Kelp

The clothes Zak gave me were. . . Large. There was a shirt and a pair of shorts, but I had to pull the shorts' string thingy as tight as it would go to keep them up on my hips. The shirt was more like a dress going to my knees almost. My hair was less than desirable as it hung in wild disarray. Quickly, I braided and wrapped my hair into a blob on my head using a pen I had found on the floor to keep it all up. The hair crisis averted, as much as possible, I worked on walking to where Zak, Nick, and Aaron were. It was hard the first time when I was learning to use legs, but even more the second time. The hours spent in the pool seemed to have taken my balance a bit. “Just one foot in front of the other,” I mumbled to myself as I stared at my feet while walking.

“Are you okay?” Nick asked.

“I am making it. My balance is off, but I will be fine,” I said as I came into the room, keeping my eyes on the floor and my feet.

“How are you feeling now that you're out of the water?” Aaron asked, leaning against a table.

“Much better, thank you for the concern,” I said, stopping at a couch to look up at them. They were standing around a table looking me with either worry or hesitance, I couldn't decide.

“Viola, we've starting planning on how to get you back home,” Zak said. Relief flooded me as I smiled. “It may take a while, but we'll get you there.”

“In the mean time, let's find you some clothes that fit and don't look like you're dressing up in old hobo clothes,” Aaron said as he held up something in his hand towards me. It flashed bright, making me go wide eyed. Oh! It was a picture!

“She's tiny and I didn't have girl clothes lying around,” Zak huffed. “Don't post that anywhere.”

“What's a hobo?” I asked. The three men turned and looked at me with their eyebrows raised. There were a lot of things I still didn't know or understand about humans.

“It's-Nevermind,” Zak said as Nick and Aaron snickered. “What happened to the clothes you came in last night?”

“I took them off and put them under a chair by the pool,” I said. Aaron turned and looked, trying to see if my clothes there.

“I'll check and see,” he said, sauntering out through the glass door.

“At least we found her clothes for her, maybe. We'll probably still have to buy her some,” Nick said. “Which you love to do. Zak is the guy to go shopping with.”

“Shopping?” I asked with a cringe.

“You don't like shopping or you don't know what that is?” Zak asked.

“I know what it is. My sisters went shopping while we were on land,” I said, leaning against the couch.” I went with them and was in charge of carrying bags because I was the youngest.”

“Wait, you were here with your sisters?” Nick asked. I nodded. “How come you didn't leave with them?”

“I was supposed to fly out to Los Angels last night, but I went to the party here and I lost track of time,” I said.

“How did a fifteen year old get here? Did you drink?” Nick asked, a concerned look spread across his face and seemed to have been permanently stuck there.

“I drank a little, but it was strong and I've never drank before.” It wasn't as if I was a child getting into things she shouldn't. I was an adult in the human world and my own.

“A drunk teen. Yeah this is staying off the record,” Nick said as Zak groaned.

“These it?” Aaron asked as he came back in. He held up a white shirt and denim shorts with some undergarments. Humans were funny about their bodies, trying to cover themselves with clothes so people didn't see parts of them.

“Yes! Thank you!” I grinned, skittering over to him.

“No problem, lil' lady,” Aaron said with salute. I took the clothes and set them on the table before taking off Zak's shirt and shorts. “Ah! Jesus!” Aaron cried as he quickly spun around while Zak and Nick made similar remarks. “For future reference, Vi, don't change in front of other people. I don't know how mermaids do it, but humans don't get dressed in front of others.”

“Oh, sorry,” I said. Another thing I did wrong.

“I think this is damn close to child pornography,” Nick grumbled.

“What's child pornography?” I asked, zipping up my shorts.

“Nothing, are you decent?” Zak asked.

“I am dressed, if that's what you mean,” I said. The men turned back around as I smoothed out my shirt.

“Where'd you get the shirt?” Zak asked, pointing to my white tee with a skull that had bat wings on the front.

“I don't know. One of my sisters bought it for me. I saw a store that had it and I asked for it, so she went and got it for me,” I said. “Why?”

“Wait, Zak. . .” Nick said. “That's the shirt that girl had on that you made out with for a good half hour.”

“Whelp, statutory rape isn't as bad as child pornos,” Aaron said, clicking his tongue while Zak's face went white.

“I am very confused,” I said, furrowing my brow. Then it clicked, the nagging feeling zapping my brain with memories of the night before. I did kiss a VERY cute boy last night, for a long time. I remembered because I liked his pointy hair and he made me laugh as I sat in his lap. He paid attention to me and made me feel happy. His touches had felt like jolts of electricity on my legs. “Oh,” I said, feeling my face heat up as I smiled shyly. “I remember you now.” I had gotten up to leave when I realized what time it was. I didn't realize that was Zak I had kissed. There was the alcohol making me feel slow and warm and. . . I couldn't remember him till Nick said something.

“This day just keeps getting better!” Aaron laughed.

“Let's just get her home and hope no one took pictures,” Zak mumbled. His approach to me the night before and earlier were welcoming, but now he seemed ashamed of the fact we had kissed. Maybe being on land wasn't that fun after all. Fear was replaced with rejection and hurt as Zak walked out of the room. I stayed quiet, my smile falling, as Nick and Aaron followed Zak out. I stayed behind and sat in a chair as Gracie came over to lay her head in my lap. The sudden turn around of emotion was concerning. It made me feel like there was something wrong with me, that I couldn't get anything right, even when I couldn't help it.

“At least you turned out to be nice,” I said, giving the dog stritches behind her ears. “I always do something wrong when I don't mean to and people get mad. Maybe I should just leave. I don't think they really wanna help.” Gracie whined softly before she trotted off after her master. “And you probably don't even care.” The others were talking in the other room quietly, probably about how to get me home the quickest. I took the opportunity to slip out the front door. My walking improved with each step and by the time I was at the end of the street, I was able to keep a decent pace without stumbling on my bare feet.

The longer I walked the more I thought and the more I thought the more I wasn't sure where I wanted to go. The week with my sisters was fun and exciting, but my sisters were more about themselves. Then Zak and Nick and Aaron didn't seem to want me around, mostly Zak. It made me feel maybe I didn't belong on land or in the water.

~::~::~::~

“Dude,” Aaron said as they walked into Zak's study. “This is some messed up Twilight shit.”

“Shut up, ass,” Zak sighed.

“So, you made out with a drunk teenager, it happens to the best of us,” Nick said, trying to help his friend feel better about the situation.

“Um, I've never made out with a drunk teenager even when I was a teenager,” Aaron said.

“Shut up,” Nick and Zak said, making Aaron back off.

“So what do we do? You still wanna help her get home?” Nick asked as Gracie came in and laid at Zak's feet. “She doesn't seem like she's going to suddenly molest you in the middle the night. The kid seems pretty confused about a lot of stuff, so maybe she just needs to be sat down and told gently. I mean, she looks like she feels rotten about it.”

“Actually it looked like she was a bit heart broken,” Aaron said, his joking tone gone. “Vi might not be in love or anything, but to have someone whom you shared a moment with like that suddenly turn around and spur you. . . It sucks.” Zak stood there quietly as he pondered and thought. He'd over reacted once that day. With ghosts, it was so much easier to gauge things. The man was a warrior of the afterlife and here he was with a living breathing myth that he had just promised to not hurt and to help, making her feel like shit.

“Figure out some of the travel things, I'm going to go talk to her. I'm just going to sit with her and try my best not to be an ass about letting her down,” Zak said. “Like Aaron said, it sucks being rejected.”

“Alright, you smooth things over with Little Mermaid while me and Nick do all the kinda hard work,” Aaron said, giving Zak a thumbs up. Zak sighed and gave him a weary thumbs up before going back to the living room.

“Hey, Viola can I. . . Talk. . .” Zak fell short in his sentence when he didn't see the little mermaid with legs where she had been. “Viola?” He went to the back yard to see if she had gone outside, but no. The bathroom was empty and so were all his other rooms. “Shit,” he muttered going back to Nick and Aaron. “Viola's gone.”

“Gone? What? How?” Aaron asked, looking up from a laptop.

“I don't know, she has legs now so maybe she walked,” Zak snipped. “You don't think she just left?”

“Maybe, it wasn't like we were suddenly all best friends and she did say humans made her nervous,” Nick said.

“But she just left. . .” Zak frowned. “Aaron, send the picture to me and Nick. If she just left she couldn't be that far.”

“If we made her nervous by herself, what's the rest of the world going to do to her?” Aaron asked, sending the picture of a wide eyed Viola to Zak and Nick. Guilt tugged at Zak for being standoffish after promising to help her. He thought back to when he had first seen her. She was beautiful, long, smooth, but with an ethereal beauty; like she wasn't human. It made sense now, but she was just a kid and was stuck in a bad situation. Zak would be a dirt bag if he took advantage of her. He was twice her age for crying out loud! After he got the picture, he and the others started out walking around to see if any of the neighbors had seen her. If something happened to her, he wouldn't be able to get over the guilt.

“Call if one of you finds her,” Zak said, taking off down one direction of the street while Nick and Aaron went the other. “Come on Vi, just be around the corner,” he said to himself as he jogged, hoping to see her.