CHAPTER 49
Oh, she knew it was coming, but she hated it all the same. She wasn’t skilled enough in interacting with people to truly know how to lie—not well at least, she was sure—but she also guessed too large of a pause was suspicious as well.
So instead, she simply repeated back as if slightly confused, “Have I seen them?”
It was enough. The sheepishness came right back and he looked embarrassed enough to die. “Oh Lord, Daria, please forgive me. I know how silly this sounds. I…”
Anything more died off and he looked so uncomfortable that she actually felt bad about not agreeing to it, for she knew how un-crazy it truly was.
“Mr. Wilson, please, I wish you wouldn’t beat yourself up about it. I think the world is still full of enough mysteries that nothing is truly crazy.”
His smile said he considered her to be being gracious only but that he was touched all the same. “Thank you, Daria. You are too kind.”
Probably not kind enough, she thought, for a kind man would tell him he wasn’t crazy at all. “It’s nothing.”
The food was done and he now stood there awkward as if he could not decide whether to sit again or go.
“Can I…can I come again?” he asked. “As friends, of course.”
And he looked so pitiful she could hardly say no. “As friends,” she agreed.
“Next Friday?”
She found herself nodding, wondering if there would be more talk of mermaids then.
CHAPTER 50
“Kallias, you have some explaining to do,” she muttered as she returned to the dock for their nightly cuddling. “Show yourself! Don’t you dare hide from me.”
His head peeked out of the water, just his eyes like he had that first day she had met him.
“You might as well come out all the way,” she said.
He was sighing even before he was above the water. “I’m sorry,” he said just as she was saying, “What were you even thinking?”
They both stared at each other, his eyes almost begging to be forgiven, hers narrowed and unforgiving.
“I can’t imagine what you were thinking,” she said. “What? Just because I told you I was worried what humans would do but didn’t tell you specifics, that wasn’t enough for you? I can tell specifics!” She said it but she didn’t mean it. There were things he didn’t need to know.
And maybe it was because of that momentary pause in thought, but it was only then that she truly looked at him. His face was puckered in shame and regret; it was an expression that suggested his own inner thoughts towards himself were even harsher than her words.
She sighed. What was she even doing yelling at him like that? She hated her tone, hated the look of shame she had made him have, hated the words.
“I’m sorry,” she said, beating him to it as she leapt into the water.
He gasped and then swam to meet her.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated, putting her arms over his shoulders as he put his hands on the side of her waist and here and there pumped his tail to keep them afloat, a position so practiced at this point it was like clockwork. “I’m sorry,” she murmured once more, leaning her forehead on his shoulder.
“Why areyouapologizing?” he softly asked. “I’m the one thatmessed up. I had heard him before and I just wanted to see him. I wanted to know who had asked you such a thing, what he looked like. I know. It was stupid. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I should’ve listened.”
“Luckily, he didn’t see,” she mumbled back. “I’m sorry for talking to you that way. That’s why I’m sorry. I think…I’m scared. Really scared. I don’t think Mr. Wilson is the type to do anything to you, but if he told someone…”
She didn’t even want to say it and she couldn’t predict how Mr. Wilson would act if he saw a mermaid for himself. Would he want to keep it quiet for similar reasons as her own—he was a kind man after all—or would he want to prove to the world that his mother was right?
“Why? What do you think would happen?”
“Kallias,” she practically moaned, but it wasn’t like he was a child she had to protect. “Frankly, I don’t know. I suppose it depends on who it was. I could see some treating you as a delicacy. I could see some hunting mermaids down for something outlandish like saying your very existence is against nature or that it’s witchcraft or something. I could see men of science wanting to capture or kill you to study you. But they might do all sorts of things first. The researcher who stayed here said he sometimes studied live specimens. He said…he said he liked to cut into living creatures to see how the organs were working underneath. I don’t know. I doubt it was necessary. Other people, hmm, I know people keep zoos too for exotic pets. I could imagine schools wanting you too or people who—” She stopped. She couldn’t say it, but she imagined some would keep a mermaid just to force them to do something sexual. Locked in a tank, it would be very hard to get away, and she could imagine Kallias now, stuck to do another’s will. “Don’t make me say any more. I imagine you in each and it’s too painful.”
