Ocean Blue ✓

chapter nine

elliot

We make it less than an hour before it starts pouring. Hard. All that pent-up rain from the past week or so comes falling out of the sky and brings with it a truly harrowing wind.

The lifeguards—majority swim team kids—run out of the doors as soon as the few visitors have left, like they've never been wet before. Apparently there's some kind of extreme thunderstorm warning, which doesn't concern me much. How bad can a thunderstorm be?

A few of the not-as-mean swim girls with sweatshirts tossed over their swimsuits and shorts that hardly cover more than the suits themselves rush towards the pool exit, laughing and tossing damp sun-streaked hair over their shoulders and running as fast as they can in their sandals, like you can outrun rain or something.

Even Hal has left. I'm cleaning up by myself, because seven minutes ago Alyssa said she needed to use the bathroom. She hasn't come back yet. Which is maybe a little worrying—I mean, the bathroom is five feet away. Did she get lost? She couldn't have gotten lost. Right? Right. Right?

The tin cover of the stand's opening clinks as rain pounds against its flimsy metal. The wind warps it every five seconds, which makes such a weird alien Muppet mutant sound that I want to laugh. The stand's lights are flickering, but probably only because they're ancient and never replaced. Like, these lights are probably older than I am. By a lot.

I move towards the storage room door, broom and dustbin in hand. It's fine that Alyssa hardly helped at all today. I mean, I kinda like cleaning, so it's no problem.

The door refuses to open.

I groan. This used to happen all the time last summer, back when Adam Albertalli was my dweeby but shady coworker. He didn't want to be a lifeguard for whatever reason, but he still wanted unhindered access to the team's hot girls, so I got to put up with him doing nothing all day other than ogling girls from his chair and constantly locking himself in the backroom to vape. A nice weirdo, but a weirdo who got me in trouble all the time nonetheless.

Is that what Alyssa's doing?

"Alyssa? Are you in there?" Even with the harsh rain outside, I swear I hear a slight shifting. No answer, but it's not as if Adam would have answered.

I try and budge the door open with my hip. Doesn't work at first, so I keep at it. It's not even locked—it almost feels like something is pressing against it.

I try again, and it flies open. I freeze.

Alyssa lays on the floor, staring over her shoulder at me. Her hair is a mess about her head, and she seems almost a different brand of beautiful than before, but that's not what has grabbed my attention.

She has a tail. Like, all cyan and green and teal and shimmery and pretty and a tail.

"Tail," I say. "You have a tail."

"Elliot, do not freak out."

I very much would like to freak out. "You-you're a fish?"

"Um, well—"

"You're a fish?"

She blinks in surprise. Her tiny brow wrinkles in confusion. "Maybe a little?"

I can feel my heart thumping up my throat. "Damn, okay, that's hella fucking heavy."

Brow wrinkles more. "'Hella freaking heavy' is your response to seeing me with a literal fish tail?"

"Sorry. Should ... should it be something else?" I run a hand through my hair. "Wait, does this mean that you can't eat sushi? Is that cannibalism? No. No, no, wait, fish eat other fish all the time. Are there specific kinds of fish you can't eat? Is it all cannibalism? Is—"