Come Back

“What’s your name?” he asks me again.

“Lionfish,” I answer back, giggling. “That’s my hunter name, what’s yours?”

He laughs with me now and tsks his tongue. I’m not allowed to ask these things, but he’s not either. And he did anyway. “You made that up.”

“So make one up,” I challenge him back. “You remind me of sea grass so I will call you sea grass.”

“Sea grass! How boring.”

“But…” I can’t stop my smile. My cheeks get all hot. He squats down next to me now and his gaze falls over my drawing. My heart beats a little faster. I wonder if he can see my secret? I want him to see it. I want him to guess. But I don’t want to be caught giving out such important information. So I keep talking. “But your eyes are green like the sea grass. And I saw a manatee yesterday eating sea grass. You remind me of that.”

He lowers the hand he’s been using as a sun shield and I can’t stop looking at him. “And your eyes are amber, like the lionfish.”

Amber… I’ve never heard of that color before. I will have to look it up.

“Sister!” Nick calls from down the beach. I lean to the side so I can see around the hunter and spy my brother. He’s not happy.

“What?” I call back. Why is he mad?

“It’s time for cake,” Nick says as he runs up and grabs my hand, pulling me to my feet. He glares at my new friend as I’m tugged away. But a few feet up the beach I turn back and catch the hunter standing up to follow us. “Don’t forget your present!” I yell at him. He has a puzzled expression and then glances down at the sand drawing and smiles.

I hope he never forgets that present.

Because I want him to remember me.

Chapter Four - Harper

I drew him a harp. Right in the middle of all the other instruments.

This makes me smile even though so much shit’s going wrong in my life right now. Finding out that James is the man from the beach all those years ago is gonna require a lot of thinking on my part. How do I feel about that? What are his intentions? I have a lot of questions but right now I allow myself to smile.

When I finally told him my name out there under the pier, it was a very special moment for him. A moment he’d waited almost thirteen years for. And it felt special to me too.

He’d smiled. I like it, he’d said.

And back when we turned Six, James stayed that whole day for my party. He sat across from me at the table. He clapped when Nick and I blew out our candles. He handed me another present when we were alone later. A set of colored pencils to draw in my new notebook.

That night I drew a picture and I wished the green-eyed man Happy Six Day. I hope you’ll be my friend, I wrote at the end in my childish handwriting.

The next morning he was gone. And so was my notebook.

I cried for days over that loss. Even though my six-year-old self could not understand why, my eighteen-year-old-self can.

I fell in love with him that day on the beach. Maybe it was only a childhood crush, but it felt real.

My mind wanders back to my father during this period. He left James with Nick and me all day. We didn’t even have a nanny, just James. And later, after we were back on the ship and the celebrations were coming to a close, Nick was carried off to our room after falling asleep on the observation deck. But James stayed behind with me. Just a few more minutes. That’s all we had. James spent the entire day with me. We turned Six together.

I hold the notebook, praying to whomever is in charge of wish-granting that there is something inside this notebook. Something more than this little drawing by me. And for once, as I turn the page, my wish is granted.

I almost have a moment of regret. Like I used up something special asking for the handwriting inside this book.

But then I read the first page and I know, if I’m never granted another wish in my life, it was worth it.

Because it says…

Dear Lionfish,

I hope you had a happy Six Day. I stole your gift. You’ll probably cry when you find it missing tomorrow, so I’m sorry about that. But I need your innocent words to remind me why I do what I do. Why I will become what I will become. And why I had to tell your father no. I hope one day you’ll understand.

There is no name, but at the bottom of the page he says:

P.S. I’ve been thinking about it and sea grass is still pretty boring. But I might like to give boring a try.

James. How could I have forgotten him? I knew he felt familiar, and one day twelve years ago is not grounds for remembering. But all the things that made him special to me that day made him special to me under the pier too. There’s so many things to process with this one short note, but then I flip the page and find more.

And more, and more, and more. Every page of this notebook is filled with his block-style handwriting. The entire book is nothing but uncensored James.

I flip back to the second entry and read the date. My birthday. One year later. There’s a picture of me stuck between the pages, taken from a distance from the blurriness, but it’s clear enough to make me smile. I had on a floppy orange hat. I remember it so well. It was made out of denim and I thought was the coolest thing. Add in my white sunglasses and my green bathing suit and I was a statement in second-grade fashion.

Dear Lionfish,

I guess I have to watch you from a distance since I turned down the Admiral last year. But that’s OK. I’m used to it. Everything I do in life is from a distance. And since I’m only seventeen, I’ve got a lot of long-distance living ahead of me. I hope your year has gone better than mine. I’m glad you have no idea what really happens in this world, because I’d die a little inside if you knew. My little sister is gone. My mother had a breakdown, and my father ignores us. My first eight assassinations are history. I was shot twice, tortured once, left for dead, and rescued.