Submerged in Water

There were two things that I needed to do.

The first, and probably most important, was to practice everyday and learn how to control my abilities better. I needed to focus on opening myself up more. I spent most of my life trying to be normal and hiding behind the human façade that I wasn't sure how to attach myself back to my "fish" side any more. It wasn't going to be easy, but I was dedicated.

The second, was to keep tabs on Rune. I never forgot what he and the old man were talking about and I don't intend to let it go. They were talking about me and chances are, they know what I am and what I can do. Luckily enough, when Rune was watching for any signs of the fish in me, he came up short at the time.

With my new found confidence, before school, I walked up to him as he was talking with his friends at his locker. I looked him dead in the eye and said the words "we need to talk."

His friends jokingly laughed at him, like we were a couple about to break up or something, but he knew I was serious. "Sure." He agreed.

We walked away from his friends and outside of the hallway and to the back of the school. There were only a few people around. Instead of asking him what he knew, I intended to scare him instead.

"What's this about?" He asked. "If it was about our first encounter, I'm sorry, I know it was kind of weird..."

"No, it's actually about archery."

"Oh?" He seemed confused.

I grasped at a piece of their conversation back at the cove. "I heard you joined the team."

"Yeah." He slung his backpack over his shoulder and waited for what I had to say.

"Are you any good?"

A sexy sly smile came on his face and this time I was almost pulled in by his charm, but I remained calm and told myself I wasn't going to scare or taunt anyone as a romantic helpless puppy. "I'm not bad."

"By that smug smile on your face, I'm guessing you're better than not bad."

He laughed and nodded. "Yeah, but you aren't on the team, so why do you care?"

I leaned against the wall and crossed my arms across my chest. "I just don't want you to cheat."

"I..." He paused, like he was going to object, but then he looked at my presence, the way I worded it and then understood. "How would I cheat?"

I raised my eyebrows. "You tell me. I'm not the one that uses the air."

His hands immediately slammed down on my shoulders and he pushed me against the hall. "You can't tell anyone."

I knew it. I knew there was something strange with him. I waited for him to explain.

"There may be others at the school, I don't want them to know. Okay? This is just between us."

I nodded quickly, a little shocked.

"How did you know?" He asked.

I ignored his question. "What do you mean there may be others?"

"You think I'm the only one? I may be able to control the air, but I'm not unique by any means. There are others at this school and I'm here undercover for my uncle."

"Whoa, what?" I pushed him off me.

"There are others that control the air at our school. I don't know why they're here, but I don't want to be found out. With the war and everything that's happened... it's best to keep our identities a secret."

"No. I mean..."

I wasn't the only one. I could control the water and he could control the air. No wonder he knew about me. Everything was starting to make sense now.

"What? What do you mean?" He pressed.

"You... you can control the air?"

His hands dropped from my shoulders and his voice was monotone. "You didn't know?"

"I thought using the air was just some cheating archery term!" I shrieked.

"So I just told you now!? Wait..." He looked down at the ground. "You were listening to us!" He came forward again and pointed his finger at me. "You were in the water!"

"I..."

He came close and stared down at me. He towered over me and the eye contact almost killed me. He blinked into my eyes, probably noticing how they were that deep purple colour that everyone thought was strange. "You are one of them." He breathed.

I pushed him off me again, this time farther away to break all physical contact. "One of what?"

"The water people."

Water what? "I don't know what you're talking about."

He laughed. "Don't play dumb."

"I'm not playing anything!" I told him truthfully.

"Oh please, don't tell me you don't know what you are!"

"I know... I know I'm different and I can..." Images flashed back to the river and the water that I could manipulate.

"Control water?"

I hissed. "Keep it down."

He rolled his eyes. "This is what I'm trying to get at. We really shouldn't be talking about this here, anyone could be listening."

"What do you mean?"

He came slightly closer, until his lips were half an inch away from my ear. "We can listen to the air, it carries the voice."

"So that's how you listened to Layla and I in the hall..."

"I wasn't listening to you..." He shook his head above my shoulder. "It's not important. I'll meet you at the cave where you listened to us that one morning at five. Okay?"

I nodded quickly. "Okay."

"Come alone." He looked around to see if anyone was paying any attention to us, but there was no one around and he gave me a fleeting glance before disappearing to first period.

When the bell rang, I realized I had been spaced out for the past five minutes.

I collected myself mentally as well as physically and headed off.

When lunch rolled around, I spotted Rune in the corner of the cafeteria with his friends. One of his friends happened to be Layla's brother, Talon. He was on the archery team, along with his sister Layla. Talon was handsome, but he wasn't my type. He had blonde hair and light blue eyes. He was popular at school and from what I heard from the girls at school, they all wanted to date him since he hasn't ever had a noticeable girlfriend. There were rumours that he might be gay or something but from the way I saw him looking at the opposite sex, I knew they were untrue.

Normally, I would take my seaweed, potatoes or whatever sad excuse for a lunch that I had and eat it in the pool room where there was no one around, since Layla seemed to like to be in the library during lunch anyway but when Rune turned his head to look at me and I saw the look in his blue-gray eyes, all I wanted to do was sit near him.

Rune saw me staring at him from where I had just entered. He waved his hand and told me to come over. It felt sort of cool to have someone want to sit with me at lunch but then I reminded myself that the only reason he wanted to sit with me was because he knew my secret and I knew his.

"Hey." He said as I sat down.

I looked at Talon who had nodded at me and his other friend, who was a girl, Robyn. She smiled at me.

"Hey." I smiled back.

It was awkwardly silent for a second as I sat down at the circular table and I wondered if I was wanted here. I mean, Rune was the only one who seemed to want me here.

"Emele, right?" Robyn asked.

I nodded.

"I've never noticed you before, you're Aubrey's sister right?"

"Yup." I nodded again.

"Cool."

"Yeah." Talon said. "I've seen you around before, but you just came to school this year, right?"
I swallowed, hard. "Yeah, I was home schooled for a while, I had a serious medical condition but I'm better now... mostly."

"Mostly? What medical condition?" Robyn pressed, seeming interested.

"I... uh we don't really what it is." I lied. "But it made me overweight, have skin issues and stuff. I have to follow a strict diet and fitness regime to kind of revert back to normal."

"Well you look better." Robyn noted. "I mean, I remember what you looked like at the beginning of the year and you've improved since then.

A sincere smile came on my face. "Thanks. I'm working really hard to keep it in check. I'm actually thinking I might sign up for the swim team now that I'm getting better."

Rune coughed.

Talon's eyes darted to Robyn.

Robyn said. "Oh?"

"Yeah, I've always liked swimming and it was one of the few exercises I could do when I was recovering that wouldn't cause any damage, so I got really good at it."

I saw out of the corner of my eye, Rune slightly shaking his head at me, as if to warn me to shut up or something. I gave him a strange look back. He bit into his granola bar to stop himself from saying something. I tried to ignore him.

"Anything else your interested it?" Talon asked.

Rune was probably worried that I was giving away too much about my identity, so to counteract it, I decided to do the opposite a fish would want to do. "I like horseback riding, but unfortunately they don't have any activities at school."

"Oh." Robyn seemed confused. "That sucks."

Talon coughed and then said, "so are you two like an item now?"

He was referring to Rune and I.

I looked at Rune, surprised. His eyes widened in shock for a second and then returned to normal but still anxious.

"No." We both said together. "We're just friends."

"Ah, I see." Talon. "Sorry for the awkward speculation."

I laughed. "Don't worry about it."

Rune had an intense moment of eye contact with me and then said, "yeah it's cool."