A Thousand Salt Kisses Forever (Third Book in Salt Kisses series)

Painful

That afternoon, I was tidying up my room, when I received a phone call. I raised my eyebrows when I saw the number. It was from another country, and I could not for the life of me work out which one.

"Hello?" I said curiously, as I pressed the Answer button.

"Is this a Miss White I am speaking with?"

The caller was well-spoken, every syllable perfectly pronounced.

"Um, yeah. Speaking?" I replied, chucking my dusting rag on the desk and wiping my brow.

"My name's Philippa Wentworth. I'm calling from Discoveries, an archaeology trust based in Egypt."

"Oh, my gosh!" I cried, my hand flying to my mouth. At the start of the summer, before I reconnected with the mers, I began applying for posts abroad. I decided to pursue my career as far away from Starfish Island - and Llyr - as possible.

"Yes, so the reason I'm calling, is because we received your application back in June, and to be honest, we had so many that lots qualified people such as yourself, didn't even make the shortlist. However, we have a new project opening, and we are going to need quite a lot of help this time."

"Right," I said, my heart rate accelerating.

"I can email you more information about it, but in a nutshell, we are in the process of unearthing a number of artifacts – tombs, statues – you name it. Anyway, we will require assistance going through these objects, and identifying them."

My mouth hung open for a short while. Goodness, this is my dream job.

"Is this something you're still interested in?" said Philippa.

"Well...yes," I said slowly. "But how long is the placement?"

"Right, well first of all, that's wonderful," Phillipa replied. "And in answer to your question, I would imagine anything between six months to a year. It depends on the significance of what we actually discover."

I bit my lip and gazed out of the window. "I... I can't," I said closing my eyes. How can I? I'm supposed to be moving under the sea, not to another country.

"Oh, what a pity" said Philippa, the pitch in her voice elevated to reflect her surprise.

"I know. I'm so sorry. I would have loved to," I said, raising my hand to the pane, my fingers touching the crests of the waves within its view. "But it just won't be possible."

After I hung up the phone, I stared out through the window for quite some time. That was painful.

From the little Philippa had told me, the post sounded utterly intriguing. And not only that, it sounded like a once in a lifetime opportunity.

"But so is this," I said aloud, as I stared out across the seascape.

When I had first moved here, I had thought it a pretty view, but for me, back then, the sea was just the sea - a big entity of water, somewhere in which I could occasionally swim if I could get over my fear of sharks.

I never in a million years dreamed that there was a world under there, that my dream man would live beneath these waters. And that I may someday too. How could I possibly have imagined such a thing?

For the first time, I allowed myself to think about moving to The Jewelled Kingdom. I had almost been repressing it. It was too hard to think about. All the adaptations I would have to make, and all the things I would have to say goodbye to.

I thought about eating raw fish every day, maybe even with a side helping of seaweed and scrunched up my face. How would I live without spaghetti and bounty bars? I suppose it would be there when I came to see Mum and Dad, but it would no longer be readily available, just sitting in the kitchen waiting for me to snack on. I thought about how I would miss lying in my bed, enveloped by my duvet. Underwater life would not be so cosy.

But now it looked like it was not just the small things I would be saying goodbye to. It was things I had been working my whole life to achieve. Things like my career.

I suddenly felt drained from the whole thing, and I lay down slowly on my bed, my spring clean forgotten. There will be other things to discover in the ocean, I told myself. Llyr will take you to all kinds of places. There will be stuff down there five times more fascinating than what is being dug up in Egypt. Things no man will ever have the privilege of finding.

But is Llyr going to have time? He always seems so busy. He is always on a journey or at a meeting, or something. I swallowed nervously. What am I actually going to do down there?

My thoughts jumped to life away from my family and friends, but I had to stop myself. It was all too much for one day. As I lay there, I started to fret about it all. It's going to be hard, I realised. Really hard.

I will do it really gradually, I told myself, pulling my duvet over me. It won't be a shock for anyone that way.