The Mermaid Disease

3/Biting

After her father left the room, Kelsea had been given two options: go back to school (late), or find something else to do, preferably outside the house. Her mom pushed for the school option.

"There's nothing here for you to do right now," her mom had said, patting her cheek affectionately. "Life is inevitably going to go back to normal. Go to school. Socialize, learn something, do whatever. It's your senior year; enjoy it."

"Don't treat me like a kid."

"Hate to break it to you, but you are a kid."

She honestly had considered going to school. It would be nice to see her friends and to confide in them in person. They would understand. Probably.

But then she considered everyone else. Going to high school would probably feel a lot like being put on a dissection table. She was normally the one asking the questions, not receiving them. The girl hated being the center of attention and anonymity is had to get when your father is all over the local news. Other students would just talk around her with varying degrees of subtlety.

She wouldn't subject herself to that.

Instead, Kelsea meandered into her room, tossed the memory chip her dad gave her into her backpack and then sorted through her clothes for something to wear. A moment later she had on shorts, a light hoodie, and sneakers. She grabbed her backpack on the way out, snatching her car keys off a table as she went.

Her destination of choice was a cafe next to the wharf, where all the boats were docked. There was, coincidentally, an ice cream parlor next door, but it was better suited for warm, Florida days. Today, Kelsea needed a hot chocolate and a Wi-Fi connection.

She sat in her favorite booth and pulled out her laptop. She went through the usual routine of checking social media and emails, which lasted for a whopping fifteen minutes before she opened up her blog, which she had been neglecting the past few days.

An unpublished draft reminded her why she had been offline. Anticipating her dad's pictures, she had written lists of things she could do with them. Interesting facts about caverns. Slap some stupid, inspirational quotes on them. An interview-style article with her dad.

Now she had the pictures her dad took and she didn't want to look at them, let alone use them.

At the same time, though, her fingers itched to grab the memory card from her backpack and to go through them. What if her dad was not lying? What if...?

No, no, no. Mermaids do not exist. Anything and anyone that says they do is wrong. End of question.

Without even thinking about it, she did an internet search on mermaids and clicked the first result. She skimmed through the page, slowing down on the sightings section. Apparently Christopher Columbus reported seeing mermaids during his travels at sea. Historians generally believe that if he had seen anything, it was likely manatees.

Kelsea rolled her eyes at the thought of her dad being rescued and kept prisoner by a manatee. Absolutely ridiculous.

Starting to feel a bit of a headache coming on, Kelsea closed her laptop and slipped it into her backpack. She gathered her materials, including her drink, and stepped outside. Drawn by the smell of wood and water, she made her way over to a sunny spot at the end of the dock.

She looked down at the murky water and couldn't help but wonder why her father insisted that she stay on dry land. While he definitely could not have seen a merman, maybe he had seen a large fish. Pair that with the bad experience in the caves, and Kelsea could understand what made her dad so scared of the water he normally loved.