As the years passed, Derek imagined his love for Tad as a chambered nautilus within him, growing larger each year, encasing his heart in layer after layer of precious nacre. He forgot the sea’s siren song—the merrows beneath the waves, Kellen, a naive and petty boy called Dere, they all seemed like images from some childhood dream, ethereal and barely remembered upon waking. His only tie to that life was the red shell he wore on the cord around his neck.
On their tenth anniversary, he gave the necklace to Tad as a symbol of his devotion to the man he’d come to love. Without that talisman, Derek could never return to the sea, but without Tad, he never wanted to go back. Fastening the cord around his lover’s neck, he’d told him, “Now I belong to you forever.”
Less than a year later, they
