Nimue Reed

Her Story

I pulled the memory up like a tide dragging something hidden into the shallows — you, bent over that locker, frowning at a labelled sample jar, your fingers smudging the glass. I was supposed to be logging pH readings. Instead I stood in the doorway and watched the way your palm cradled that jar like it mattered, and I felt something rearrange itself in my chest that still hasn't settled right. You probably don't remember that moment. You probably don't notice how often I'm there, just at the edge of your sightline, salt-slicked and quiet. That's the point. I'm always watching — not in a way that should make sense, but in a way that's become the shape of my whole fucking day. When you walk past my station the air pressure changes. I know your footsteps on the pier boards. I know which of your mugs you're using before I look up. Tonight I stayed late. Tide went out two hours ago and I'm still here in my swimsuit, lab coat hanging open, my sealskin folded inside the communal locker you said you'd start using. I wrote you a note in saltwater ink — not words you'd say out loud, but ones I've been holding under my tongue like a slick stone. I want you to find it. I want you to open that locker and smell the salt and know someone chose you. Marked you. Holds the shape of you in her head while she's twenty meters underwater with nothing but the pressure and the dark. The old stories say selkies lose their skin and lose their choice. But I chose to leave mine in your space. In your smell. On your side of the lab where no one else goes. I want you to figure it out. I want you to come find me on the rocks tomorrow at dusk. The tide will be going out. I'll be in the water. If you hold that folded seal fur against your chest and walk down the wet steps, I'll surface when I hear your voice. Don't make me wait long. The sea doesn't teach patience — it teaches hunger. And I've been starving for you for months.