Fish Out of Water

Chapter 7~PlayDate

The wind grazed my eel-like skin, if my body could produce goosebumps, I was sure I'd have them. I scanned the water for a head of red hair. Bay was not in my class, but I was fairly certain I had seen him around. We might have had gym class together.

Please don't show I silently begged to the land god or sea god or whatever deity existed if any. If Bay canceled, then I could go home and I can still say I did what mom said.  It wouldn't be my fault if he decided he didn't want to hang out with me. Heck even if he showed up and we both agreed to say we hung out and just didn't vibe we could go our separate ways and pretend our parents didn't set up a play date for their adult children.

After another twenty minutes, I stood and went to go home but a flash of red caught my eye and a familiar olive-toned merman pulled himself out of the water, his skin slick the way mine feels when it's wet.

"Dakota?" he asked.

"Yeah." I sighed so close.

"I saw you for a bit, but I thought you were just a rando." He gestured me toward the water. "When my dad said the shore, I thought he meant in the water. Sorry."

"It's fine." I pulled off my long-sleeved shirt and tucked it under the same spot Sean showed me last time we had come together.

"You don't have to stick around if you don't want to. Sorry my dad had your mom talk you into this." Bay dug his fingers into the sand.

"No worries." I reached under my tank and pulled my patches off and stored them with my shirt.

He pointed to the patches. "I have to use those on land too. Only my tail goes away when I come out of the water."

I offer a wry smile. "Mixed traits, huh?"

He scoffed. "Right."

I stepped into the water my skin chilling with the water. Bay followed me in, and we dove under the waves. I was always a natural in the water but Bay, with his deep teal-colored tail shimmering behind him, sliced through the water with a kind of elegance I didn't think I could ever have. He glanced back at me and slowed down to match my pace.

Swimming with Bay wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to go.

We swam far out to the edges of his dad's territory skimming along reefs and picking shells up in shallow waters. As much as I didn't want it to the human part of me shut off and I was at home under the water. Swimming just above the sand, letting it graze my belly, digging up anything from shells to bottle caps. Bay handed me a few pieces of dead reef that had glimmers of something crystal-like in them and then found a beach bag floating around in the open ocean and gave me that to store our treasures. I hooked the bag over my shoulder and followed him. The constant itch covering every inch of my skin on land was gone. The ever-present discomfort that made me feel like I was breathing through a straw was now replaced with deep breaths. I had forgotten what it felt like to breathe.

The time that I was able to stay underwater had already doubled. My gills could be in any day at that rate. When did they get so close to being here?

Bay led the way back to shore as the sun sank and the waves grew rougher. The day was already gone? I pulled myself on shore and slapped my gill patches back on. Bay dragged himself onto the sand with me, just enough to keep his tail in the water. I sat just out of reach of the waves and waited for my skin to dry before I put my shirt back on.

"Thanks for hanging out with me." Bay finally said. "I'm not as much of a loser as my dad thinks, just, the few people I do hang out with are mostly human so it's not like I can bring them into the ocean to spend days like we just had."