༻ ༺

Zac was sick of being worried. He was sick of his thoughts tumbling, sick of not being able to sleep, sick of eating, sick of pacing back and forth. He felt like he had worn a hole in the floor of Rita's living room.

He was sick of waiting for Lyla to wake up.

In the two days since the storm (forty-four hours, twenty-three minutes, by Zac's count), his mind had been occupied only by Lyla. They had put her in Rita's room in the huge queen-sized bed, and she had lain under the covers, pale against the white sheets. Zac had stayed by her side, and then, when this began to grate on his mind, he had used Rita's many books to research the storm and Lila's condition. He had found nothing whatsoever–––it seemed like whatever was happening had never happened before. The closest things he had found were astrological events: a comet passing by, the seventh phase of Saturn… but it all seemed so superstitious.

When his research was unsuccessful, he had taken up pacing and worrying on his feet. It was about this time that Rita had converged with the girls and they began to use their moon ring to heal Lyla. She seemed to be less pale, her breathing less strained and uneven. She'd had a fever, but the magic had made her skin cool down, and after a while, it had disappeared. A few hours ago, the last moon ring had run out of power. But it had seemed like she would wake soon. Now he sat by her side, hands twisted together, eyes on her closed eyelids and her cool cheeks.

Then her eyes opened.

Zac jumped.

'Lyla. Oh my God, you're okay." He looked around, breathless, but there was nobody else around. Nixie, Sirena and Rita–––and Cam, he realized–––had gone out to heal their moon rings and get food to refill the house, which was nearly empty due to the five merpeople that had been ravaging the cupboards for two days.

Lila's mouth opened. She took a breath to speak, but it looked like it hurt her, so Zac put a hand on her shoulder without thinking and shushed her. She closed her mouth and met his eyes, smiling wryly.

"Do you want to sit up?"

Lyla nodded. He helped her, propping cushions behind her, shifting her on the bed until she was mostly upright. Lyla cleared her throat.

"I'll get you something to drink," Zac said before she could open her mouth again. "That'll help."

He hurried out of the room, across the living room, and into the kitchen. He filled up a glass with tap water, and then heard Lyla's voice over the sound of the faucet.

"Don't forget the straw!"

He smiled. She sounded so normal, so okay. He was relieved down to his core. Which surprised him a little.

It was a misty morning–––the town had been wet and drizzly since the storm. The sky was gray and uneven, filled with rolling clouds that were dark gray in places and pale silver in others. A light rain wet the ground. Zac sighed. Should he text the others? His phone was dead. But they had just left about thirty minutes ago–––wouldn't be back for hours. If I was one of them, he thought, I wouldn't want to wait that long. He thanked the stars he hadn't gone with them.

Zac returned to Lyla's room with a glass of water and a straw. He handed it to her and she sipped it intently. His eyes found hers. She paused and set her water aside, glass half full.

"Thanks."

Her voice was scratchy and quiet, but still soft. She didn't seem too tired… just delicate. Like she wanted to move but she knew she would regret getting up. She wriggled under the covers. Her hands were clasped together on top of the sheets.

"Where is everyone?" she inquired. Her voice was getting smoother and softer with every word.

"They've gone to restock the house," Zac said. "None of us left for a while."

She nodded. "And it was your shift?" she asked him. "How long have I been asleep? What happened? I remember swimming back from the cove, and then the flash… and then it's all blank."

Zac told her everything. He recapped the strange storm, the lightning strike, and how he went to get help. He related the search for her, how he and Sirena had carried her back up, how he had carried her home and they had all waited anxiously for her to wake up. Often he left out how worried he was and how he had felt when she was gone, but when he did, his eyes and the tone of his voice told her what he hadn't said out loud.

Retelling the story, under her clear gaze, on the fluffy bed in the big white room with the rain pouring outside, Zac fell into a sort of trance. He was just reliving the past three days, like he had been the entire time she was asleep. When he finished the story, he looked up. Lyla's blue eyes were sparkling, her face open and quiet. "Zac, you did all of that for me. You risked getting struck by lightning, you swam to the bottom of the ocean… I can't thank you enough."

Zac didn't know how to explain that he hadn't even hesitated. It wasn't even a choice, he thought. You were way more important.

He hadn't realized he had said it out loud until Lyla responded. "Why?"

Without him even having to think about it, three words slipped from his mouth.

"You know why."

Before he said them, he'd had a strange feeling–––as if he was waiting, the rain was waiting, the room was waiting. He'd felt that when she woke up, their quiet words, the glass of water, the story he told her, her sparkling blue eyes, the rain… they were all a buildup, a slow rise–––or fall, he wasn't sure which–––into something new. It was like it was just their nature to start slipping towards each other–––it was just meant to be. And it all peaked at those three words.

So after that, when they kissed, it felt like the most natural thing in the world.

༻ ༺