above and beyond

Chapter 10

Coming into her third week, Hop is having a harder time hiding his nerves regarding the whole situation. He tries to play it off as confidence, but Gloria can see through it pretty easily, since she is feeling pretty nervous about it as well. As much as they have tried, it has been hard to get Leon to pay any special attention to her, because he is still busy, and still seems no closer to falling in love with her.

"Well, this is all just build up, anyway," Hop says, in one of his attempts to play it off as confidence. "He keeps seeing you more and more often, so you're going to be on his mind more and more often, right? So, when he sees you on the night of the ball, dressed up and more beautiful than he could ever imagine, his feelings are going to hit him all at once, and he'll wonder why he never noticed before. I'm sure of it!"

She wants to ask him when he became such an expert on the subject, but she doesn't mind when he talks like this. Not only is it reassuring, but it shows Hop's romantic side, a side that she would not have guessed that he had at the beginning. But he seems to think about things in a similar way to her, at least if he understands just how appealing all of that sounds.

It helps calm her down in the moment, but her worry continues to grow with each passing day. Her deadline is coming up, and she has adjusted so well to life on land, has become so happy here and become so close with Hop, that the idea of losing all of that forever and returning to the mundane life she never cared for is awful to her. She will lose her one and only chance at the happiness she has spent her whole life looking for, and she will return home feeling so stupid for ever believing she could pull something like this off.

Not only that, but she will be cursed to spend the rest of her life without a voice. Recovering her voice has become one of the most important things about all of this, though she would gladly trade it forever if it meant that she could stay. Though she finds herself wishing that she could speak to Hop, rather than having to write everything, she would be content to write for the rest of her life. She just doesn't want to have to give up her legs.

This was all a plan to win over Leon. She rushed Nessa, wanting her to perform the spell without giving her any more time to see if she could perfect it and possibly get rid of the risk involved because she wanted to see Leon again, and that had seemed like the most important thing. He is supposed to be her main goal, but the more she thinks about it, the more she knows that her goal is just to stay, regardless of what would happen after.

Of course, she has to end up with Leon for this to work out, but she surprises herself when she realizes that that is not the most important thing anymore. If there were a way to guarantee that she stayed, she would take it, and even if she didn't end up with Leon, she realizes that she would be happy, just to be able to stay. Gloria doesn't want to admit all of that to herself, nor does she want to think about what it could mean.

She doesn't want to have to explain it to herself and she doesn't want to understand it, but once she has thought about it, it becomes impossible to avoid. Every day, Hop helps her more, teaching her steps and teaching her how to behave at the ball, telling her things she might be able to do to catch Leon's eye, and always certain that Leon will fall for her.

Sometimes, he will say, "How could he not?" and she is thrilled by it every time, only to realize, every time, that it is less the idea that Hop thinks Leon is a sure thing, and more that he would believe falling in love with her to be the obvious course of action. He is the closest friend that she has ever had, and this is the closest that she has ever felt to anyone before.

Leon is like a stranger to her. She likes him a lot, at least what she knows about him, and thinks that a relationship with him would probably be great. It wasn't a mistake to fall for him, and she doubts she would ever be unhappy with someone like him at her side. But there is still that voice in the back of her mind, every time she is with Hop, telling her that she is not nearly as close to Leon, and that she does not spare him nearly as many thoughts.

Gloria does not want to fall in love with someone else. That goes completely against what she came here for, and it will end badly for her either way. She can't be with anyone else if she is going to be with Leon, as far as she knows, and if she doesn't get Leon to fall in love with her, then she will have to leave forever. The only happy ending that exists for her ends with her and Leon, falling madly in love and living happily ever after.

That is what Hop wants for her, anyway. He is her biggest supporter, eager to see her end up with his older brother. She doubts he would encourage any setbacks like this, and doubts that he sees her as anything other than the mermaid who threw it all away for Leon's sake. He would know better than to fall in love with her, just as she should know better than to fall in love with him.

Falling in love with Hop this late into things would be a mistake, and Gloria is not going to allow that for herself. Perhaps things would have been better if he had been the one on the ship, the one that she had saved, the one that she had been infatuated with at first sight. In fact, for all she knows, he was there, but she missed him, because she was too busy looking at Leon.

It has always been Leon, and it is supposed to be Leon. Maybe if she had seen Hop first, but she hadn't, and it had taken getting to know him for her to get to this point. Falling in love with him is completely out of the question, and she knows that already. She knows that well, but she also knows from experience that there is nothing she can do to stop her own feelings.

Just as she was unable to stop herself from falling for Leon at first sight and deciding to risk everything for him, she is unable to stop herself from falling in love with Hop. But her course has already been set, so whether she loves him or not, it doesn't matter at all.