My Childhood Crush is a Selkie

Time Capsule

We had one day. I loathed myself for two opposite reasons. I loathed myself for not allowing myself to have more days before this, and I loathed myself for allowing myself to have any.

But it didn't matter why I loathed myself. And it didn't matter whether or not I did, because there I was with no way to change the past and no way I would give up this day.

We woke early, and once again, I felt like we could read each other's minds.

Today we would do all of our favorite things together. We would live like it was our last day to live, because in some ways, it was.

So naturally, we started by making chocolate chip pancakes.

"The only thing that gives you a bearable mood in the morning," he said with chocolate on his nose. "I'm usually lovely in the morning," I said, stealing one of his more chocolatey pancakes. "Maybe you're the one who puts me in a bad mood."
I called Sophie. I didn't explain everything to her of course, but she knew he was leaving, and she understood. She told me it was an unusually slow day anyway, and when she said it, I knew she was thinking about her future there, and I worried that she would leave me soon too.

But I clamped down the thoughts, because there was only so much I could deal with at once.
Del and I packed my car to the brim with everything we would need that day.

I remembered back eleven years ago, when we had done the same thing, except it had been two bicycles piled high with everything that would fit. "Try not to crash into a ditch this time," he said now with a rueful expression. "I'll have you know I've never been the cause of a car accident," I responded, climbing into the car. "Have you?" I asked. "I'm pleading the fifth," he responded.

We stopped at a shop downtown. I needed a new swimsuit, and he decided, for some reason, that he needed one too. "I need to look good when meeting the rest of my family for the first time. Khaki shorts aren't really their speed, unfortunately," he said, rifling through a rack.

"I wouldn't expect seals to be particular about fashion choices, although they do seem much meaner than I'd expect," I said. "Aren't they supposed to be the puppies of the sea?" He grinned.

"Sure, the kind that'll bite your hand off," he said, pretending to snap his teeth at me. I laughed and ran off to try out the bikini I picked out.

After, we drove to the trailhead at the bottom of a little mountain. We walked up most of the trail and paused to eat crackers and drink some water. The forest around us teemed with cicadas and birdsong.

"But you aren't just in some entirely fixed system that can't change at all. I know it might seem that way, but it will automatically be a little better because you're there," he said with a shrug, like it was the most simple thing in the world.

"People talk about the world like it's some fixed phenomena that we can't alter, but we are the world, Diana. You especially."
I was shocked to find his idealism intact, even after all of this. I had told him about my failed law school dreams with an expectation of the same generic responses.

"What do you really want?" He asked. "If you could do anything." I laughed, feeling a little self-conscious. "I don't know, to help enforce existing environmental protections. To make better ones. To help people impacted by climate change in court."
He smiled a smile that was far too genuine, so I cracked another joke: "Maybe it's all a lie though. Maybe I've just been influenced by you all my life. You're a spy for the other side." He laughed. "The other side, meaning what, nature?" He asked. I nodded. "You just want to turn me into a granola-freak environmentalist who wears biodegradable sneakers and won't slap at mosquitos," I said.

He grinned. "If so, then it wouldn't take a lot of influence, darling."

We stopped at an ice cream place next, and he looked very smug when I ordered the dairy-free option, as if it proved his previous point. "I'm sensitive to lactose," I muttered.