Page 2 of Seashells and Daiquiris

I didn’t want to know if they were sleeping together or not. It didn’t matter to me when I realized I’m an idiot trying to make something work with him.

I left that next week, and it’s then that it all came crashing down on me. It was a quiet, devastating realization that I wasn't the main character in my own relationship anymore, and I didn’t even get a say.

He just made all those decisions without me.

In many ways, I got over him fast. Turns out when someone's been making you feel invisible for two years, the absence of them feels less like grief and more like finally being able to breathe.

But the unfairness? That part still burns. He gets to be happy. He gets the work wife and the whole rom-com epilogue.

We’re also co-parent a dog named Biscuit. A golden retriever who loves him more, which feels cosmically unfair given that I'm the one who drove to three different shelters to find her. She's with him right now, and I miss her more than I miss him, which tells me everything I need to know about that relationship.

It just freaking sucks that he still has to be in my life because of a dog I love, that chooses him.

It hurts even more than whenever I take her, she just paces. Biscuit is a dog that likes her routine and her home, which isn’t me.

I start pacing the beach house, an uncomfortable sensation burning in my chest. It’s so unfair that I can barely focus on anything. He was the one I first reached to whenever something good or bad happened, and all three of my closest friends are living lives that subtly push me to the side. It’s not their fault, honestly. One is about to have a kid, the other is swept off her feet with a new lover, and the other got transferred across the country for a wonderful job opportunity.

They can’t help it that not even my golden retriever wants me⁠—

Okay, I need to stop ruminating and just get something done. Moving to the table by a bay window in the kitchen, the one my laptop is next to, I open it and stare at the world document that a blinking cursor hovers over.

I look out the window, at the beach that stretches wide and pale, the tide pulling back to reveal dark wet sand and rocks slick with something green. Beyond it, the ocean exists with an enormous presence, completely indifferent to the fact that I'm sitting here in yesterday's T-shirt having a crisis about whether I've ever genuinely been in love or just written about it so convincingly that I fooled myself.

Aren't these beach towns supposed to come with, like, a hunk? A brooding local who fixes boats with his shirt off? A rugged fisherman with a heart of gold and forearms that could open a jar of pickles without asking? Every romance novel set within ten miles of an ocean has one. I would know. I've written six of them.

Maybe the hunks are seasonal. Maybe I should have read the fine print on the rental listing: Beach house includes ocean view, full kitchen, and zero available men. BYOSM, or bring your own sexy man.

I grab my notebook, the most recent one I bought even though I have like five others, and I leave.

If being in this house isn’t going to work, then I’m going into the magical town—almost soon as I shut the door, I run back in to grab my sunglasses.

Maybe there’s a fun seashell to buy that has creativity magic in it, and that’s why I’m dreaming about it.

Releasing a curt sigh, I slip my shades on, peak around the area, and give myself a curt nod. “Not today, loneliness. Not today.”

FREDDIE

So, did I mention that there’s magic here?

Yes, real, bonafide magic. Since I’m a human, I have to get a proper invitation. I remember the first time I was taken here by my aunt as a kid, when Dove would be here for summers and I'd trail behind her like a duckling while she did witch things and I did human things, which mostly involved eating ice cream and staring at the ocean with my mouth open. I remember the first time the water looked like it was lit from underneath, and opalescent fish swam near the shoreline. I remember the locals talking about the sea folk the way people in other towns talk about weather. I remember sitting on the dock with my legs dangling over the edge and being absolutely certain I saw a seal that winked at me.

And then I saw a whole ass mermaid beach herself up onto a rock as she lay there, her tail flapping slightly as she sunbathed.

I was seven that summer.

I’m now twenty-seven and have had a long back and forth with magic, from obsessing over learning everything about its history, to looking for tonics to get rid of my acne, to daydreaming about being whisked away by a magical shifter man.

Until I met Tommy, my ex.

He wasn’t allowed to know about this place, so I regressed back to a normal life because as this place faded into what felt like a wonderfully curious dream.

The main stretch of Crescent Cove is a mile walk from Dove’s cottage, and I strut my way down with my sunglasses pushed back through my hair. Seagulls yap overhead, which is something you’d see anywhere else, but then I spot a set of turquoise birds name marrions, nesting in a large house a witch probably made for them. Their nesting materials are used for potions once their eggs are hatched, and the leftover shells are useful, too.

It’s something I love about this place. It’s so normal, yet peppered with all the oddities that makes this place magical.

As my sandals clack on the pavement, I finally reach the copper street lights that never turn green, ones with beautiful, massive flowers hanging down. There's a main street with a hardware store, a bakery, and a bar with a crooked sign. There’s the Broken Cauldron, Flaming Flemmings, and Maester’s Creatures.

I breathe in the salty air that smells like food, and release a sigh.