When the Sea Splits Open by Claire Westbrook
Photo by Anna Savelieva for Pexels
Sofia Sheppard has been in a perpetual state of drowning her entire life.
Her ears are constantly clogged and her nose is always stinging. Sometimes sun dapples stain her skin and she swims up and up, closer to the air, closer to life. And just when her fingers are about to break the surface, something wraps a bony hand around her ankle and drags her back under.
People watch from the shore, waving and laughing like nothing is wrong. Like she belongs in the sea.
When she tries to scream for help, nothing comes out but water.
—————
“It’ll just be for a few months,” her mother tells her one night before bed. An empty mug with an old tea bag sits on her nightstand and for a split second Sofia wonders how her mother would react if she threw it across the room.
“But what about school?”
“Your father and I found a wonderful school for you. Co-ed. Right near the coast.” Sofia knows her father had nothing to do with this.
“In the middle of the term?”
“The administration doesn't have a problem with it.”
“What about my friends?”
Her mother sighs, brushing her fingers through Sofia’s hair like she used to do when she was younger and didn’t have water in her lungs.
“Please, Sofia? It’ll be good for your father. It’ll be good for all of us.”
She doesn’t ask how her leaving would make things better for her father and instead sinks deeper. The hand wraps around her ankle. She doesn’t fight it.
“I’ll think about it,” she eventually replies, piling bricks on top of one another. Shutting her mother out.
—————
The door to her room is open and passing students in the hall graciously look away as she hugs her parents goodbye. Despite herself her eyes sting as her mother gives her a comforting squeeze.
“We’ll see you soon, okay?”
And then she’s alone, in a room that looks a bit like a jail cell. In a school that’s too strange. In skin that doesn’t quite fit.
A few hours later her phone is clutched in her dry fist and she gnaws on her lip as her friends back home discuss her new living situation.
“I can’t believe Sofia’s actually registered at a finishing school,” laughs the pixelated face of Emmeline back in the city.
Anna cackles in agreement. “Do they hit you if you slouch?”
“Do you have proper etiquette classes?”
Sofia forces a laugh, not bothering to inform them that finishing school and regular boarding school are not at all the same thing. Her friends don’t pick up on her sour mood and joke and laugh about how pathetic she is and Sofia feels like a fly on the wall.
“I’m so sorry, Sof,” Emmeline whines. She looks like plastic. “It’s so out of your element, I can’t imagine how you feel.”
What is that supposed to mean? she wants to ask, but instead she coughs up sea water.
They don’t notice. They never do.
—————
It’s her first day of English class when she talks to another student for the first time since arriving.
There are long tables instead of desks, and wooden benches instead of chairs, and Sofia thinks that it’s all a bit ridiculous. She sits next to a guy with a mop of curly hair on his head and round wire-frames glasses. He’s got a paperback in his hands and her heart lurches a bit when she sees that it’s Crush.
“I love that collection,” she croaks before she can stop herself. Her throat is water-logged, raw, and unused.
The boy glances at her and raises an eyebrow. “You’ve read Siken?”
She shrugs, suddenly feeling embarrassed for trying something new. But the boy doesn’t seem to care.
“Which is your favourite?”
“Favourite?”
“Poem.”
She knows the answer. She doesn’t even need to think. “Litany in Which Certain Things are Crossed Out.”
He nods solemnly as though her choice revealed some unspoken truth about her soul. “Are you the dragon or the princess, then?”
“I’m just Sofia,” she says dumbly.
There’s a beat where she thinks she’s colossally fucked up, but then the boy laughs and says: “Wyatt.” He holds out a hand. She shakes it. Cracked skin against cracked skin.
Later in the lesson, after he accidentally knocks her notebook off the table in his search for a spare pencil at the bottom of his bag, a ripped slip of paper lands between her hands. With one eye on the teacher she opens it carefully, a pleasant warmth resting on her shoulders as she reads the messy scrawl.
Sorry about the bony elbows.
She smiles at him and he winks back, and she thinks that maybe this won’t be so bad after all.
—————
The cafeteria is full of predators so she eats in her room. It’s dingy and pretty gross but at least she doesn’t need to watch her back. The door is open a crack and the overlapping chatter of her peers downstairs wash over her. On her phone screen Emmeline and Anna are at the movies, at the beach, at the salon. Her chest is heavy as she notices that they look like they’re having a much better time without her. The vegetables on her plate are cold and hard and sit like rocks in her stomach. When she can’t bear it any longer she curls up in bed and counts the cracks in the ceiling, wishing she was somewhere else.
Three weeks after she’s moved in, there’s a gentle knock at her door. Wyatt stands on the other side, a bag of popcorn in one hand and a laptop in the other.
“Wanna watch a movie?” he asks in greeting. She doesn’t bother to ask him how he found her room (he later tells her that he confronted all the floor reps until he got an answer) and just steps aside in response. The movie in question is Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again and the two of them sing along to the songs and dance around the space, careful not to bump into her bed or desk. She’s the lightest she’s ever felt.
“I can’t believe she picks Sam,” says Wyatt through a mouthful of popcorn.
“Bill was clearly the best choice,” she agrees.
“Right?!”
After the movie ends they immediately put on the first one and Sofia marvels at how easy this feels. Like breathing. She doesn’t think of Anna or Emmeline at all. Not once.
Movie nights become a weekly thing.
—————
She meets Riley a month after she moves in. Her and Wyatt have taken up evening walks to the sea (“It’s good for you!” he defended after he suggested it. “Why else would doctors believe it cured female hysteria?”). The coastal air is cold and the wind carries sea spray all the way to the school, wetting their faces. Their hair. Blending in.
“Excuse me?” There’s a girl jogging toward them, dark hair plastered to her forehead. “I think you dropped this.” In her hand is Sofia’s student card and the key to her room.
“Oh,” she says. Their fingers brush as she takes it and when she looks up she momentarily forgets how to speak English. The girl’s eyes are blue. Oh so blue. Like the ocean just on the other side of the cliffs. She tries to say something clever but all that comes out is a faint squeak.
Wyatt’s eyes slide back and forth between the two of them before he takes pity on her and jumps in. “That’s Sofia’s way of saying ‘thank you’. She was not looking forward to sleeping outside tonight.” He grins. “I’m Wyatt.”
“Riley,” the girl replies, an amused glint in her eye.
Sofia just stares.
“Right,” says Wyatt with a cough. He slings an arm over Sofia’s shoulders and she fights the urge to smack him. “Thanks for this, Riley, but we best be on our way. Mermaid watching duty,” he adds and Sofia internally winces.
“Ah,” nods Riley, “wouldn’t want to take you away from that.”
“You really wouldn’t,” he agrees. Sofia’s face is bright red.
“Well…see you around, maybe.” She smiles at them as she turns to leave.
“See you!”
The best Sofia can do is an awkward wave.
The two of them stand there until Riley disappears around the library.
“Weren’t you eloquent,” Wyatt says after a beat.
“Don’t.”
“You should be a poet.”
“Wyatt—”
“She was awfully pretty, wasn’t she?”
And Sofia just stares at him because he knows. Of course he does. They hadn’t talked about it but she didn’t miss the way his eyes lit up when he spotted her queer literature collection the first time he’d been in her room. He smiles softly at her now and gives her shoulders a squeeze. And as they continue their walk to the sea, Sofia pretends to despise his teasing but really she doesn’t mind at all.
She would never admit it, but the sea did make her feel better.
(They don’t see any mermaids).
—————
She can’t seem to avoid Riley after that. In the cafeteria line she’s two people ahead of Sofia. In the library, she’s on the other side of the bookshelf. Outside, she’s sitting on a bench as Sofia walks to her next class. And each time they see each other she always smiles and waves, and Sofia’s stomach always flops.
“You know, you could just talk to her,” suggests Wyatt after Sofia describes her latest encounter with Riley (they ran into each other in the stairwell and Sofia just gaped at her like an idiot until she left).
“Why on earth would I do that?”
He stares at her like she’s hopeless (she is). She puts her face in her hands and just groans in response.
—————
It’s another Friday night when things start to change. The cafeteria is near empty save for late-night studiers and after-dinner lingerers. Sofia stands at the vending machine, a paperback of Rubyfruit Jungle tucked under her arm and a handful of coins in her palm. The chocolate bar she ordered is stuck on the rack and she just stares at it helplessly.
“Whoever invented these machines did a shitty job with the design, huh?” says a voice from behind. Sofia turns to ice as Riley stops beside her and she both curses and thanks the universe that Wyatt isn’t with her right now. She should’ve worn a cooler outfit.
“Yeah,” she says, mentally punching herself in the face. ‘Yeah’? Really?
Riley doesn’t seem to mind her inability to articulate sentences and smiles at her. “Lucky for you, I have loads of experience dealing with stubborn vending machines,” she then smacks the side of it and Sofia’s brain short-circuits.
The chocolate bar hits the floor of the machine with a tinny thud. Riley picks it up and hands it to Sofia. Her fingers are covered in gold bands.
“Thanks,” she mutters, not quite sure where to look so she picks a spot right next to Riley’s ear and hopes that the colour of her face isn’t betraying her too badly.
“So,” says Riley after a beat. “Whatcha reading?”
Her heart is a drum as she wordlessly holds the book out. She watches closely, searches for some sign of recognition in Riley’s eyes as she reads the title. Some indication that Riley likes girls too. But when her eyes remain the same, Sofia pretends not to notice the water rising. It’s fine. (It’s not fine). It’s fine.
“Cool,” says Riley, “is it good?”
And Sofia nods and nods until she’s sure she must look like a bobblehead in a souvenir shop. “Yeah.” And then: “I can lend it to you when I’m done with it. If you want.”
Her heart is heavy and her mouth tastes like salt, but then Riley smiles and nods. “Sure. That’d be awesome, thanks.”
“Awesome.”
They stare at each other for a moment and Sofia wonders, What now?, but her brain turns into a pile of mush before she can come up with an answer.
“Well,” says Riley. “I better go. See you around, Sofia.”
“Yeah.” She knows my name. “See you.” Of course she knows your name.
Riley gives her a wave and Sofia is alone at the vending machine. She can feel her phone vibrating in her sweater pocket and she doesn’t need to check to know that it’s Wyatt wondering why she’s taking so long. She takes a step toward the stairwell then stops. Wondering if this is a sign. She turns back around.
“Wait!” she calls to Riley’s retreating figure. The girl turns and cocks her head to the side curiously. She’s patient. She always is. Water thunders in Sofia’s ears but before she can stop herself she blurts out, “Do you want to watch a movie tonight?”
Riley just grins at her and Sofia is reminded that she’s drowning. She’s been drowning, but this time in blue, blue, blue.
When Sofia knocks on Wyatt’s door with Riley in tow, the look he gives her lights her face on fire, but then he’s ushering them in and dimming the lights. They argue for ten minutes about which movie to watch before eventually settling on a classic.
They pick Mamma Mia!.
Again.
—————
After that it’s evening bike rides to the sea where the setting sun paints them pink, orange, yellow, red. Someone suggests they race and before they know it they’re peddling madly in a chorus of shouts and laughter and Sofia mistakes joy for flying.
On weekends they go to the nearest beach and build sandcastles on the shore. They’re hunched in the sand for hours because everything is a competition for the three of them. At the end of the day when they’re ready to go home, their stained knees pop and crack when they stand and they complain the entire walk back to the dorms. They don’t actually mind. Sofia collects seashells and lines them on her windowsill.
They have picnics on the green, each of them packing cafeteria food and pretending it’s from a five star buffet. One day Riley’s nose starts to bleed and they all curse themselves for not thinking of packing napkins of all things, so Wyatt and Sofia frantically pluck leaves from trees and shove them in Riley’s face.
“It just happens sometimes,” she says when Wyatt dramatically asks if she needs to go to the hospital. “Used to be a lot worse when I was a kid.”
“You could lie and say you got in a fight,” Sofia suggests, holding out another leaf. She smiles something sunny and Sofia’s heart is a wild thing. “With who? You?”
“Or Wyatt.”
He frowns, “I’m not letting you punch me just for story credibility.”
“Who says that’s why I’m punching you?”
They devise different tales for hours, each story growing more and more ridiculous until their stomachs are sore from laughing too hard. This is what friendship is supposed to feel like. Sofia’s chest cracks wide open and the light pours in.
She starts to spend a lot more time alone with Riley. When she questions Wyatt about why he’s so busy all of a sudden he makes some silly excuse before he can come up with a proper answer.
The two of them walk around the nearest village, window shopping and sometimes real shopping. They make a point to discover the best coffee in town and grab a cup at nearly every café they see.
They spend a lot of time in the library too, passing their favourite books to one another and speculating about not-yet-written sequels.
Sometimes Sofia thinks she catches Riley looking at her and her heart does something funny. One night they’re watching a movie in Sofia’s room (Wyatt has gardening club. The school doesn’t have a gardening club.), and Riley falls asleep in her bed. Sofia’s whole body is buzzing because she doesn’t want to wake her so she falls asleep at her desk and blearily dismisses Riley’s profuse apologies the next morning.
Then she lends her Rubyfruit Jungle because she just needs to know.
A week later, Sofia is tidying her desk when Riley shows up at her room with the book and an invitation.
“Do you want to come to the sea with me?”
Her eyes are open and kind and something else that Sofia can’t quite put her finger on.
It’s not even a question.
The air is sharp and fresh and the water roars at the bottom of the cliffs. Sofia briefly wonders how it would feel to fall.
Riley’s voice breaks through the waves. “So I read the book.”
Sofia’s heart is in her throat. “Oh.”
There’s a beat. The wind is loud and heavy.
“I liked it.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Riley takes a deep breath and Sofia can feel it coming.
“I didn’t know you were…”
“A lesbian?” Sofia may be unsure of most things, but she’s damn sure about that.
“Yeah.” Riley’s cheeks are bubblegum pink and she’s beautiful. Sofia’s damn sure about that as well.
“Is that a problem?” She knows it isn’t.
Riley’s head whips to her and her eyes are wide and a little wild. “No! Oh my god, no. Not a problem. Like, at all.”
Sofia nods slowly.
“I’m— I’m not…”
“Homophobic?”
“Yeah. I’m definitely not.”
“Good.”
Sofia thinks she may be hallucinating because why is Riley the one who looks like she wants to throw up? Perhaps the sea air is bad for you after all.
“Sofia.”
Riley is closing in on herself before her very eyes and Sofia has never been more confused.
“I’m not homophobic.”
And Sofia just laughs because what the hell? “I believe you!”
But then Riley’s ocean eyes are sharper than usual and her mouth is a tight line, and it all suddenly clicks into place.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re—?”
“Crazy about you.”
That pulls Sofia up short.
“What?!”
“I thought I was being obvious.”
“Are you being serious?” She can’t be serious.
Riley laughs. “I’m being so serious.”
Sofia isn’t sure if she wants to laugh or cry but she doesn’t get the chance to do either because Riley isn’t done talking.
“It’s fine if you don’t feel… that way. I promise. We can just pretend like this didn’t happen and go on like we always—”
Sofia’s a little delirious and extremely stupid in love so she doesn’t even think twice before kissing Riley. When she kisses back Sofia wonders if she can taste the salt on her tongue.
The water roars again and Sofia thinks that maybe she’s finally made it to the shore. Later they walk hand in hand to Wyatt’s room for a movie. He opens the door and momentarily freezes when his eyes lock on their linked fingers and when Riley isn’t watching he looks at Sofia, eyes shining, and mouths: Finally.
The smile she gives in return is littered with sunset-painted bike rides and Friday movie nights. With dirt-stained knees and bloody noses. With scribbled poetry on lined paper and ocean eyes. And for the first time in a long time, trapped in the confines of her water-stained rib cage, something beautiful keeps breathing.
