He stroked twice more, right up, and tried to grab her board with his non-gripping hands, causing it to rock precariously and for himself to slide off and under. He pulled back to the surface and lunged the top half of his body onto her board.

Luna collapsed to her knees and grabbed the sides of his face. “Beckett, what are you—”

“Anna, I needed—”

Buzz and Seggy broke into laughter again. “He thinks Luna’s name is Anna!”

Beckett looked in their direction and back at Luna.

He felt ashamed.

If she hadn’t been holding his face, stroking down his temples, he might have stopped treading and collapsed under the surface and away. “Your name is Luna?”

“Beckett, what happened to your hands?” Her voice broke, “Are you okay?” He looked different, displaced and harmed. She had believed him safe, it had been the only thing she knew with certainty.

“No, I’m not okay, Anna, I—I saved a whale.”

“You what?”

“I saved a whale. That’s how I got hurt, and I came to find you on a boat and—” This all seemed like such a mistake. He couldn’t make sense of what was happening. She had been in danger; he had been certain of it, but she wasn’t, and so he was talking about the whale, the irrelevant, not important at all whale.

Through it all she held his face, cupped in her hands.

Staring into his eyes, with trembling lips, she asked, “You came for me?”

That part seemed real, he focused there, on her trembling mouth. “I came for you. Why didn’t you go east, Anna, I mean—” He smacked his hand on the water in frustration. “Why didn’t you go east?”

“I couldn’t. I just...” Tears welled up on her lower lid. “I was alone and I was so scared and you...”

Beckett pulled up higher on the board. He placed his bandaged hands on both sides of her face and pulled her in and kissed her.

He kissed her and she kissed him. Pressing and desperate. Then she kissed him on his chin and his cheek and sobbed beside his ear. Face pressed into the side of his neck she held on until she pulled back a bit and rested her forehead against his lips. “I was so scared.”

“I know,” he said.

“I wanted it all, just like you said, but I couldn’t have it, because I...” Her head drooped.

He dropped his face beside hers, his mouth to her ear. “Because why?”

Luna couldn’t find the words. How to explain that she believed him and loved him and wanted him and still paddled the other way? It was unexplainable because she hadn’t truly done it, not consciously, she had just given up, and the paddleboard had pointed the direction it wanted to go. As if no one was on board.

She pressed her face into his shoulder as tears rolled down her cheeks. “Because I died.”

He said, “I don’t understand, what do you—”

She collapsed all the way down, her head bowed, nose pressed to her board. She whispered, “I died and I couldn’t stop dying and I didn’t want to stop and so I just let go.”

Beckett needed to see her face. Her tiny voice, her desperate words, were freaking him out. He tried to pull her chin up, but she was curled tight around her knees—and his bandaged hands, his stupid fucking bandaged hands caused him to slip off the board and he had to remount it, splashing water all over Luna, and generally being a total ass at literally the worst time.

After a minute he got the board to stop rocking, and he rested his mouth on the back of her head and kissed it and then turned his face and rested his cheek there. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. If I could do everything differently I would.”

Her voice was small. “You didn’t know, I didn’t tell you.”

“Aw Luna, you told me in a million ways, and I wasn’t listening. I should have listened. I’m so sorry.”

“I didn’t want you to die too.”

He nodded, rustling his unshaven cheek in her hair. “Yeah. Of course. You died alone, all by yourself. I see that now.”

She raised her head by degrees and gave him a small sad smile. “I did accomplish that one thing.”

He said, “You did, you saved me. I didn’t die, but see, now I’ve come to find you—to save you.”

She cast her eyes down and nodded. “To save me,” she repeated. “I don’t know if I’m still here.”

Using the tips of the fingers on his right hand he raised her chin to look into her eyes. “I came to find you, because you aren’t dead, Luna, you aren’t, you’re flesh and blood and ocean-goddess and you’re alive and you found me and now I’ve found you, it means something all this finding. It means something big. You know?” He didn’t wait for an answer, “What’s your family name?”

“Saturniidae.”

“You aren’t dead, Luna Saturniidae, you are alive and I love you and I need you to stay alive, to stop letting go.”

Tears streamed down her face. “But I’m so scared and I don’t know how to face it anymore. Living.”

“I know, I’m scared too, but you’re alive. Stop letting go because you’re breaking our hearts and there’s been too much of that lately. Please don’t. Please come home with me,” he searched her face, “please.”