I slide into my seat and glance at the guy beside me. His face is buried into his arm. I turn around. The girl behind me is scanning her notes.
“Excuse me. Do you know who left this?” I hold up the swan.
“No,” she says, glancing at me for a mere second before looking back at her textbook. She tugs at the French braid draped over her shoulder and squeezes her eyes shut as she mouths answers to the possible questions Dr. Cranston may throw at us.
I probably should be cramming too, but now I’m way too distracted. I’ve been sitting in the same spot since the first week of class—this had to be for me, right? I pick up the swan and see the red ink on the undersides of the folded paper, my name written in a tiny masculine scrawl along the other side of its neck. Open me, it says.
I carefully pull its tail until Dr. Cranston’s voice interrupts.
“Put your books and notes away, everyone. Time for your exam.”
I slip the swan into my backpack and try to focus on what I memorized the night before.
* * *
The moment the test is over, I rush out of the classroom. Students stream around me as they crown themselves with headphones, their Walkmans hissing a cacophony of lo-fi music from wherever they clicked stop before class. I pull the swan out of my backpack and lean against the wall to tug at its folds, struggling to get to the message inside:
The next one lies
in a pond
on the back of a swan.
Today at one.
I try to imagine Josh writing these lines or even folding this piece of paper. It just doesn’t seem like him based on the little I know. But who else would it be? I wander through the glass doors and into the sunlight. As I’m crossing Commonwealth, a bus glides by a little too closely. It honks a warning just as I figure it out. The Swan Boats.
By the time I get to the Common, there’s a line of tourists. The Swan Boats always seemed like the equivalent of a carousel ride at the mall, yet today I’m eager to board. I scan the benches on the boat. Nothing. The back row is empty, so I slide across just as the young boat driver settles into a metal tractorlike seat behind a large carved rendering of a swan.
As we take off, I try to relax. A sense of freedom hits me as the boat disconnects from land, but I can’t stop searching the grassy banks for Josh. The breeze makes me smile. Trees hover politely along the curved bank, the wall of buildings creating a solid fortress behind them. And, for a moment, I forget why I’m here.
“Are you Emily?” a voice behind me asks.
I spin around to see the boat driver pulling something out of his shirt pocket. He’s smiling when he hands me an origami fish.
“Do you know who left this?” I ask.
“A tall guy,” he says. “Like maybe a student or something.” I realize by his constant movement that he’s actually pedaling our boat. He looks over me as if focusing on our route. I turn around to open the fish:
Come find me in
A place you miss the most
Near countless boats
Glass walls inside
Where fish can hide but there’s no tide.
My mind spins. Glass walls inside. Where fish can hide.
The moment the Swan Boat docks, I rush to the T and check the wall map to find the aquarium stop. When I get there, I push through the metal doors and maneuver around the crush of people. The smell of saltwater fills the air. A bold sense of adventure consumes me as I hold the origami fish. I’m almost positive I’m looking for Josh. A tinge of insecurity seeps in as I imagine him going to all of this trouble. I never received this much attention before; even my high school boyfriend wasn’t this thoughtful. It’s enough to make me giddy.
I look around again to see thick crowds of families with kids, tourists with maps, guides corralling people onto a ferry. Just as I begin to doubt my understanding of the riddle, someone taps my shoulder. Josh’s smile is mischievous.
I swat his arm reflexively. “Seriously?” I hold up the origami.
“What? Did you make that for me?” He smirks.
I swat his arm again, my adrenaline high still strong.
“Hey now.” He wraps his arm around my shoulder as we walk together. “Just come with me.” He hands me a ticket as we walk past the line snaking around the corded guides. I steady myself against him, fighting the light-headed effects of our surprise first … Wait. Is this a date?
My nerves begin to calm as Josh leads me up the spiral landing surrounding the cylindrical tank that runs all the way up to the ceiling. The eerie glow of the room adds a sense of intrigue, like we’re on some kind of mission. I laugh at this thought, and he gives me a mock-offended look.
“Why are we here?” I ask him.
“Isn’t this what you said you miss?” he asks.
“Fish tanks?” I joke.
“No, silly. The water.”
“I know,” I say with a side glance. I can’t believe he planned all this for me. My smile won’t leave my face. We keep walking along the glass walls spiraling upward, as if mesmerized, swept up in the same momentum as the fish. “It’s amazing to me how they crammed the entire ocean into this tiny place,” he says.
A bright yellow fish darts along the window as we circle upward. I try to follow it, but it swims into the middle, out of view. I turn to him. “Are your friends here?”
“Nope.”
“Wow. So we’re actually alone?” I mock gasp. “What would Ben and Heather say?”
Josh doesn’t answer. He suddenly seems uncomfortable, looking down at his feet instead of the fish. “Sorry, I was just joking …,” I say, kicking myself for bringing it up and ruining the moment.
He looks at me. “I know you must think this is all kind of strange. And I guess it is.” He turns his back to lean against the glass wall. When he looks at me again, I focus on a giant mountain of coral to avoid eye contact so he won’t see that yes, I think it’s a little strange that the Kingdom is having such a positive impact on my life, but the random stipulations are becoming extremely frustrating. “I just wanted to find a way to see you again, without anyone else around,” he continues.
“You mean, Andrew isn’t around the corner waiting for me to disappoint him in Pictionary again?”
Josh laughs, but his expression is still pensive. He looks like he’s struggling with an explanation, yet can’t figure out how to start.
“Listen. I’m happy you did this,” I say, sensing enough of the upper hand to be assertive. “I mean, no one has ever made origami for me before.” I smile up at him. “It’s just… I don’t understand why you didn’t just call me to ask me out. I can go ahead and tell you the answer is yes.” I push at his chest playfully. He still looks serious.
“But I couldn’t say yes. I mean, not yet, so we have to be careful.”
I quietly trace my finger along the aquarium glass. A large fish glides by out of nowhere, startling me before swimming away. My emotions are shifting so quickly that it’s difficult to pinpoint anything beyond confusion. “Okay. I don’t understand.”
“It … it’s complicated. There are rules I should be following, and you should too, until you’re saved.” He exhales as if relieved to have finally said it.