. She’s never been so happy.

Daniel hollers, “It’s away!” and cannonballs into the sea. He bounces to the surface almost as quickly as he breaks it, his face beaming. “Babe, you gotta try this!” He immediately goes back for more.

Kristy shakes her head, but eventually gives in after Daniel’s third jump. She wants to accompany Daniel wherever he goes, no matter how scary it gets. He extends a hand and helps her up. The surface of the rock is slick with fluorescent moss. She creeps across it with her toes curled for traction and balances herself with one hand behind her, flat against the rock wall that seems to stretch all the way to heaven. Daniel offers her a few tips on how to jump and land. She follows his advice to the exact note. Trust is everything.

Kristy flings herself off the cliff, into the water. One second she’s splashing, the next her tailbone collides with solid ground. It almost knocks the wind out of her. Water rockets up her nose, and it’s enough to make this a one and done experience. Her back burns. Later, when they’re in the comfort of their hotel room, she plans to make puppy dog eyes at Daniel until he gives her a massage. And she’ll make it worth his while, too.

Daniel goes back for more. Kristy wades back to nature’s hot tub to watch. Her husband never seems to tire of jumping, and her stress is never-ending, her stomach using climbing spurs to scale her throat. Ever curious, Daniel treads water and maneuvers himself closer to the underwater cave, clinging to the slick rock at its opening.

“Hey, you’re getting too close,” Kristy calls out. “Be careful. There might be a current.”

“Eh, it’s fine.” Daniel peeks into the cave as best he can, only a few inches of it visible above water. He leans in deeper and calls out a hello. A slight echo bounces back. He turns back to Kristy. “Honestly it doesn’t look like it even goes anywhere. ”

He edges away from the cave, and Kristy releases a hesitant breath.

“Just one more jump and let’s go, yeah?” she says. “I still wanna go check out the Dole Plantation today.”

“Mmm,” Daniel says, pretending to drool. “Dole Whips.” He shoots her a thumbs up, climbs the side of the cliff, and leaps. The water explodes.

He doesn’t come up immediately, which seems impossible. The sheer force of hitting the bottom should have pushed him right back up.

Barely a ripple on the water’s surface. Kristy counts the seconds. At twenty she starts to panic.

“Hey, don’t be a jerk,” Kristy says, knowing he won’t hear more than a muffled voice down below. The sun hits the water, blinding her with its glare. A few more seconds pass, and still no Daniel.

Kristy squints, shields her eyes with her hand. Motion in the water. Maybe.

Then his head surfaces.

“Dammit, Daniel. You had me—”

“Get out of the water!”

Without thinking, Kristy does the opposite. She leapfrogs over the edge of the hot tub and into the ocean. Frantic and splashing, Daniel goes under. She’s already cursing herself, knowing she’s falling for one of his lame pranks.

Daniel surfaces again, spits out saltwater. His eyes have seen the devil. “Go!” he yells. “Please! Something’s got—there’s something in—” And he’s dragged under yet again.

She’s caught Daniel in more than one innocent fib during their three years together, and she’s certain his lips are telling the truth this time. She’s never seen him afraid before, never knew he was even capable of such raw fear. She tries to reach toward him, but the water slows her down.

A shape moves next to Daniel, just below the surface. Something dark. More than a shadow. Something large. Long.

Daniel’s body lunges backward, as if being pulled toward the cave.

Kristy screams. There’s no one left on the beach to help. She dives into the shallow water. Despite it being clear enough to be bottled and sold, she sees nothing. Neither her husband, nor the ominous shape she’s positive she saw.

Only the blackness of the cave. A deep, endless hole leading down, down, down.

Kristy’s back in Oahu. Her bank account is drained, her belly ready to burst. Maybe she hates herself more than she previously thought. Hawaii has become her personal hell, sending out a siren’s call so she can kneel in front of its merciless gods and beg for . . . what, exactly? She’s not getting Daniel back, so any other wish granted would bring no consolation.

She has plenty to atone for, though. That the gods will surely gobble up. She never knew how much sin in the guise of suffering could be squeezed into such a short period of time.

To be fair, Kristy had no clue she was carrying Daniel’s child until six weeks after her husband was taken from her. Not that it mattered. She still ultimately chose moaning over mourning.

She’d planned to take care of it, thought she couldn’t live with a breathing, crying reminder of everything she’d lost. At least only one of them would have to endure the resulting pain. But Kristy has lost more than she can quantify and doesn’t know how much more she can bear. Too many protest lines to cross to get the outcome she thinks she wants. She deserves a medal for every day she doesn’t drink herself to death.

Or she could always bathe the forthcoming child in enough secondhand alcohol to burn it, the umbilical cord an eager fuse.

She was never much of a drinker before. Practically a teetotaler. Wine at a wedding. Half a beer at a party. But she became an enemy of moderation almost the moment she stepped off the plane and set foot back in San Diego, where the sun shines three-hundred and sixty-five days a year, but only for those who have something special to live for. Otherwise the forecast is permanently dismal.

No way she’d be a fit mother. The resentment started forming in the womb immediately and only grew uglier with each passing day.

Somehow fate had allowed the fetus to thrive despite her best efforts.

And now it’s almost ready to come out and play.

She’s swaying on the sand in the same private cove that robbed her of her entire universe. Where countless others have no doubt enjoyed the stuff romantic dreams are made of and gone on to live the fruitful lives they expected. But, to Kristy, this place is nothing more than a gorgeous graveyard.

At least the rest of the living world has left her alone today. Being in the presence of others might force her to feel. And that racks her with dread more than anything and sends roach leg shivers down her neck. If she allows emotion into the equation, everything that’s occurred becomes impossible to ignore.

Lost her cushy copywriter job. Sold nearly anything she owned that was worth a penny. All so she could return to the place where she could relive her nightmare. She tries to convince herself she came here for closure, but that’s a pitiful pipe dream. The gods will never grant her closure.

They never found Daniel’s body.

The Coast Guard checked the area and had her holding out hope that maybe he was just sucked under for a second and spat out the other side. Like he’d taken a ride on some crazy new waterslide and was having the time of his life. He’d surely ask Kristy to try it, tell her she’d love it, just be careful, that last dip’s a doozy. But the search was just a formality.

That night, one of the officers had tried to talk to her at the station. She tuned him out. Mostly. Only bits and pieces made it past the invisible partition in her ears and into her brain, and over time she’d twisted them into painful prose that became her silent mantra.

Plenty of unexplored underwater caves on the island. Currents make them dangerous. So many tight spaces a full-grown man could get wedged into and count down his last few seconds until he takes a deep drink of the sea.

Kristy tried to explain to the officer that something had been in the water with Daniel. Attacking him. Might have been a tiger shark. But the officer crushed the idea. There hadn’t been any sightings in the area recently. Plus, no blood in the water. She’d confirmed it herself. Not a drop of red staining the beautiful blue.

Back home, none of Daniel’s friends could figure out how the finest swimmer any of them had ever known had suffered such a fate. Aquaman had drowned, and it shattered everything they believed in, made them atheists of logic. They attended the funeral, paid their respects, and Kristy had yet to see any of them since. For this, she was thankful.

She cried for months. Maybe the tears weren’t always presented to the public—she couldn’t allow herself to become a complete mess—but they poured inside with no reprieve.

Now, here, her bare feet digging into the warm sand, she only feels numbness. Better that way. The numbness keeps her alive. Keeps her living out of sheer spite.

She regrets what she’s been trying to do, the monster she’s become. But regret isn’t enough to stop her. All she has left of Daniel are a few blurry pictures on her phone and images burned into her memory. The memories get just a little hazier with each drink she takes, each attempt at expelling the unborn.

Plenty of wine to comfort her today. A bitch to get the bottle down here, and it’s far from vintage, but it’ll forgive her choices the way a friend made of flesh never could. Temporarily, at least. Fitting. Forgiveness is always temporary anyway.

Kristy sits because standing is so unbearable. So is living, but she has to go on because someone needs to remember Daniel at his best and at his worst, as the wonderfully flawed man he was. His horrible taste in cinematic comedies. His secret cooking prowess. His ability to make her melt with a single cock of his head. Now he’s nothing more than a name etched on a grave with no inhabitant, a name no one dares whisper anymore.

Hours pass. The wine drains. Night comes. She’s done wallowing and is about to leave, but then something stirs in the water. She’s been transfixed on the soothing low waves for so long that any transgression is amplified. The ripple occurs a few feet from the cave that took Daniel. Something breaks the surface. Something long and sly.

It swims toward the shore.

From the shock, from the wine, from the exhaustion of life—Kristy passes out.

It’s been this way ever since she was a girl. No matter the scenario. Whether the dream consisted of the end of the world or the mundaneness of a day at the office, no visuals have ever come along for the ride. Only sounds. Feelings. Possibilities. A story being dictated to her.

A nagging loneliness, smothered in blackness.

Oftentimes, her dreams blur with reality. Like the time she woke up late for a test she hadn’t studied for, only to realize it was Saturday and that the test was still looming in the distant Monday. This dream is no different. She’s at the cove, the night after Daniel disappeared. Swapping spit with a fermented friend, not unlike tonight. The slight sound of the waves soothing her. The damp sand chafing her back, creeping into her underwear. But she shouldn’t be able to feel. Not this way. Not in a dream.

Something has slithered out of the sea. A clumsy splashing, then a soggy crawl the rest of the way. Something that once walked on two legs but has spent so much time below it has forgotten how to pose as a man. But it can relearn.

A scent wafts up Kristy’s nostrils. Sour brine. Overwhelming nitrogen. Her dream self wonders if the sense of smell can exist in this dimension, or perhaps if there is a sensation only present during dreaming that makes one believe they are experiencing a smell.

The deep urge, the wetness she feels down below, however, is an intimate, if not altogether welcome, friend.

She still can’t see it, but she can hear it—the writhing thing from the sea. Inching toward her like a pathetic worm, chittering with glee. It pauses just before reaching her, as if awaiting consent, but nature does not wait for the world. It exists to create.

The creature slides on top of her, an oppressive weight. It whispers in her ear, in words that take time to make sense.

And then they do. Words so sweet. So familiar.

And she remembers that some dreams aren’t dreams at all.

She should have known all those months ago when she’d awoken on the beach, dawn tearing away night’s heavy curtain. Waiting for Daniel to quit it with his joke. Her mouth filled with sand. Drenched in slime and the stench of day-old seafood. So stupid. She’d fooled herself into thinking she’d vomited all over herself. A typical night for the lonely lush.

But she didn’t notice something was off until she was a week late. Could have been a fluke. Wouldn’t be the first time she’d had a scare. But then a couple of weeks later she got sick. The kind of sick where you just know.

She’d lived through a few regrettable nights since Daniel’s disappearance. So much liquid courage and so little pride that she couldn’t recall the names of the men she allowed to use her, much less their faces or the circumference of their pathetic cocks. She remembered Daniel mentioning something about dolphins, that the females would often mate with multiple partners during estrus. Maybe this was just her fucked up way of honoring his interests.

A close call or two, but not enough to teach her a lesson. At first she was certain the child inside her had to be the result of one of those encounters taken to its extreme. To its most likely outcome.

Except once she felt the growing being stir within, she understood what it really was.

And who had given it to her.

Now—it’s the second night of her return trip to Oahu. Perhaps the third. She’s lost track. Once she arrives at the cove again, she doesn’t have to wait long. Because she knew to come at dusk. Just as the cove once called to Daniel, now it beckons her.

Redemption’s a real thing, almost tangible.

Maybe she’ll make a decent mother after all. Hard to say, since the rules are about to change significantly.

The moonlight shines a pathway on the water. Moments later, it emerges.

An evolution of the man he once was. The man he no longer is.

Always here, waiting for her.

Even after the night Kristy felt him inside her and—deep down, despite such drastic changes—recognized him, she still didn’t believe it was him. Dreams can be tricky that way. Especially when they’re not dreams at all.

Except tonight the details are crystal. The nautical star on the area that had once been his arm, now faded and blending into the smooth, rubbery, gray flesh. His face elongated and smoothed to a point, his head bald and domed, his smiling teeth tiny and plentiful and perfectly sharp, his body a shimmering wet wonder.

And—even though they’ve shifted to the sides of his head—it’s the eyes that sell it.

Those mysterious, laughing eyes.

She wades into the water. Once her belly feels the shock of cold, the baby kicks inside her. It’s ready.

She takes Daniel’s hand. Fin. Flipper. Something new altogether that nature has failed to share with the rest of the world.

There are others like him waiting in the water, a protective semi-circle, their faces barely breaking the surface. The ones who changed him. Who gave him his true purpose. Kristy forgives them. Sympathizes. They made choices, however long ago, and now she must make hers.

They’ve come to congratulate her. To welcome her to the family. And she knows it’s time for a change.

The new Daniel guides her toward the cave. They’re going where she should have followed so long ago. To finish their honeymoon. Gently, he tries to push her under, but she hesitates. She’s shivering. Fear, anticipation, ecstasy, what’s the difference? He whispers in her ear, the echolocation making perfect sense. She understands his intent. Everything will be just fine. She’ll be safe down below. He won’t let her drown. He’ll teach her to breathe.