Chapter 32
Thirty-Two
Angie
A text came in from Leo the next morning, and Angie pulled herself away from midterm studying to check. Now that the creation of their petition and social media posts were in motion, her mind was at ease and she could focus.
They agreed to meet at a boba tea café on Mercer Street, where they occasionally stopped by with Reesa for a snack or to study.
It had been months since she had bubble tea, and she racked her mind for what she’d order.
Angie gently ushered Lulu off her lap, and the cat tried, and failed, to protract her claws and cling onto Angie’s jeans.
She yowled as Angie set her on her four feet.
“Be back in a bit.” Angie patted her cat’s head and made her way to the shop.
Leo was already inside the Asian-owned café when she arrived, and he waved at her, a sheepish smile on his face that didn’t reach either cheek.
Angie sat across from him. “Um, hey. Thanks for meeting me here. Thought it would be better if we chatted outside of school.” He jumped to his feet, appearing jittery, once she sat. “What do you want? Any snacks?”
“I’ll go with you.” Angie rose to a stand, but he shook his head.
“I got it. Let me, okay? It’s the least I can do for you to come all the way here to hear me out.” He took a deep breath, incessantly spinning his wedding band around his finger.
“Sure, if you insist. I’ll take a strawberry milk tea with bubbles and soy milk, and an egg tart.” Her stomach made a happy dance at the thought of the treats.
They would help her get through whatever Leo wanted to say. She had a feeling that, if he asked her to meet him here and talk in-person, it would be something serious.
“Soy milk?” Leo cocked an eyebrow at her.
“I’m lactose intolerant.”
He gave her a thumbs up and returned minutes later with her bubble tea and egg tart, and a prosciutto, arugula, and cheese sandwich and café mocha for himself.
“Alright, I know I owe you an explanation about my behavior with our project.” A tendril of sweat crawled down his forehead and cheek, and he took a bite of his sandwich.
Angie brought milk tea to her lips. “If it isn’t your thing, it’s no problem. I get it.”
“I-It’s not only that. Ugh, how do I say this?” Leo leaned back against his seat and put his hands on his forehead.
Angie chewed on a tapioca pearl and waited for him to continue.
“It’s my brother. He was in Alaska two years ago with the war and the mer killed him. So, I have some issues with advocating for them. I tried. I thought I could move past it, but it’s too hard.”
Angie stopped chewing. “Y-your brother? Who’s your brother?”
It can’t be.
“His name was Luke. He would be nineteen now.” Leo swallowed his sandwich bite and placed it back down on the plate, staring at the rest of the sandwich like it held the answers to next week’s midterms. “I told him to come home when his docks in Unalaska shut down. But no, he wanted to keep working and went to Creston. Then he fucking died.”
Oh, tiān.
Speechless, Angie focused on Leo’s features. He didn’t look like the boy, with Leo’s sienna-shaded skin, hazel eyes and thick, wavy hair, in contrast to Luke’s pale skin, sharp blue eyes and light hair. “L-Luke McMahon? He’s your brother? But you–”
“Look nothing like him? I know. We got that a lot when we were younger, at least, before I left for college. I’m eight years older than him.
” He gave a sad smile. “He’s technically my half-brother.
My parents divorced when I was five. Then Mom met and married Beau, and they had Luke a few years after that.
I went to live with my dad, but Luke and I would still hang out. ”
That explained the different last names. “I’m so sorry.” Her voice pitch lowered, a notch above a whisper. “I vaguely remember him saying he had a brother from Tacoma, but he never said your name.” She cleared her throat. “You and I were friends the whole last two years and I had no idea?”
Leo chuckled and wiped a stray tear away from his eye.
“I mean, you couldn’t have. I’m not super close to my mom.
He mentioned you and your dad–he called him ‘the boss’–a couple times.
I’m sorry, I—I didn’t know what you looked like, or what I expected.
” Angie arched an eyebrow at him and he kept going.
“He said you were the one who inspired him. And in a way, he inspired me too. When he left us, I wanted to honor him by becoming a marine biologist.”
Her mind drifted to Luke. Talking to him about his hopes and dreams. Seeing him at the shooting range. The horror at finding the boy dead.
“Wait, I don’t remember seeing you at the funeral. I would have recognized you,” Angie replied.
“I wanted to go.” Leo moved his napkin around on the wooden tabletop.
“But I couldn’t do it. It fucking broke my heart when Mom called me.
” His words trembled and he twisted his napkin so forcefully that Angie thought he might break it in half.
“I tried to book a flight home three times. Couldn’t do it without crying and it overwhelmed me.
My wife convinced me to stay home. I couldn’t even go see him until last year to pay my respects, a whole year after he died.
” He took in a shaky breath. “He was supposed to come to mine and Sandra’s wedding last winter.
So, you’ll forgive me if I want no part of being an advocate for the mer. It hurts too much.”
She picked up her egg tart, turning it back and forth so the sugar glaze shone under the light. “I completely understand. I wish I knew; I would never have asked you to join this project in the first place.”
“I offered. It’s not your fault.” He nibbled on his sandwich, putting it down after one bite and rubbing his face.
“But that–that’s not the only reason I asked you to come out.
” His expression was somber, despondent.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can stay close to you while you’re doing all this for a group that caused so much destruction and murdered my brother. ”
That was a punch to the throat, and Angie’s hands flew there as if he had physically struck her. “What?”
“I think you’re one of the smartest and bravest women I know.
But ever since this thing with Williams researching mer, seeing you stand up for them, try to turn the public to their side?
” Leo licked his lips. “It’s been hard for me.
I considered dropping the class a few times, tried to pretend everything was normal.
” He squeezed his napkin and twirled it around in his hand.
Angie was shell-shocked. Speechless. She wasn’t sure how she thought this was going to go today, but she sure as hell didn’t expect a friendship breakup.
Leo stood. “Actually, I probably am going to drop Williams’ class. I’ll talk to him, and Reesa. I’m sorry, Angie.”
With that, he hung his head and strode out of the cafe, leaving Angie sitting alone with a half-drunken boba and partially eaten egg tart she no longer felt like finishing.
Angie was still reeling from her meeting with Leo. They had been friends for two years and making it through the rigors of graduate school made her, Leo, and Reesa feel like they had known each other for much longer.
True to his words, Leo had dropped Dr. Williams’ class, and a memory of their last, happy hangout with Reesa struck Angie.
A ding came through on her phone while she sat on her couch, a show playing on her television she wasn’t paying attention to.
A new email had come in, followed by another news notification that the Washington governor had closed shorelines and beaches, and nobody except authorized divers, boaters, and military were allowed out to sea.
This email caught her attention and she sat up.
Dear Angie,
I hope this email finds you well. It is with great interest that I am reaching out to you regarding your advocacy for merfolk. I am always eager to hear from Washingtonians about their perspectives, concerns, and ideas that could benefit our beautiful state.
I would like to personally invite you to meet me at your earliest convenience to discuss how we can work together to make our local seas a safer place for all.
Please contact my office or reply to this email to arrange a suitable time for our meeting.
Thank you for your dedicated work with merfolk and I look forward to meeting with you soon.
Sincerely,
Kevin K. Wester
Governor of Washington State
Angie jumped from her seat, covering her mouth as she read the email again. She replied with her schedule for the week, and twenty minutes later, a reply came in to meet in three days after she was done with classes.
She was scheduled to work at the aquarium that evening, so she texted Grayson asking to switch her shift.
Next, she had to talk to Cassia and let her know. With a spring in her step, Angie threw open her nightstand cabinet, her seaflute, and her notepad with her mer contacts.
Despite imploring them to answer, scribbling Cassia and Varin’s Renyuhua names into the seaflute yielded no response from either of them.
She could try Calora, if only she knew the mermaid’s name in Renyuhua. Angie’s heartbeat raced. She needed another plan, needed to get to them.
Her diving outfit peeked out from her closet and she chewed her bottom lip. The palace was too far from the shore, and she would never make it there before she ran out of air.
“Damn it,” she muttered, gripping her scalp, pacing back and forth across her living room and drawing Lulu’s attention.
She had nothing.
Lulu jumped onto one of her heavy-duty wall shelves, knocking over a seaglass sculpture Kaden had made for her. “No, no, no!” She lunged and cupped it in her palms before it crashed to the floor, and she let out a moan of relief.
It was a tiny fishing ship sculpture; from the days they spent watching ships sail by. She ran her fingers over the ridged top, emotions welling in her heart.