Skylar Dorset - The Girl Who Never Was

'Ben, listen to me. You can trust me. I would never hurt you. I was trying not to hurt you. I''The words I love you

get stuck in my throat. Can I say them now, like this, when he is angry and hurting and probably won't say them back? Can I bear that? I'm not sure I can.

He is not slowing down and he is still fighting me, and now I am no longer apologetic and desperate. I am furious that he's not listening and that he's doing this in the first place. So I gather myself and shout at him, with intent, 'Benedict Le Fay.'

He stumbles, reaching out a hand to a tree to catch himself from falling completely to the ground.

He looks at me and narrows his eyes. 'Not fair,'he says.

'Shut up,'I snap back. I am so angry with him I could shake him. 'You're lucky I didn't use all four of them. What is wrong with you?'

'Wrong with me?'he repeats. 'Wrong with me?'He sounds offended at the very idea.

'Yes! You're going to leave me, in the middle of all this, to go after your mother?'

'And now I know why you didn't tell me about her either!'he accuses.

'I didn't tell you about her because I was trying to keep you from getting hurt. Which is exactly why you lied to me about who I am for my entire life.'

He seems to acknowledge that point. 'If I don't go after her now''

'You're not the only one who never knew their mother, Ben,'I remind him scathingly. 'You're not the only one who was manipulated into staying away from her.'

'That's different''he begins.

'And when you asked me not to go to her, when you asked me to trust you and not her, I did.'

'That was different,'he insists.

'Excuse me,'says someone to my right, and we both turn our heads. A smiling couple is standing there, looking cheerful and bundled up against the bright Boston cold. The male half is holding up a camera. 'Would you take our picture?'

Ben and I both stare at them for a second.

Then Ben reaches out, snatches the camera, and flings it up over our heads, where it explodes into a million fluttering pieces of tinsel.

'Oooh!'exclaims the woman. 'Was that a trick?'

'I will do that to you,'says Ben, 'if you don't walk away from us right now.'

The couple's eyes widen, and they bustle away, and I would think it almost funny, except for the fact that I feel on the verge of tears, like their interruption has made all of my fury recede away from me, leaving nothing but a swamping sorrow.

'I knew what I was talking about with your mother,'Ben tells me. 'You've never met my mother. You want me to give up on finding her on the basis of some self-serving suspicion Will has that''

'I want you to give up on finding her because of me, Ben,'I interrupt him, and now I am worried that I sound like I am about to cry, and I don't want to sound that way, even if it is

true, even if it is possible that I am crying already. 'You're not supposed to leave me. You promised me that you wouldn't leave me. I know that you're upset, but I'but I''All of the words refuse to come out. I gulp at them.

He is silent long enough for me to collect myself, for me to pull the tears back inside and grow furious at him again.

'I have to do this,'he says. 'The same way you had to find your mother. When everyone told you to stop asking questions, did you stop?'

'I should have,'I say helplessly.

'And then you would never have known who you were,'he points out. 'And you wouldn't have been able to bear that.'

I look at him, and he is looking at me so tenderly that I just say it. 'Stay with me because you love me.'

I decide, in that moment, that I will remember the look on his face for as long as I live, however long that is in the strange changeling life that I lead. And it's not that I'm going to remember it because it's plain on his face that he doesn't love me. That would almost be easier to take. Because I think that it is plain on his face that he does, and that it is never going to be enough for him'that he loves me, this little changeling girl, one of so very many that, for all I know, he has loved throughout centuries. I will simply never be enough. It could be that Benedict Le Fay loves me now, at this moment in space and time, in this human world, but his eyes dart, and he looks toward Park Street, and the clock ticks forward.

I let go of him and take a step away.

'Selkie,'he says, his eyes returning to me. 'I can't. Please. Can't you understand? I''He reaches for me, and it's funny, because I was just clinging to him, but now I step backward, avoiding him as much as I can.

'Don't,'I say, holding up my hands to keep him away.

'No, Selkie, listen to me. I don't want to''

'Of course you want to. If you didn't want to, then you wouldn't.'My voice sounds flat, and I feel flat, like everything inside me has retreated. 'You promised me, Benedict Le Fay.'I don't say it with much intent, but he flinches anyway. 'Silly me. Never trust a faerie.'

We stand on the Common, separated by a few feet, and stare at each other. Then he vanishes, and I realize at that moment exactly what that means: he is the best traveler in the Otherworld, and the best enchanter, and the strongest Le Fay. I may never find him ever again if he doesn't want to be found. And how did we get here?

I have never felt more lost in my entire life.

All of the emotion that had retreated inside of me barrels back, a tidal wave of it that had gathered force and momentum in the interim, but I don't let it. I tremble with the effort of refusing to let it, my hands deep in the pocket of my sweatshirt, standing alone on the Common.

'Selkie,'Will says gently, and I feel his hand, tentative, on my shoulder. 'Let's go. You'll freeze out here.'

It seems like such a silly thing to say when I am already

frozen. I feel like everything stopped in the instant before Ben vanished, that I am just holding my breath now. 'Benedict Le Fay will betray you,'I hear myself say, as if from a very great distance. 'And then he will die.'