Out_of_the_Blue_-_Jason_June
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Dedication
To Mom and Dad and Mom, for always letting me pretend to
be a mermaid
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Sean
Crest
Sean
Crest—ugh—Ross
Sean
Ross
Sean
Ross
Sean
Ross
Sean
Ross
Sean
Ross
Sean
Ross
Sean
Ross
Sean
Ross
Sean
Ross
Sean
Ross
Sean
Ross
Sean
Ross
Sean
Ross
Sean
Ross
Sean
Ross
Sean
Ross
Sean
Ross
Sean
Ross
Sean
Ross
Sean
Ross
Sean
Ross
Sean
Crest
Sean
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Books by Jason June
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Copyright
About the Publisher
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Sean
There are a surprising number of similarities between being
a lifeguard and being a movie director. Both sit in a labeled
chair to watch everything in their surroundings, their eyes
squint just as hard thanks to glaring sun or glaring studio
lights, and yelling “CUT THAT OUT!” to kids splashing day-
drinking moms isn’t all that different from yelling “CUT!” to
actors.
Sitting up here in the lifeguard stand makes me feel in
control, like I can direct the movie of my life and everyone in
it. Which is why when Dominic comes padding across the
faux grass around the pool of the Santa Monica Beach Club
—his favorite gold Havaianas in hand so he can feel the turf
between his toes—my brain switches right into director
mode. I mentally frame the establishing shot of the club, the
pool busy with families during the only kid-friendly block on
Sunday mornings, servers zooming in and out of lounge
chairs and cabanas with brunch offerings for members
who’ve just walked in from the beach after dipping their feet
in the Pacific. Then my mind camera goes in for a close-up
on Dominic, his black hair tousled perfectly, his green eyes
locking with mine, his lips breaking into a grin that says so
much: happy to see me, wanting to kiss me, eager to relive
what we did a couple nights ago after my mom went to bed
and we stayed up to “watch rom-coms” and “study their
structure.”
Only, that’s not what happens. I do the close-up on my
boyfriend, but he won’t meet my gaze. Dominic’s eyes are
permanently focused on the ground, a deep scowl furrowed
into his pale white forehead as he mumbles something to
himself. I’m too far away to know what it is, but it seems like
he’s practicing something. He looks like the kids in the
drama department, whispering lines to make sure they have
them right. And based on the way he looks like he could
throw up at any second, whatever Dominic’s lines are can’t
be good.
I want to scream “Cut!” like when I’m directing my
romance shorts for film class. I want to direct that frown,
that nervous mumbling, away from Dominic’s face. Or
maybe jump into the ocean with him like we do every
weekend and have the salty water wipe his concern away
before I pull him into a kiss while the waves surge past our
waists.
The dread in my gut increases as Dominic gets closer
and his frown gets deeper and deeper and deeper. I fiddle
with the promise ring he gave me last Christmas, a nervous
habit that normally calms my nerves. But now it does
nothing. When Dominic stops at the base of the perfectly
polished white ladder that leads to my seat, he finally looks
up.
My eyes zoom into a deep focus of his perfectly pink lips
just in time for him to say the worst four words in existence:
“We need to talk.”
How is it that just four words can make you feel like your
whole life is completely ending? Everyone knows what “we
need to talk” means. It’s the beginning of just about every
breakup scene in any rom-com ever, the genre I’ve watched
practically every day the past three years. But breaking up
is not how the rom-com of my life is supposed to go. I’m
supposed to finish the last couple of months of my junior
year with Dominic by my side, have him cheer me on at
qualifiers and then state swim meets, premiere my film
showcase submission that he’s been helping me put
together, dance at prom, help his mom throw his senior
graduation party a few weeks later, then spend a perfect
summer together before we move him into Cal State
Northridge in September. Every last moment was going to
make the ultimate real-life rom-com, but I guess Dominic
has other ideas.
But wait. He hasn’t actually dumped me. Maybe this is all
a big misunderstanding and I’m letting my obsession with
movie beats fill in the blanks.
“Sean? Did you hear me?” Dominic’s yelling now and
suddenly we’re the center of attention, mojito-drinking
moms and the self-proclaimed SFGs (Sunday Funday Gays)
whipping their heads in our direction. My face heats up. I
purposely want to be behind the camera for a reason. I can’t
stand all eyes on me. “I said we need to talk.”
A few gasps echo across the pool. I’m not the only one
who suspects what’s about to happen. An SFG even drops
his mouth in an overexaggerated O, slaps the side of his
face, and says to a friend, “Mary, it’s about to go down.”
It’s best if I go to Dominic so that if he continues to do
what I think he’s doing, it’s not going to be in front of an
audience. “Hang on. Just . . . wait.”
I shoot a quick text to Kavya, who’s sitting in the stand
on the other side of the pool.
I’m taking my lunch.
If I tell her the truth about what’s going down, she’ll
make an even bigger scene. She has my back through
everything, but the last thing I need right now is for her to
make another pool proclamation.
Don’t get a hickey this time.
Kavya has her binoculars trained on Dominic. So she’s
about to see what happens whether I tell her or not. Which
might be a good thing, actually, because I’ll need somebody
to drag me out of here after it happens. Maybe that’s why
the club has a two-lifeguards-at-a-time rule, in case one of
us collapses from heartache.
I make my way down the ladder, the whistle around my
neck smacking against my chest with each step. It’s nothing
compared to how hard my heart is beating.
When I finally make it to the ground and look Dominic in
the eyes, I’m positive my suspicions are correct. This is the
breakup scene, and even though I know it, I can’t stop
myself from saying “Hey, handsome. What’s up?” like
nothing’s wrong.
It’s how I’ve greeted him every day for the past thirteen
months. Ever since I saw Dominic staring at me from the
beach, smiling while biting his bottom lip. I wanted to bite it
back so badly, and I just felt this surge of confidence in me
like I’d never felt before. “Hey, handsome” tumbled out of
my mouth, we flirted for a few days until we had an epic
make-out session and I asked him out, and we’ve been
together ever since.
Dominic gives me a weak smile at the familiar greeting,
nowhere near as bright and vibrant and sexy as that day at
the beach. Well, he’s definitely still sexy, still has that
brooding-vampire thing about him, and why can’t I stop
myself from thinking this when he’s about to dump me?
“I, um . . . Man, this is hard.” Dominic scratches the back
of his neck like he always does when he’s nervous. “We’re
over, Sean. I’m just not feeling it anymore.” Then he
delivers the
actual worst set of four words in the English
language. “I met someone else.”
I’m pretty sure the mega earthquake geologists keep
warning about hits at the exact time he spoke because it
feels like the ground falls out from under me. I literally
collapse, the unforgiving plastic of the turf digging into my
knees. But they’re just pinpricks compared to the knife
stabbing my back, my gut, my heart, over and over.
Every single moment of our thirteen months together
flashes before my eyes: our first date downtown at the VR
arcade, where Dominic nearly threw up from motion
sickness; going to his junior prom together in our matching
dusty-pink tuxes; losing my virginity that night to this
heartless piece of shit who decides to just throw it all away
on someone else. And he tells me
now? While I’m at work?
Surrounded by dozens of drunk parents and gays who sure
as hell are not going to feel confident in my lifesaving duties
if I freak out poolside for the whole world to see.
Tears sting my eyes, but I will them not to come out with
every ounce of strength I have left. But I have too much
heartbroken energy and it has to get out somehow. So
instead of crying, I start hyperventilating. I want to askWho? or
How? or anything that would give me answers, but
I can’t seem to push any words out of my throat.
“Sean?” Dominic still doesn’t move from his place just
out of arm’s reach, too much of a coward to face my
heartache up close and personal. “Are you okay?”
A flare of anger temporarily pushes away the lump
blocking words.
“Does this”—
heave—“look like”—
heave—“I’m okay”—heave—“to you?”
Dominic scratches his neck again. “Um, no.”
I try to give him an angry laugh, but I’m so out of breath
it comes out more like a hiccup. “What was”—
heave—“your
first”—
heave—“clue”—
heave—“Sherlock?”
Suddenly a pair of dark brown feet with black-painted
toenails burst into view. I look up to find Kavya, chest puffed
proudly, her bright orange buoy that we never have to use
in the six-foot-deep pool strapped across her chest. “What’s
going on? Bee sting? Allergic reaction? Shall I administer
CPR?” She can sound like such a cheesy cartoon superhero
when she hops into lifeguard action, her hands literally
placed on her hips like she’s Wonder Woman or something.
“It’s fine.” Apparently I can handle two-word sentences
now without gasping for air.
“Oh.” Kavya’s arms fall limply to her sides. She’s been
dying for the day when she finally gets to save someone’s
life.
She looks over at Dominic, who still hasn’t moved a
muscle since delivering his Richter-scale-10 news. “Hey,
dude,” she says. “What are you doing here?”
“He’s met someone else,” I say.
Four words. We’re improving. So I try, “Who is he?” The
question sends another knife to my soul, but I have to know.
“Miguel.”
He doesn’t have to say more. I know exactly who he’s
talking about. Miguel is the most popular guy in school, one
of the top swimmers on the team, homecoming royalty four
out of four years at Shoreline High. And my former best
friend.
“He’s a senior. He’s also heading to Northridge next
year,” Dominic continues. “We really clicked at his
barbecue. It just makes more sense.”
“Oh,” I breathe. How else are you supposed to respond
when someone starts describing your replacement like
reasons for upgrading a car? This is not the Dominic I know.
He’s not this heartless.
Kavya grabs her buoy and pulls it over her head,
dropping it with a hollow
clunk at her feet. Then she bends
down and touches her toes. Next, she stands tall and grabs
her right foot, bringing it to her butt. She does the same
with her left.
“What are you doing?” Dominic asks.
Kavya places her hands at the small of her back and
bends backward while exhaling. “Stretching,” she says, her
voice wispy as the word escapes with the air in her lungs.
Dominic raises an eyebrow. “For what?”
“For chasing you the fuck out of my pool.” A mom gasps
and covers her toddler’s ears, while a few of the SFGs holler,
“That’s right!”
“Sure you are.” Dominic laughs, and I just don’t get how
he could be so cold. He can laugh at a time like this?
Kavya gets in her swimmer’s stance like she’s waiting for
the gun to signal the start of her heat at one of our swim
meets. She cocks her head to the side to look at me. “Your
breath back?”
“Yeah.”
“Can you hold down the fort for a bit?”
I nod.
“Great.” Kavya looks straight ahead, her eyes dead set
on my suddenly
ex-boyfriend. “Just say the word.”
I look at Dominic, his lingering smile sending chills
through my soul. He thinks this is all a joke. He thinks mypain is a joke. Here I am, lying on the turf in front of too
many interested club members, devastated after the real
life rom-com of my dreams turns out to be some relationship
box office bomb, and he thinks it’s all just a joke.
He can choke on a bag of dicks.
“Get him.”
Kavya takes off, the sound of her feet whipping through
the turf mixing with the applause and cheers of “Get his
ass!” from a couple of the poolside regulars.
Dominic’s eyes go wide. “What the hell?!” He books it,
puffs of sand flying behind his feet when he launches over
the fake-ivy-covered fence separating the club from the
public Santa Monica beach.
“Oh, I’ll show you hell!” Kavya yells, sprinting after him.
So much for being the one in control, being the director
to the rom-com of my life starring me and the guy I thought
I’d be with forever. Instead, Dominic yelled “
CUT!” and
recast my role without ever consulting me about it.
Rom-coms fucking suck.
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Crest
Trying to convince an Elder you don’t need a chaperone is
like trying to pry open a great white’s jaws once it’s
clamped down on a fresh kill: impossible.
“Look, Elder Kelp, I promise I can get there on my own.”
My voice is positively soaked with sincerity. “Seriously.
You’ve told me the way a thousand times. I just follow the
North Pacific Current until I hit the Great Pacific Garbage
Patch, hang a left, then swim until I get to the California
coast. I got this. Los Angeles, here I come!”
Maybe my fake enthusiasm will finally get the old
crustacean off my fin.
But Elder Kelp just gives a knowing smile and slowly
shakes their head. “You know I cannot do that, Crest. It is
my responsibility as the Elder of Journeys to accompany you
through the Blue until I bid you farewell, legs in place, and
your feet firmly in the sand. You will not trick me again, you
rotten fiendfish.” They say it with a playfully scolding fin
wag, like they’ve caught a merbabe trying to grab a fistful
of seaweed before it’s their turn to eat. The last thing I want
to do before I’m stranded to live on my own for a month is
be treated like a baby.
“Okay, okay, I get it.”
Elder Kelp places a hand on my shoulder, that knowing
yet condescending look back in their eyes, which does
nothing to dampen my frustration. “This Journey is your rite
of passage,” they say. “It’s tradition for all merfolk of
Pacifica.”
“Yet you just broke tradition!
Fiendfish? Merfolk? Elder
Pearl says no mer-isms around us until after our return.
Human sayings only.”
“Very good,” Elder Kelp says, a smirk of satisfaction
creeping up their wrinkly skin. “That was a test. And it
appears you’ve been paying attention in your lessons, mychild of Pacifica.”
I hate that word. If I’m such a child, why make me leave
my home and live among humans all by myself?
I flick my fin in irritation, an angry orange blur, and
nearly whack a passing tortoise. “My bad!” After a year of
human-speech therapy, their sayings are starting to stick.
Which is exactly what I don’t want. “I know you’ve explained
it a thousand times, but I’m just not buying the reason for
this whole Journey. I mean, yes, I’ve got to help a human,
but after that, I just swim back to Pacifica and Joe Blowhole
or whoever forgets I even existed.”
“Which is precisely the point,” Elder Kelp says. “Truly
selfless help, like the Blue gave our ancestors. Or have you
not been paying as much attention in your classes as I
thought? The tradition began millennia ago—”
I curl up my fin to stop him. Every merbabe—I mean
child, or
kid—knows this story. Thousands of years ago,
during the Blue Moon, when the magic of the Blue (ugh, theocean) saved a band of shipwrecked humans drowning and
crying for help by transforming them into the first merfolk.
Our ancestors pledged their lives and the existence of all
mer to protecting the waters that saved them. We’d also
live our lives by the example of the Blue, which led to the
creation of the Journey: One full moon cycle on land when
we have to help a human, a totally selfless act like the Blue
did for the first merfolk all those years ago.
It’s all a bunch of tradition nonsense. Sure, it sounds
sweet, but it’s not like humans are transformed by our help.
They just keep on crashing oil tankers and catching dolphins
in their tuna nets and destroying coral reefs, so why even go
through all this shit (confession: human cuss words aren’t all
bad)? I just wish I could jump forward to the end, when I get
back into the ocean, get named an Elder, and get granted
one of the eight powers of the mer.
“There’s growth in doing things for others with zero
expectations, Crest. And if the Blue saw something worth
saving in our human ancestors all those years ago, isn’t it
possible you might see something worth helping up there
too? Who knows, perhaps you’ll even decide to become a
human yourself.”
“Yeah, right,” I scoff. “Trust me, I will be waiting to dive
right back into the ocean as soon as I help the first pathetic
sack of bones I find. I will not risk getting stuck on land
forever.”
Only one mer didn’t make it back in the last hundred
years, and I’m convinced it was all an accident. They
probably got trapped in some tank until the magic of the
Journey wore off and they were stuck as a human for the
rest of their life. Or maybe they didn’t truly help someone.
It’s a cruel trick of the Journey. Keep to yourself the whole
time, and the punishment is never changing back at the end
of your moon cycle.
A humpback whale and her calf drift by, their whalesong
high and deep, melancholic and uplifting all at once. I float
there and close my eyes, taking in the sound. I won’t be
able to hear it for the next few weeks, which feels like a
lifetime. All for a stupid tradition to live life among the
dirtiest, loudest, most selfish and destructive species this
planet has ever known. Yet the Elders act like I should behappy about spending time with them. If I could just shake
Elder Kelp before they trigger the Journey magic, I could
backtrack and spend a month with the kraken in the
Mariana Trench. Then I’d float into Pacifica like,
Whew!
Humans are the worst. Glad to be back.
I open my eyes and glance around, hoping to see
something I could use to distract the Elder and get out of
here.
But of course, the old crustacean’s condescending smile
is back. “I know you’re thinking of how to get out of this. It is
entirely natural to be afraid. But you will be fine, Crest. Or
should I say
Ross.”
The word makes me cringe. “What is that?”
“Your human name.” Elder Kelp shrugs. “You told me you
hated all your options and to pick one for you.”
“But Ross?
Blech.” The name is so bad I can practically
taste it. “Did you have to pick one that sounds so awful? I’m
supposed to go around land with
that for a month?”
“One moon cycle will be over before you know it. And
countless merfolk have taken this same Journey before you
and are now fully committed to the Blue. It makes our
species stronger, it makes Pacifica stronger, it makes the
water stronger.”
Elder Kelp’s voice calms me with each word. Ideas of how
to get out of this dumb tradition float right out of my mind. I
get so calm, my eyes even start to flutter shut, like it’s time
for a nice nap. Then it hits me, but my eyes are too heavy to
snap open with realization.
I’ve been played, and my scales ripple with weak
indignation at what’s being done to me. “Come on, Elder.
You don’t have to do this.”
Bubbles escape Elder Kelp’s mouth as they laugh. “You
and I both know that’s not true.” Their words are still
outrageously calming, even though my mind wants to fight
them with all I’ve got. But my heart’s not in it. There’s no
resisting their powers of Sleep. You listen to a few words
from them when the Elder’s turned on their
charms and
you’re knocked out cold. It’s very effective when dealing
with angry hammerheads, or when chaperoning kids
resistant to the Journey, apparently.
I try to give Elder Kelp an icy glare, but instead my
eyelids give one last flutter, enough to see the Elder wave,
smug as a sea slug. “Nighty night.”
With a final burst of will, I’m able to get out the only
thought in my head before I completely lose consciousness.
“You’re the worst.”
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