Pretty in Pearls: A Forgive My Fins Novella (HarperTeen Impulse) Read Online Free PDF

emissary to the princess, I can’t condone illegal activities. How hypocritical would that be?
    The muscles in his jaw tighten and his nostrils flare. “Of course not.”
    “Of course not?” I spit back before I can think. “There’s no ‘of course not’ about it. You just raced out of town to the edge of the Black Kelpforest—aka the epicenter of all criminal activity in Thalassinia—under cover of darkness. I think illegal activity is a totally legitimate guess on my part.”
    He watches me finish my rant. I can’t tell if he thinks I’m gutsy or stupid—or both. Then, after an increasingly uncomfortable silence, he barks out a deep laugh.
    “Poseidon help me, Peri, but you are a fearless one.”
    I cross my arms over my chest, not sure if that’s supposed to be a compliment or just an observation. It doesn’t seem like a condemnation, so I choose to take it as a compliment. “Thank you.”
    He shakes his head, his smile fading. “There is nothing illegal about my activities tonight,” he says. “I promise you.”
    His promise shouldn’t mean anything to me. I barely know him. He’s just a cute boy who works in his mother’s market stall. But for some reason, the words reassure me. There’s a heaviness to them. A gravity.
    I believe him, and I believe he takes his promises seriously.
    That faith gives me the courage to ask the question that started this whole adventure. “Did I do something wrong after that first day in the market?”
    He scowls, probably confused by my apparent change of subject. “I’m sorry?”
    “I thought . . . I mean you seemed . . . ” I sound like an idiot. “You said you would message me.”
    His pale eyes study me. “I did.”
    “But you haven’t,” I say. “So I must have done something to make you not want to.”
    “Peri—”
    “It’s okay,” I interrupt. “I don’t blame you. I mean, it’s your prerogative, right? But I’d just like to know. For next time.”
    His eyes darken and his whole demeanor changes. His muscles tighten; his mouth lifts up just a tiny bit at the corners. He swims back closer to me and when he speaks his voice is both gentle and rough.
    “You did nothing wrong.”
    He reaches up and brushes a lock of hair off my forehead. Sparks tingle across my whole body.
    “It’s the oldest excuse in the ocean,” he continues. “But this time it’s true. It’s not you, it’s me.”
    I want to roll my eyes—it is the oldest excuse in the whole world—but he didn’t say it casually. He said it like it hurt.
    “No matter how much I might want to go out with you,” he says, “right now I just can’t.”
    That should make me feel better. At least it’s not something I did or didn’t do. If anything was going to send him swimming for the hills, it would probably be my lovely display of stalkerish behavior tonight, and that’s only a recent development in our nonrelationship.
    But it wasn’t me, and somehow that makes me feel worse. Because no matter how much I wanted it, no matter how much I worried about whether he liked me or even how much he actually did, it made no difference. He just . . . can’t .
    I feel the first tickle of tears and I know I need to get out of there before my brown eyes start sparkling like shiny copper and he sees exactly how much that confession hurt. So I lower my gaze, nod a couple times—either in understanding or saying good-bye—and I swim away.
    The tears start for real when I realize he’s going to let me go.
    I dash out of there—eager to start the long swim home before Riatus follows me out—and am just clearing the edge of the grove when something iridescent drifts into my peripheral vision. No, no, no. My heart starts racing again—this time I’m sure it is a panic attack—as I slowly turn to confirm my fears.
    Floating a few feet away to my right is a jellyfish the size of great white shark.
    Stay calm.
    I turn back the other way, only to find another jellyfish floating even