Shallow Waters (Book 2 in the Mermaids of Damariscotta Trilogy)

Chapter 2 - Heatwave

Summer had officially begun as our party moved on from Martina’s restaurant to my back yard.  Most of my friends and their boyfriends or girlfriends had changed from their robes into the most stunning outfits.  The only person who wasn’t with a partner was Tyler my on-again-off-again friend.

He had been dating a college girl from New York by the name of Cherie Blake.  After his disappearance from Prom for a couple hours, Cherie supposedly left and took the next available train home blaming me for the distant gap between she and Ty.

If it weren’t for Jeremy’s attack on Isla, my mermaid cousin, we would never have left but, as I had been led to believe, their relationship was already on the rocks.

Tyler now sat inside the house talking with Harry alone, playing chess, while the rest of us partied outside.

“Hey, aren’t you coming out?” I asked.  “It’s such a nice night out.”

“I’ll be right out.” He promised with a small sad smile.

Tyler was famous for his mood swings.  When things were well, he was the nicest, sweetest guy but when he was down, he was a jerk.  Since Ivy’s grandfather’s car took a nose dive into Damariscotta river last week he’d been in a subdued state.  He seemed to regret lying to Ivy about trying to save Gerrard afterwards.

I wasn’t complaining that Tyler wasn’t acting like a jerk anymore but this sad, lonely boy who sat before me worried me even more.

“Okay, I’ll save you a dance.”

“She looks at me differently now.” I heard Tyler say to Harry when they both thought I’d left.

“She worries about you is all.”

“Why?  I’m not her boyfriend.  I’m the other guy.  The one that she may be attracted to but never in a million years come near me again.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Don’t I?”

“If you keep pushing her away it’ll be your own fault if you lose her.”

“She loves Matt.”

“She loves you too.  If you insist on treating her poorly,” Harry said a touch scornfully, “then she’ll never want to be with you.  You’re both going to the same college after the summer and you’re taking the same classes.”

“So?”

“So you need to spend more time with her over the holidays.  Bury the hatchet.”

“She won’t have time for me.  She’ll be with Matt all summer.”

“If you believe that then you don’t know her at all.  If you don’t know her then may be you don’t deserve her.”

“Why are you telling me all this anyway, Harry?  Would you rather see me with her than Matt?  Is that it?”

“I want to see her happy before she leaves home.  I want to see you all happy, Tyler.  No one at your age should be this stressed out or unhappy.”

“I don’t think I know how to be happy.”

“She’ll show you.  She did it for me; she’ll do it for you too.”

Slipping quietly out the back door I was pulled into the frenzied party scene outside.  There wasn’t many of us but still enough to fill the garden, still enough disappear amongst the crowd.

At the foot of the garden, Harry had set up two throne-like chairs as a joke for Matt and Shauna who were both wearing paper crowns since they’d been crowned Prom royalty the week before.  Matt’s foot tapped along with the beat of the music and his dark blue eyes scanned the crowd.  Shauna looked as if she had lockjaw and her mouth was set in a thin straight line as she watched her boyfriend Declan dance with Kerri’s friend Annaliese Valentine, cheerleader and ex-minion of the psychotic Samara Fields.