Sleep didn’t come easy. He’d spent the entire night tossing and turning as usual. But there was one significant difference. He didn’t spend the night thinking about Cassie and the accident. Instead, he spent the night thinking of the girl on the rocks, the mermaid.
He wondered who she was. It was more likely that she was not a real mermaid even if she was real. He’d seen those girls that train professionally for shows; they had very convincing costumes and practiced for years to be fluid in the water.
He laughed at himself as he kicked his feet off the bed to the floor. He stood in front of the bathroom mirror and laughed again. On the bright side, he hadn’t laughed in months. He was clearly cracking up with insanity.
After climbing into a black t-shirt and some blue board shorts, he headed down the hallway. In the living room on the dingy mocha-colored couch, his roommate Tom sat, eating a giant bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios.
“Morning,” Jake said as he opened the fridge.
With his mouth half full, Tom replied, “Did I just hear you laughing?”
“Yeah. Yeah, you did.”
Tom didn’t look up from the cereal bowl. “That’s different.”
Jake cracked open a bottled iced coffee drink and took a long swig. “Yeah, it was a different night.” He swung the door of the old fridge, covered in stickers, closed.
Tom slurped from his spoon. “What time did you get home?”
“Around one-thirty.”
“Wanna go out today? The boards are waxed and that hurricane in the South-A is stirring up some killer sets. Gonna be going off all week.”
Jake sneered at him. “You’ve asked me every day for four months if I want to go surfing. I haven’t gone once. Why do you keep asking?”
“Faith, bruh, faith.”
“Faith in what?”
“In the sea…in humanity.”
“Humanity?”
Tom turned to look at him briefly, his shaggy blond hair in his face. “You are human, aren’t you?”
Jake shrugged. “I guess so.”
“So you’ll get over this tragedy and be back to yourself eventually. We all do.”
“That’s optimistic.”
“No, that’s faith, bruh. Time deals all pain a complex hand…doesn’t make it gone, just makes it easier to live with, my friend.”
Jake nodded thoughtfully. Tom was a very sage-like guy and often had nothing interesting to say for days at a time. But then he’d spout off something that you just had to listen to and think about. His shaggy blond hair and sculpted tan body screamed prototypical surfer and beach bum. That is exactly what he was.
“Hey, Tom, let me ask you something. What do you know about mermaids?”
Tom didn’t glance up. Instead he tipped the bowl to his mouth and drank the milk from the bottom with a sip. After draining the contents, he burped and then stood. “Mermaids? You mean those little surf babes that hang out at the pier?” He shrugged. “I mean, they’re cute, but way too young.”
“No, that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about real mermaids, the mythical ones.”
Tom scrunched his face. “I don’t know, man. Why’re you asking about mermaids?”
“Just curious. Do you think something like that could be real?”
Tom moved into the kitchen and placed his bowl in the sink. “I think there’s a lot of stuff in the world science can’t explain.”
“But you believe in UFOs and Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster and all that stuff.”
“Sure I do.”
“So what about mermaids?”
Tom shrugged. “I dunno, man. I’ve spent a lot of time in the water. I think I’d’ve seen one by now. I mean, if I’d spent as much time in Loch Ness as I have the ocean, I bet I’d’ve seen the monster by now. Shit, we’d probably be buds by now. He’d like come up and I’d like scratch his belly and shit.”
Jake nodded. “That’s fair.”
Tom took hold of an apple from the bowl on the counter. “Why the sudden interest in mermaids? Did you see one?” He chuckled.
Jake just shook his head. “No, man, just thinking about stuff.”
“Well, ponder away. I’m heading out to catch waves. If you’re ready to stop being a capo, you know you’re welcome to tag.”
“What beach?”
“Going up to Wrightsville to meet Megan. She texted me last night and said it’s going off up top.”
“What’s the deal with you two? You’ve been together like every day for the past three months.”
Tom took a few steps down the hallway and stopped. “Hadn’t really thought about it. She’s a cool chick with a hot body who likes to cut waves. Why does there have to be a deal?” He continued down the hallway and closed his bedroom door behind him.
Jake didn’t really have an agenda today. The fact he wasn’t dead was about all the excitement he could handle. For the first time in months, he wanted to do something other than mope around the house and wait for nightfall so he could blow his brains out. So that was different.
After putting on some blue Nike sneakers, he grabbed his keys and headed out to his old-ish, faded red Volkswagen Beetle. The car started and drove well, but it looked like it was getting tired. It had well over one hundred thousand miles and probably needed about a thousand dollars in work to get it back up to full operating order. But he didn’t care. He didn’t get much money from his insurance company to replace his car and this was all he could afford. Plus he didn’t want anything nice ever again.
After he stopped going to work, he burned through his savings, mostly on alcohol. But his original plan was to just kill himself once he was out of money. He’d been out of money now for a few weeks. A visit to the pawnshop to sell some of the jewelry he’d gotten for Cassie had given him enough to get by for a while.
He’d gotten her a few nice pieces for the wedding, a gift to wear as she walked down the aisle. She’d never gotten the chance to wear any of it.
Selling her jewelry made him feel like garbage. It was just one more nail in his coffin that he didn’t really need. But in the end he decided there was no point in leaving it to anyone else. There was no one really to leave it to, anyway. It’s not like he was going to leave it to his parents. They didn’t really need money, and they never graced him with any siblings.
After a few moments of contemplation, he finally started the car and headed toward Fort Fisher. He wanted to find that gun before anyone else did.
The roads swam under his car. He didn’t really drive down them anymore. He used to love driving. It was one of his favorite things. Whenever he and his friends went out, he’d always driven. He’d rather have driven and let them all drink than trust anyone else behind the wheel.
As he passed by the road that led to the intersection of that fateful moment, he couldn’t stop the tears from welling up in his eyes. He’d cried more in the past year than he had in his entire life. The pain was not really receding as the experts indicated it would.
Time heals all wounds, or so they say. But so far time wasn’t even making a dent in his agony. It was constant and he just felt like it wasn’t going to get any better. Ever.
Wheeling into the parking lot, he shut off the engine and got out. The summer sun was at mid-morning position, hanging over the ocean and cooking the landscape. It was going to be a hot North Carolina summer day.
After surveying the scene, a few cars parked in the lot to his left, he strode toward the rocks and stepped up on the first one, carefully navigating his way up to the top above the water. To his right people on the small cove beach scampered. He took no joy in their playfulness. In fact, he hated them.
A few surfers bobbed out in the waves, he hated them too. He hated everything and everyone. But he didn’t want some kid to find that gun so he started searching.