AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"Thank you. You go ahead and eat in your room with Jolie. I expect her to know how special she is by the time she leaves."
"No pressure."
She shoos me away, and I place the two plates, cups of juice, and some fruit on a tray before carefully balancing it to head down the hallway. Jolie's eyes are just opening as I walk in.
"That creak on the floor gave you away." She grumbles.
"Good thing it gave away my grandma last night." I cringe.
Had we been any further in what we were doing, that would have been, well even more embarrassing than it already was.
Jolie sits up in the bed, and I walk around to the other side and place the tray between us.
"As promised," I say. “Plus some cold fruit for you.”
"Hmm, I do like a man who keeps his promises. Especially when they look this delicious." She eats a piece of fruit, smiling at me chuckling at her. Then she takes a bite of the pancakes and nods while giving a wiggle. "And the taste matches the looks."
I turn the TV on while we eat, and her job appears on the news. She groans when the reporter talks about a weekend event they’re having in two weeks where kids can bring their report cards and get free admission and twenty free coins each.
"Not your favorite event, I take it." I chuckle.
"What an understatement. I usually try to take that weekend off now. The games end up sticky and what is usually an hour of cleanup suddenly becomes at least three. We get paid a dollar extra an hour for it, but as I learned, it's not worth the headache."
"You think I can show them my grades and get in?"
She laughs. "I might be able to convince them you're just an extremely tall child. Make sure to be chewing your gum very loudly when you arrive and rolling your eyes a lot."
"I can definitely pull that off."
She slumps back to the pillow since she's done eating. "I do not feel like going to school today."
"How many classes do you have today?"
"Three."
"You never told me your major."
"Oceanography." At my raised eyebrows, she continues. "So, you don't know this yet, but until I was about eight, I was convinced I was a mermaid. Could breathe underwater and everything. Something had clearly happened to my fins, but I would worry about that later. So I was obsessed with the ocean, knowing what all the fishes' names were, different types of water, you know what was safe for me and whatnot."
I give a sarcastic nod, and she laughs. "What? Callie played along so I had no reason to believe it was all my imagination. I would probably stay underwater in the pool for like twenty seconds, but she would tell me it was five minutes. I just knew I was meant to be in the sea.
"Anyway, even though I was utterly devastated when I found out I was indeed human, I still had my love of the ocean, so I knew that's what I wanted to major in."
"Are you though?"
"Am I what?"
"Human? You don't seem like it most of the time. Too special to be just a human like me. You are something more. I'm sure of it."
I thank my grandma in my mind as Jolie's smile stretches across her face.
"Well I might still have a little hope for being a mermaid after all," she jokes.
"I'd still want you, fin and all."
She sighs. "I would just have to accept your two long legs."
"Oh yeah?" I tickle her side and she begins squirming. "But we don't live anywhere near an ocean. Did you get to go often?"
