Jake felt a lot better after spending time with Ashley. He hadn’t laughed like that in a long time. She’d always been able to crack him up with the simplest turn of phrase. It was the first time he’d gone a solid hour without thinking about Cassie since he could recall.
They didn’t talk about anything of consequence. They just talked about the news, sports, the simple days when they were friends, and the fun times they had over a glass of wine, or a beach Frisbee game.
Ashley was a good friend…no, she was a great friend, even if a little part of him hated her for what she’d done to him a few years ago. He couldn’t kid himself, his feelings for Ashley never quite went away. It was another reason he felt a little guilty over Cassie’s death.
As the sun set into the horizon behind him, he settled on the same rock he’d been on last night and waited. He half expected Ariel wouldn’t show up. The fact she may not really exist at all still sat heavy on his mind. His thoughts had been so sketchy he wasn’t sure he’d just spent two hours with Ashley, the girl who’d nearly wrecked his life before he wrecked it.
A couple of years ago, he would have never gone anywhere with Ashley. She was the hardest thing he ever had to get over in his life until Cassie’s death. Seeing her face used to mess him up for a week. But now seeing her was different. It was a completely different feeling. It was easy to be with Ashley, and completely forget the loss of Cassie. Not because he didn’t love Cassie, but because it sort of brought him back to a time before the loss. Life was great back then.
A few straggling fishermen packed up their things and headed off the beach, done for the evening. A quick glance around confirmed he was the last remaining person. The townhouses on the water to his left provided a soft glow, and to his right there was nothing but darkness on the small cove beach. Somewhere behind him, the walls of Fort Fisher told their stories of history to the wind and the slanting oaks that leaned away from the ocean, wincing away from her cooling mist, sang the songs of a hundred years.
The longer he sat the stupider he felt. He wasn’t even sure why he was here, all he was doing was feeding his delusions of grandeur that were obviously some sort of coping mechanism. His mother would definitely say he was projecting his pain into a delusion. Sometimes growing up with a psychotherapist for a mother was terrible for the psyche. He was constantly unbending the roads of his mind she’d managed to twist.
After what felt like a long time, Jake was all but certain she wasn’t showing up. Maybe the time with Ashley grounded him back to reality and his mind was clearing. It was amazing what a couple of hours with a friend could do.
Just a few seconds from leaving, she appeared in the waves a hundred feet out with a waving arm. An odd struggle of excitement and disappointment filled up his body as he stood. He shouldn’t feel so good about cracking up, but in a way it was somewhat freeing. Maybe if his mind broke the rest of the way, he wouldn’t have to worry about any hesitation in killing himself. He could easily jump in front of a speeding train.
Jake moved down the rocks toward the water, getting as close as he could. He was teetering on the edge, eyeing the thick wooden posts below. A jump onto them might prove risky and he could end up in the water if they were too slick. But he said to hell with it and jumped.
He hit the beam, his one foot slipped, and he ended up doing a split and falling into the water. Spinning quickly, he got his hands back onto the pylon and pulled himself up to a sitting position. There was no point in worrying about getting wet now.
Ariel jumped up and spit water out of her mouth like a fountain. “That was a funny moment.”
Jake pushed his black hair back. “Not for me.”
“Why’d you attempt such a move?”
He wiped his face. “I wanted to get closer to see you.”
“And what do you see?”
He shook his head slowly. “Stunning beauty.”
She leaned her elbows on the post between his legs. “I bet you say that to all the girls.”
“Not all of them.”
“Are you coming here for me now?”
He showed his open hands. “I don’t have a gun.”
She batted her big blue eyes. “So you’ve moved on to better things.”
“I guess.”
“Why did you want to die?”
He sighed. “It’s a long story.”
“Time is all we have. Nothing else in life belongs to us but the time we have here on this earth.”
Jake looked at her. “How old are you? Did I ask you that already?”
“Age is only the number of years we wish to count. It is not a true indication of our self or our time spent. Age is relative. Time is not how many moments you’ve lived, it’s how you’ve lived the moments you’ve had.”
He laughed. “You talk like a riddle.”
“Life is a riddle. Life is a puzzle, with pieces cut into shapes and strewn about all over your travels. Piece by piece we collect the sections and try to build the picture.”
“Who are you?”
“I am Ariel. Who are you?”
“Jake.”
“Jake, like Jake Davis?”
“Jake Wheeler.”
“Jake Davis was a writer.”
He shrugged. “Never heard of him.”
“Do you read books?”
“Not really. Do you?”
“I’ve read thousands of books. Sometimes I read ten books a month.”
“Whoa, I don’t think I’ve read ten books in my whole life.”
“I love to read. There are so many fantastical adventures between the pages of books. I live them.”
“I like to watch movies.”
“On television?”
“Of course, where do you watch movies?”
“I don’t have a television.”
“Where do you live?”
“On a little island up the river.”
“Which island?”
She coyly looked away. “It doesn’t have a name. And it’s not a real island, it’s just got water around it.”
“Where is it?”
“Somewhere.”
“You won’t tell me?”
“I can’t tell anyone. It’s against the rules.”
“Whose rules?”
“Father makes the rules.”
“Is your father a mermaid too? Or a merman, whatever.”
“You ask many questions.”
“Well forgive me. I’m still trying to come to grips and believe I’m talking to a mermaid. It’s still freaking me out that you’re here.”
“It shouldn’t. I’m not freaking out about talking to you.”
“Why me?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you don’t talk to everyone, do you?”
“No, I don’t. I don’t talk to anyone.”
“So why did you choose me?”
“You chose me.”
“Huh? I don’t understand.”
She turned her eyes away from him to the sky. “You were filled with such profound sadness. More sadness than I’d ever seen anyone filled with that I felt it in my heart. I started watching you each night. I felt like you needed a friend more than anyone I’d ever seen.”
Jake looked up to the nearly full moon and wondered how his mind could craft such a richly detailed hallucination. But maybe this was what he needed to get over the pain. Maybe this was his mind’s way of keeping him off that edge of suicide.
“Why are you so sad?”
Jake tried not to cry, but the tears welled up in his eyes with an ease he’d gotten too used to. “I lost someone close to me.”
“I’m sorry. That must be hard.”
“But the worst part is that it’s my fault.” His tears burst forth in a frantic fit. He lowered his head to his knees and let go. He felt like the despair was going to claim his life until Ariel touched his knee, squeezed it softly, and in a moment, she was real.
“You should talk about it. It will be easier,” she said.
He met her eyes. They were so incredibly blue they didn’t even look real. Even in the moonlight, he could see their amazing stark sharpness. They were so enchanting he started telling the story without even thinking. “I was driving. My fiancée Cassie and my best friend Paul were with me. We were coming back from the dress rehearsal for our wedding. Cassie wanted a big wedding, I didn’t. But I wanted to give her what she wanted because I loved her. Cassie had a way of getting what she wanted. Not just from me, from anyone.” He smiled. “She was one of those people you just knew had everyone wrapped around her finger but you loved her for it because she never abused that power. She was never demanding, never presumptuous.”
“You loved her a great deal.”
He wiped away a few tears. “I did, more than anything. She was an easy person to love, she made it easy to want to be with her.” He shook his head slowly. “But I did a stupid thing.”
“Talk about it.”
He looked away, then back at her. It had to be another illusion, but her eyes seemed to get so big they were going to swallow him up. “It was just a regular night. The stars were out, the roads were dry, and there wasn’t even a lot of traffic since most of the tourists weren’t in town yet. It was just before Easter weekend.” He started crying again. “But these jerks from Delaware in this white Mercedes, I remember focusing on their stupid license plate that said RICHBOY, it just pissed me off so much. They cut us off and started messing with us, swerving and slamming on the brakes and being aggressive. Then one of them threw a beer bottle out of the car. It smashed off the hood of my car and cracked my windshield. I had this really nice car, a Nissan 350z…it was a beauty, fire engine red, with black wheels.”
He looked up. After a momentary pause, he continued. “They were just taunting us and I got mad. I got so mad I started chasing them. I don’t even know why. It was just like something that came over me. Cassie was yelling at me, asking me to stop. But I kept chasing them with this tunnel vision. I couldn’t see anything but the back of their car. No matter how fast they went, I just kept chasing. I never even saw the stop sign. I never saw the cross street. The next thing I know I see the lights of a pickup truck coming right at us, right at Cassie’s side of the car.” The tears overwhelmed him, he could hardly talk, but he kept going. “I tried to turn, or stop, or speed up—anything to avoid it, but there was no time.”
Jake broke down. He couldn’t speak anymore. He slumped into himself and felt like he was going to melt into the waves. If Ariel had not been there to hold him up, he would have slid into the ocean and drowned. But she was there. And for the first time he knew without question, she was real. It was that thought that quickly pulled him together. This was impossible, yet it was right here.
He leveraged himself back upright.
“That’s a sad story. But it doesn’t sound like your fault.”
He shook his head. “The driver of the truck was drunk, more than twice the legal limit. But I ran the stop sign, I was speeding. But I could have let it go. I had numerous chances to let it go, to turn away, to be the bigger man. But I didn’t. I let a stupid mistake ruin so many lives. I had a choice.” He punched his chest with each word. “I had a choice.”
Ariel touched his arm. “Life is a series of choices, of roads we choose. Each one leads us to yet another road filled with choices. Sometimes we choose wrongly, but sometimes those wrong choices lead to something worthy.”
“I don’t see anything worthy in needless death. I’m a killer. I may not have premeditated it, but I’m a killer.”
“No, you’re not a killer.”
“I feel like one.”
“Killers are bad people. You are not a bad person, Jake. I can tell you have a wonderful soul and a kind heart. We must not let our mistakes of the past define our futures. We all make mistakes. It is what being alive is all about.”
“You know how to put things.”
“I have had a lot of time to think about the world. I wish sometimes I didn’t think so much.” Ariel glanced up to the sky. “It is almost time for me to go. It’s getting too dark.”
He nodded. “You held me up.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was about to fall into the water. You kept me from falling.”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”
He searched the sky. “That means you’re real.”
She chuckled. “Of course I’m real. I’ve been trying to tell you.”
“But it’s impossible. You’re amazing.”
She pushed away from the shore, swimming on her back a few strokes. “Nothing is impossible, Jake. If you believe enough, the world’s impossibilities become realities.”
With that, she disappeared under the surface and didn’t return.