Two teenagers, a Mexican narrator and M from coastal New England, conjure aliteral-metaphorical river that connects their rooms and sustains a first love of veleros, dolphins,palaces of coral pink, and a private language of letters and songs.
As they grow, currents shift.M drifts toward danger, self-harm, Steve, and the “roads of day”; he clings to imagination, the“rivers of night.” Storms, betrayals, and absences desiccate their dream-world. Years pass: he writes Rivers of the Night; she becomes a famous musician whose album Liquid Dreams argues back.
Letters dissolve into water; a single “M” becomes a talisman. In adulthood they reunite—warily—to test whether love survives off the page and offstage, and whether a story can be lived, not just told.