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William felt as if he was seeing Seraphina for the first time.
She sliced through the water like a beautiful, silver fish returning to the ocean. The waves, which had been so menacing just moments before, now seemed to play with her, lifting her gently. A school of fish even swam around her, as if greeting an old friend.
The group of them stood on the deck, a stunned silence falling over them. The only sounds were the whistling of the wind and the snapping of the
sail.
William couldn’t take his eyes off her. Not for a single second.
aves as she quickly reached the man. She was clearly a trained
Her arms, though slender, moved with incredible power, cutting through the professional. Her rescue technique was flawless. In no time, she had him at the side of the lifeboat.
The man grabbed onto the boat, slowly catching his breath. Seraphina helped him climb in, but she didn’t get in herself.
Instead, she swam a few more joyful laps in the open sea, and with a flash of movement, she caught two small, shimmering fish with her bare
hands.
She held them up, showing them off to the boat, a brilliant, wide smile on her face, her eyes crinkling at the corners.
The sun glittered on the surface of the water like scattered gold dust, and she was bathed in its light, more radiant than the gold itself.
Her hair was soaked, plastered to her head, revealing her smooth forehead. And for the first time, William saw the faint, pinkish scar that traced a line from her brow to the corner of her eye.
A sharp, needle–like pain pricked at his heart.
And in that moment, he understood.
Seraphina had never been a substitute. He had never truly seen her as one. The real her, the one in the water right now, was nothing like Melina.
The quiet, obedient girl she had been with him… that was a role she played. She had hidden all these vibrant, wild parts of herself because she had been so in love with him, so desperate for him to love her back. She had tucked away every piece of herself she thought he wouldn’t like.
And now? Now, she probably didn’t love him anymore. She didn’t care what he thought. So she could finally, fearlessly, be herself.
A profound, aching sadness washed over William. The brighter she smiled, the more fiercely the sadness clawed at his chest.
She was a mermaid in her ocean, and he knew, with a sinking certainty, that he could never catch her again.
