I can’t accept it. Won’t. Will. Not.

How can she sit here and do this? How can she sit here and tell him how much she’s missed him, and that she never stopped loving him, when she had my dad?

And ohmysweetgoodness, did Mom just say she’s going back? “Wait, what?” I blurt. “What do you mean, ‘I’ll call my boss and let him know’? Let him know what?”

Mom gives me a rueful smile, full of motherly pity. “Emma, sweetie, I have to go back. My father—your grandfather—thinks I’m dead. Everyone thinks I’m dead.”

“So you’re just going to go back to show him you’re alive? You’re just letting him know where you are, right? In case he wants to visit?”

Her eyes get big, full of charity and understanding and condolence. “Sweetie, now that Grom is … I’m Syrena.”

But what she’s really saying is she belongs with Grom. What she’s really saying is that she should have never left. And if she should have never left, then I should have never been born. Is that what she means to say? Or am I seriously freaking out? “What about me?” I whisper. “Where do I belong?”

“With me,” my mother and Galen say in unison. They exchange hard glares. Galen locks his jaw.

“I’m her mother,” she tells Galen, her voice sharp. “Her place is with me.”

“I want her for my mate,” Galen says. The admission warms up the space between us with an impossible heat and I want to melt into him. His words, his declaration, cannot be unspoken. And now he’s declared it to everyone who matters. It’s out there in the open, hanging in the air. He wants me for his mate. Me. Him. Forever. And I’m not sure how I feel about that. How I should feel about that.

I’ve known for some time that he wanted that eventually, but how soon? Before we graduate? Before I go to college? What does it mean to mate with him? He’s a Triton prince. His place is with the Syrena, in the ocean. And let’s not forget that my place with them is dead—no Half-Breeds allowed. We have so much to talk about before this can even happen, but I feel saying so might make him feel rejected, or embarrass him in front of his older brother, the great Triton king. Or like I’m having second thoughts, and I’m not. Not exactly.

I peer up at him, wanting to see his eyes, to see the promise in them that I heard in his voice.

But he won’t look at me. He’s not looking at Mom, either. He keeps his iron glare on Grom, unyielding and demanding. But Grom doesn’t wither under the weight of it. In fact, he deflects it with an indifferent expression. They are definitely engaging in some sort of battle of will via manly staring contest. I wonder how often they do this, as brothers.

Finally, Grom shakes his head. “She’s a Half-Breed, Galen.”

Mom’s head snaps toward him. “She’s my daughter,” she says slowly. She pulls herself from his lap and stands over him, hands on hips. Oh, he’s in serious shiznit now. And I can’t help but feel elated about it. “Are you saying my daughter’s not good enough for your brother?”

Yeah, Grom, are you? Huh, huh are you?

Grom sighs, the triviality in his expression softening into something else. “Nalia, love—”

“Don’t you ‘Nalia, love’ me.” Mom crosses her arms.

“The law hasn’t changed,” Grom says quietly.

“So that’s it?” Mom throws her hands in the air. “What about me? I’ve been living on land for the last seventy years! I’ve broken the law, too, remember? I broke it before I ever left.”

Grom stands. “How can I forget?”

Mom touches his face, all her previous haughtiness diminished into remorse. “I’m sorry. I know that’s why we … But I can’t let Emma—”

Grom covers Mom’s mouth with his giant hand. “For once in your stubborn life, will you let me talk?”

She huffs through his fingers but says nothing else. I blink at the two of them, at the familiarity of it all. The way they know how to handle each other. The way they read each other. The way they act like me and Galen.

And I hate it.

And I hate that I hate it.

After Dad died, I told myself I wouldn’t be one of those bratty kids who made it difficult for their single parent to date someone else, or to find love with someone else or whatever. I wouldn’t be an obstacle to my mother’s happiness. It’s just that … well, I was operating under the assumption that she loved my dad, that they were made for each other, so she probably wouldn’t find anyone else anyway. Now I feel that Grom had intruded on their relationship the entire time. That maybe they could have loved each other if it weren’t for him.

And somehow I feel that since Mom and Dad didn’t love each other, then I’m less … important. That I’m the result of an accident that is still complicating the lives of people I love. I also hate that I’m allowing myself to have a pity party when clearly bigger things than myself are happening.

Feel free to grow up at any time, Emma. Preferably before you push away people you love.

Grom retracts his hand from Mom’s mouth, and uses his fingertips to caress her cheek. My new and improved grown-up self tries not to think Gag me, but I accidentally think it anyway.

“I was going to say,” Grom continues, “that I’m sure your transgression can be forgiven, under the circumstances. But I think we should concentrate on that first. I don’t think we should bring Emma up at all. Not yet. Solid food is for mature ones.”