Selkie Boyfriend: Jude 2 (special preview)

He met her on the docks when she was young. She was spending time on her father’s fishing ship so she didn’t have to be around her mother while she was drunk. Jude said that she looked sad most days on the boat, bored and out of place amongst the wind-burnt faces of the fishermen. There were days she remained on the boardwalk, wandering around and looking into shop windows. She eventually got a job working in one of the restaurants, and the first purchase she made was a book about mermaids.

As a teenager, she rarely went home. She stayed working, roamed the beach, or stayed over with her friends. It was during those long stays on the beach where she and Jude first met. The Selkies often went to pester and bother the fishermen at the docks, which had become a fun pastime to them. Other days, they went onto the beach at night to join in the parties and drinking that took place there. Jude met his wife as she sat alone, staring out into the ocean. She looked tired and restless, so Jude stepped away from the group to meet her.

She was quiet at first, shy and apprehensive about meeting someone new. But as the night wore on, she opened up more to Jude, told him about her uneasy home life. How her mother was a drunk, her father was present but absent at the same time. She talked about her love for the ocean, especially the mythology that surrounded it. She had high hopes of becoming a marine biologist, and she was saving up every penny she could to be able to go to college.

The next time Jude saw her was on the same beach, although it was a long time between. She was sitting there in the sand, watching the sea, but there was something changed about her. She still seemed sad, but it looked like the hope had been wrung from her. Defeated, she was utterly defeated. After working and saving for so long to go to school, her mother got extremely ill and all that money she saved to escape went to saving her mother. She was still working, but she had quit saving. She talked about her books again, her wish to be like the mermaids and sirens she read about. She talked about wanting to be vengeful and lure boats to their deaths in the jagged rocks. Jude felt sorry for her and offered her his coat. He stayed with her after that, rather than going back with the other Selkies. He helped build her up again, get her on her feet. They bought a home together, and he worked so she could go to school. He loved her very much and wanted to see her succeed and be happy. For a while, they were.

Then came the day where her mother passed away. Grief is a strange and powerful force, but Jude didn’t expect how his wife would react to this. For years, she had resented her mother for her alcoholism, her illness taking her money, she barely spoke to her. But when her mother died, it seemed like the fractures that had started in childhood grew all at once, splintering her into several parts. She quit school, returned to the beach, and became withdrawn from Jude. It wasn’t long before that fateful morning occurred and Jude found both his wife and his Selkie coat missing.

Twenty years, and still he waited for her, hoping she would come home, return his coat, and start anew.

“Your book was the last thing she read before she left. For a long time, I blamed it as the nail in the coffin. But I had to accept she was looking for excuses, your book simply existed.” Jude sighs.

I’m looking at the fire consuming what used to be the front porch. Jude helped in pulling it further from the house and setting a controlled burn for it. After that night we spent together, we had talked more and began a friendship of sorts. Two broken hearts finding solace in one another, I suppose. He had trimmed up his beard since then, he looked less wild fisherman, less crazy, more rugged. He was handsome, I’ll give him that.

“You’re free to come and stay with me whenever you want. I know it’s cold in there,” Jude motions to my house.

I shrug. “I don’t know. I feel like that would be a signal of my defeat.”

Jude chuckles. “Why did you come here, anyways? Why keep this place?”

“I got it in the divorce. I thought he was insane handing this over to me, but once I got here, I knew why.” I crouch down before the fire, hugging my knees. “I think it was his way of telling me, ‘fuck you’ for trying to fight for him.”

“Did you have kids?” Jude asks.

“I can’t,” I grumble bitterly. “He used that as part of his reasoning for the divorce.”

Jude sits down beside me. “Sorry to hear that.”

I want this off me, off of my ex. I turn to Jude, admiring the way the fire enhances his olive skin. “Did you?”

He shakes his head. “I think she was afraid of it, of being a parent. I guess it was for the best.”

“If she comes back, what will you do?”

Jude takes in a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “You’d think after all this time I would have an answer, or at least some idea of what I’d do. But I don’t. It changes daily.” He looks me in the eye. “What would you do if he came back?”

I scoff, rolling my eyes. “Kill him. Thank him. Cry.” I look back at the fire. “I really can’t say.”

“Once this fire dies out, come home with me.”

I look over at Jude. “What for?”

He tilts his chin up as his eyes focus on the flames. “Whatever you want.”

I move close to him, kissing him as his hands moved to touch me. I had told myself I would hold back from this, that I would let Jude be my friend. But all this talk just made me lonely, made me want him. I want to feel his weight on top of me again and remind me I’m not alone or unworthy. I sit in his lap, kissing him like a desperate teenager. Now that he has less beard, kissing him is much more enjoyable.

“Stop!” The scream roars out from the beach, making us both jump out of our skin. I stand up, looking out towards the water, expecting to see someone struggling against the current. Jude follows suit, watching the shore then looking all around.