Selkie AU: Beyond the Storm (Because Canon Sucks #10)

1. Rowan

Rowan

It wasn’t that I wanted to die. That wasn’t why I was going to do it.

The loud whirring of the longline hauler almost masked the thunder in the distance as my fishing line was pulled into the waiting bucket below it. So many empty hooks. I’d set up around too much ice and had a meager catch to show for it.

I wasn’t sure exactly when I would do it. The urge had existed quietly in the back of my mind for weeks, months, years. A hollow feeling gradually expanding. Swallowing me. Filling me with so much nothing. A void that took up more space than I thought I contained.

Every day was the same.

Nothing ever changed.

Waking up to a quiet home. Silence except for the ticking of the clock on my nightstand. I’d had a dog once. For a while, she made things better. She gave me someone else to feed. Someone else to care for. She was gone now.

Everyone was gone. Moved away to brighter cities full of potential. I stayed.

I cooked for only myself. Dressed in the same worn-out clothes I’d owned for years because I wasn’t bothered to replace them, then headed out onto frigid waters, under a night sky that wouldn’t see the sun again for weeks to come.

Just me and the boat. Silence, the sea, and the sky. The cold. Only fish for company.

Days passed without a word. The only interaction when I sold my fish to the processing plant.

Silence everywhere but in my mind.

I started the motor, turning my boat around to head back home. Away from the dark clouds and approaching sheet of rain. I’d normally stay out longer, but my little boat couldn’t handle a storm like that. Staying was stupid. Suicidal. Both.

I was living the same day over and over again. Waking up physically while my soul still slumbered. Out of reach. Buried in the graveyard of my body.

I’d long ago given up, yet I kept living. Physically, anyway. A shell of a man.

I couldn’t keep going like this. I didn’t have the energy to move on. Thirty-four wasn’t too old for a fresh start by any means, but this life was all I knew.

I wasn’t creative like my sister Raina, always looking for new projects to take on.

I wasn’t smart like my sister Riley, able to adapt to any environment and somehow good at everything she tried.

I wasn’t musically talented or social like my brother Ruben, able to charm the pants off just about anyone he ever met.

I wasn’t adventurous like my parents. They’d retired years ago and handed the business over to me.

They were somewhere in Europe now. I wasn’t like any of them.

I didn’t want to go anywhere else. I didn’t want to be here either.

No one had spoken to me in weeks, and honestly, it was a relief. I wasn’t worried about them. I loved them. Dearly. But we only really spoke these days when Raina forced us onto our monthly video calls.

I knew my family loved me, but they would be okay. Raina would take it the hardest, but she had her husband Troy, and the girls. She would be okay. Everyone would be okay without me.

I wouldn’t leave a note.

It would be better that way. They’d never know it was intentional. I could just disappear out to sea, maybe in a storm just like this one.

The town still looked so beautiful from here. Lights, usually reflected on a mirror of black water, now disturbed by the waves and incoming storm. I’d seen it many times under the rainbow night sky, now swallowed by darkness and the rage of the sky and sea. The rage I was ready to let take me.

My little yellow house was dark on the hill. Separated from the others. Silent. Empty. Pointless. Like me.

Suddenly I couldn’t stomach the thought of returning.

A particularly harsh wave knocked my boat to the side, and I stumbled before finding my balance again.

Just like the stronger wave that followed it, a realization struck my mind, as cold and foreboding as the ocean and storm I was leaving behind.

Maybe I didn’t have to. Maybe it wouldn’t be a storm like this one.

It could be this storm. It could be today.

The air was cold enough to burn my lungs as I inhaled a deep breath. There was nothing waiting for me there. No one expecting me home by any time. No loose ends to tie up. No mess to clean. No important words left unspoken. I could slip away tonight.

A weight, ever present, seemed to ease. I could breathe deeper than perhaps I had in a very long time.

Yes.

That’s what I would do. I slowed, letting the boat be carried by the wind and pushed by the sea for a moment before the motor roared again.

Turning me around, not toward the low-lit houses.

Not toward safety and warmth. I faced the open sea.

Dark. Hungry. A mirror of the ugliness that resided inside me.

It didn’t scare me. I realized it probably should have. But the decision felt easy. Peaceful. Right.

My eyes closed as the wind drove the first droplets of water against my skin.

So small, fast and cold, they felt like tiny shards and still they didn’t really hurt me.

I’d been numb for so long that the sensation and knowledge of what else would come almost felt exhilarating.

My heart thrummed to life in my chest for the first time in years.

If I had any regrets, it was only for the fish I’d caught today in my buckets. Even so, they probably wouldn’t be wasted, likely to become food for something bigger when their bodies returned to the sea. So would I. At least then I’d serve a purpose.

Darker. Colder. Water filled my boat from the sky and sea, ready to swallow me whole.

I was ready.