The Pisces
Page 53

There was a surge of euphoria, a deep peace inside me, but also a return to normalcy, fixed, as though I were supposed to feel this way all the time. This was how junkies described getting well. There had been a missing piece and now the piece was back. It felt good to have the piece back, but also just normal. The sickness that had overwhelmed my head, my heart, my guts was gone. It didn’t matter what nature had intended for me. It didn’t matter that I had ever lived without him. He was not an extra part, but the thing. This was the new nature.
He pulled himself up onto the rock and we sat there, hugging. We stayed in total embrace and didn’t speak. I forgot where we were, and that seemed most normal of all: to be nowhere. I could hear the ocean, but forgot that it was the ocean. I forgot that I hadn’t always lived at the ocean or that it was even a separate entity. This was the only life I had known.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, but he hushed me.
“I know,” he said. “I’ve seen you every night on this rock.”
“You have? But where were you? I came here and came here and never saw you.”
“I was far away. I was in a deeper part of the ocean, much deeper than you have ever been. But I could see you there. I could see you there and I just hoped you would keep coming. I wanted to go to you every night. All I wanted was to swim to you and be with you. But I was afraid. I needed more nights. I needed all these nights before I knew. But tonight, you looked so finished. You looked so finished with the Earth, so surrendered. I could tell in your sleeping that you were finished. I could tell that if I came back you wouldn’t return to the desert. I knew that you no longer had it in you. That is good. It has to be your choice. It has to come from you. I saw it in your face that you would never speak of the desert again. I knew you were finally mine.”
“I never want to live apart from you,” I said. “I will live on this rock, I don’t care. I’ll sell mango on the beach, or bad jewelry. Those shitty crystal necklaces they sell on the boardwalk. I don’t care.”
“Would you give up your dog?” he asked.
“Yes!” I said. “He isn’t even my dog!”
“What about fire?”
“Fire?”
“Yes, fire. Would you give up fire? Would you give up walking around?”
“YES!” I said. “I hate fire. I hate walking. I don’t like any of it. I would give up anything you ask me to give up. I don’t need any of it. Whatever you want me to give up, I will give up.”
“I want you to come under the water with me,” he said.
When we had been fighting, when he said that he was going to invite me to live with him in the ocean, I didn’t understand what he meant. I wondered if he thought I had gills. But now I knew exactly what he meant. I knew what he meant in the sense that suddenly I envisioned myself with him in the infinite depths, infinite blackness. But this time I was not kissing his eyelids or his forehead as he slept. This time I was the one with my eyes closed. I was dead.
Or maybe he didn’t mean death, not completely. I couldn’t bring myself to ask, What does this entail exactly? What does it mean, me following you under? Do I become a mermaid myself? Do I drown? What if when I followed him into the ocean it was only death on one level, but on another level it was eternal life? Maybe I would grow a tail. Maybe I would become immortal, or close to it. I was scared not to know the journey before I took it, but I was more afraid to ask. I feared my questions would break the spell again and he would disappear. If I conveyed a lack of trust I might never see him again. And then what? I would be flinging myself into the water with rocks in my pockets soon enough anyway. Or quietly eating all the Ambien. I couldn’t show any doubt. I couldn’t show any hesitation.
It is said that Sappho became so devastated by Phaon’s rejection of her that she could no longer stand to live. So she threw herself into the sea, believing that she would either be cured of her love for him or she would drown. She drowned. That was only one story. But in every Siren and mermaid myth I had read, it always meant death for the humans who followed them under. Men diving off the backs of ships at night. Men walking into the water with rocks tied to their ankles. Many men. This was the choice they made if they wanted to be with their mermaids forever. Perhaps it wasn’t a choice at all? Once you had made love with one of these creatures you couldn’t go on living on land without them.
Did this mean he wanted me dead? It wasn’t exactly the romantic scenario I had envisioned. If I was dead and he wasn’t dead, did that mean he had all the power? If I died for him, it was kind of like him not texting me back on a cosmic level. Or maybe the one who died had the power, as the other person was left to live without them. When Romeo cried for Juliet, because he thought she was dead, it was Juliet who had the power. But then she cried for him when he was really dead, and he had the power. It’s the dead one who is most cherished in the end.
“I want nothing more than to be with you,” I said.
“I’ll hold your hand the whole way.”
“Could you give me a little bit of time before we go? Maybe we can just keep meeting on the rock a little longer?”
“So you aren’t going to come.”
“No, I want to. But I need to straighten out some things for my sister first. I just need a little time.”
“How long?” he asked suspiciously.
“Just a few days. Until Thursday maybe?”
He was silent. I kissed him on the forehead.
“You can’t tell anyone you’re going,” he said, pulling away from me. “They will think you’re crazy and lock you up.”
“I know. I won’t tell them anything,” I said.
“Good,” he said.
“In the meantime, how about you come stay at the house with me for a little while? As I’m preparing. The dog is asleep. I’ve been making him sleep every day now just in case you were here so I could bring you home with me.”
“No,” he said. “I’m finished with the land.”
“Oh,” I said.
“This is as far as I can go. I hope you understand why.”
I didn’t want to understand, but I did. He had sacrificed for me. The thought of him dragging himself back across the beach that night, the danger he put himself in, was scary. Now he wanted me to sacrifice for him. But hadn’t I done that? What had this whole week been?
“I’ll meet you here each night until Thursday,” he said. “And you can tell me whether you are still coming.”
He looked different to me now, more bloated in the face and jaded. His eyes looked darker. I didn’t know how I felt about the fact that he needed me as much as I needed him. It scared me to be needed.
“I’m coming,” I said.
“Good.”
We brought our faces together and kissed gently on the mouth. He put one of his hands at the base of my neck, under my chin, and tightened it—not enough to cut off my air supply, but just so I could feel him pressing a bit into my larynx. My throat felt full of pleasure and emotion. I opened my mouth wider on his and made an “ohhh” sound. We kissed wetly.
“I wish we could live the rest of our lives on these rocks,” I said. “Why isn’t it possible to just live at the edge of both, the ocean and the land?”
Of course I knew why. The edge was an uncomfortable and dangerous place for both of us. The rocks were nowhere to live. I had wanted him to come to my world for that same reason.