Fish Out of Water

Chapter 1~ School of Fish

     Standing in front of the class and introducing yourself as the new kid had to be a form of torture. My palms grew cold and clammy, and the lack of sweat glands made me even more uncomfortable.

    The teacher was a half-balding man with sea-green eyes I swore belonged to the ocean, a distant relative in the bloodline passing on those green eyes. Every person with true green eyes has a mermaid in their bloodline. Selkies tend to pass on pure blue eyes.

    The teacher stood beside me, I glanced back to see his name scrawled across the top of the board, probably for me. Mr. Doyle.

    "Now," Mr. Doyle gestured for me to step ahead of him. "Why don't you tell us a bit about yourself."

    I took a deep breath, my gills flexing, peeling open little by little just to ruin my life. "I'm Dakota, I'm from New Jersey in the US and I like to swim, I guess." stupid I shake the thought away and take the empty seat near the back of the class before I could embarrass myself.

    "Thank you, Dakota." Mr. Doyle turned to scrawl equations across the board. My gills itched to the point of pain, too deep a breath, and my skin felt like it would rip prematurely. I cleared my throat and shifted upright to ease some of the pain in my sides. My shirt hung loosely around me, already two sizes too big but it was still too constricting. Sitting in that stuffy classroom covering my not quite human skin, hiding my gills the selkie in me longed for the ocean in a different way than the mer part. Both were so much louder than the human piece of me that was just fine living on land for the last eighteen years. I was supposed to be mostly human. I didn't grow gills until six months ago and my skin was always dry but nothing a few baths and lotion didn't fix. I prodded at the water pouches. I had six in my bag to get me through the day and the ones on me were already halfway done.

    The chair behind me creaked "Psst, Dakota." A guy tapped my shoulder from the desk behind me. I glanced at him, his eyes crystal blue in a way that reminded me of my mom's. "he/him." he pointed to himself and then to me "you?"

    "They/them." I watched him but he just nodded and gestured to my shirt

    "Got enough?"

    I twisted around, careful not to lean my side against the chair. "Selkie or mermaid?" I asked.

    He chuckled keeping his voice low. "More than half the kids at this school have selkie blood."

    "For real?" I glanced at the front to make sure Mr. Doyle wasn't going to call on me, but he was writing out the equations still.

    "Yeah, this is a small town steeped in the old tales." he grinned and watched me for a second

    I rolled my eyes tails. "So is it an open thing or more like everyone knows but we don't talk about it thing?"

    "The second one." he offered his hand. "I'm Sean by the way." I took his hand and he sat back. He glanced down at our hands, his thumb pressing at my skin. "Welcome to our tiny town, are you here to stay or go?"

    My hand reached for my side. Every single plan I had ruined because my body decided to sprout gills senior year. I sat back in my chair, facing forward as Mr. Doyle turned to address the class.