Shifting (Swans Landing) by Shana Norris

break.” I sat up, pushing tangled hair out of my eyes.
    The thin strap of Elizabeth’s tank top slipped down one shoulder. “Getting too warm for you?” she asked, smirking my way.
    I licked my dry lips, still tasting her strawberry lip gloss. I didn’t know what was going on in my head anymore. Here I was, sitting on Elizabeth’s bed, in her room. Her parents weren’t home. She didn’t say much when I asked where they were, she had shrugged and said, “Working.” She had a younger brother and sister, but she didn’t say where they were either.
    It was just the two of us, alone here in her quiet house. I didn’t want to think about her family or mine, or about the rest of Swans Landing at all. The ferry had come that morning as scheduled, but even that hadn’t settled the strange feeling in my gut. Like there was something happening here that none of us could see. Not just the missing ferry or the clouds that wouldn’t lift or the tourists that didn’t come.
    But I didn’t want to think about any of that right then. Any other guy in my position would lie back and enjoy it.
    The room smelled like her and looked like her. Coral colored bedding and sheer lacy curtains. Pictures of her friends were taped on the wall next to me, a giant collage of all the people at school I spent my days avoiding.
    “I feel a little creeped out with all of your boyfriends watching us.” I nodded toward the pictures on the wall.
    “Number one, they’re not my boyfriends. Number two.” Elizabeth moved in front of me, sliding herself between my legs. “You’re the only one here with me.”
    She tried to press her lips to mine again, but I turned my head so her mouth met my cheek. “And how many of them have been here before me?”
    Elizabeth drew back, rising up on her knees. She crossed her arms and glared at me. “What do you think I am, Dylan?”
    I shrugged. “I don’t know. Isn’t that the whole point? I barely know you at all, right?”
    She wrinkled her nose. “So what? You want to talk? Fine. Talk.”
    I pushed myself off the bed and grabbed my shoes, shoving my feet into them. “Maybe I should go.”
    But Elizabeth wrapped her arms around me, one hand slipping down my collar to my chest. Her mouth was near my ear, her breath hot on my skin. “Don’t go,” she whispered.
    I didn’t move. We sat there for a moment, her body pressed against my back. I had asked myself a hundred times on the way to her house what I was doing, and I still didn’t have an answer. All I knew was I couldn’t stay away.
    “None of them have been here before,” she told me.
    I snorted.
    “I’m serious. You’re the first guy who’s been in my room.”
    “What about Kyle?”
    She laughed. “He wishes.”
    I wanted to believe she was telling the truth. “What makes me so special?” I asked.
    She slipped her body around me until she was in my lap, her arms around my neck. “Because you’re different.”
    “Because I’m finfolk? You have some kind of fetish?”
    Elizabeth scowled. “No. You . You’re different than all those other guys at school. Not just the finfolk thing. Everything.” She broke off and looked away, biting her lip as if she had said too much. For a moment, she had opened herself up in a way I had never seen. I wanted to see more of that, but already her expression seemed to be shutting down and returning to her usual detached state.
    “So, Fish Boy,” she said, “what do you want to know about me?”
    I wanted to know everything about her, but I could tell she wasn’t willing to get too personal. “What’s your favorite color?” I asked.
    Elizabeth rolled her eyes, but she said, “Coral. Yours?”
    “Blue. Favorite food?”
    “The lasagna from the Sand Dollar.”
    I nodded. “That is good. Mine would have to be Miss Gale’s chicken pastry.”
    Elizabeth trailed a finger over my jaw. “Are we done yet?” she asked.
    My gaze scanned the room, trying to find something to distract me from the