CHAPTER

3

I guess land is a hospital bed.

The mermaid from my dream sits by my side in a pea-green pleather chair.

Her tail is covered up with a pair of torn jeans, and she’s wearing a gauzy black tank top. She has dark tattoos all over her bare arms, from her shoulders to her wrists. My eyes are all fuzzy, but I can see a million suns scattered over her skin, peeking out from between flowers and stars and trees. Her hair is black and her eyes are amber, just like mine, just like my dead-dream mermaid. She leans forward. There are freckles on her nose and a silver ring looped around her bottom lip, which is painted a pretty plum purple, just like a mermaid’s would be.

“Sunshine,” she says. Her eyes are shiny with tears. I squeeze my own shut and pop them open again. I must still be dreaming. Or maybe I really am dead and this is the afterlife. She takes my hand and I can feel the warmth. That smell that seems to soak into all hospital walls—pee and bleach and baked chicken—fills my nose, and I can hear the beep-beep-beep of my heart monitor.

My heart.

No, not mine. Someone else’s.

“Sunny, you’re okay,” the mermaid says. I shake my head, because no, no, no, I’m not okay. I’m dead. I don’t have a new heart. They didn’t bring me back to life.

I yank my hand out of hers and tug at my hospital gown. It’s scratchy and smells like sleep, like I’ve been lying here for years and years. You’d think I’d get better clothes if I was dead. You’d think the sea would’ve just kept me.

The beep-beep-beep gets faster and faster. I pull on my gown and see a white bandage on my chest. It goes all the way down to right above my belly button. I have a tube in my arm, one in my nose. I pull, claw, because the mermaid is still here. She’s standing now, trying to grab my hands. She has legs.

“Sunny, calm down. Sunny!”

I thrash like a seal.

Beepbeepbeepbeepbeep.

People in green and blue scrubs swell into the room like an ocean wave. I see Kate and no, no, no, she can’t be here. She can’t be dead too.

“Sunny, sweetie, it’s okay,” she says, taking my face between her hands. A nurse jabs a needle into some clear thing attached to the tube in my arm. Heat spreads into my chest like I swallowed warm water.

“Katie, what can I do?” my mermaid asks.

“I gave you ten minutes, Lena,” Kate says, her hands still on my face. “That’s enough for today.”

“There are way too many people in here anyway,” the nurse snaps. “One visitor at a time.” She presses a stethoscope to my chest, then checks the big white bandage. It hurts. It feels like I’ve been cut in two and sewn back up again.

“Katie,” my mermaid says, but Kate shakes her head.

“I knew this was too soon. You need to go.”

The mermaid’s face crumples. I think her name is Lena. I think she might be… I think she’s…

But my whole body is warm now, the beep-beep-beep steady as the tide, and the ocean takes me back again.