CHAPTER 50
“Kallias, you have some explaining to do,” she muttered as she returned to the dock for their nightly cuddling. “Show yourself! Don’t you dare hide from me.”
His head peeked out of the water, just his eyes like he had that first day she had met him.
“You might as well come out all the way,” she said.
He was sighing even before he was above the water. “I’m sorry,” he said just as she was saying, “What were you even thinking?”
They both stared at each other, his eyes almost begging to be forgiven, hers narrowed and unforgiving.
“I can’t imagine what you were thinking,” she said. “What? Just because I told you I was worried what humans would do but didn’t tell you specifics, that wasn’t enough for you? I can tell specifics!” She said it but she didn’t mean it. There were things he didn’t need to know.
And maybe it was because of that momentary pause in thought, but it was only then that she truly looked at him. His face was puckered in shame and regret; it was an expression that suggested his own inner thoughts towards himself were even harsher than her words.
She sighed. What was she even doing yelling at him like that? She hated her tone, hated the look of shame she had made him have, hated the words.
“I’m sorry,” she said, beating him to it as she leapt into the water.
He gasped and then swam to meet her.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated, putting her arms over his shoulders as he put his hands on the side of her waist and here and there pumped his tail to keep them afloat, a position so practiced at this point it was like clockwork. “I’m sorry,” she murmured once more, leaning her forehead on his shoulder.
“Why are you apologizing?” he softly asked. “I’m the one that messed up. I had heard him before and I just wanted to see him. I wanted to know who had asked you such a thing, what he looked like. I know. It was stupid. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I should’ve listened.”
“Luckily, he didn’t see,” she mumbled back. “I’m sorry for talking to you that way. That’s why I’m sorry. I think…I’m scared. Really scared. I don’t think Mr. Wilson is the type to do anything to you, but if he told someone…”
She didn’t even want to say it and she couldn’t predict how Mr. Wilson would act if he saw a mermaid for himself. Would he want to keep it quiet for similar reasons as her own—he was a kind man after all—or would he want to prove to the world that his mother was right?
“Why? What do you think would happen?”
“Kallias,” she practically moaned, but it wasn’t like he was a child she had to protect.
“Frankly, I don’t know. I suppose it depends on who it was.
I could see some treating you as a delicacy.
I could see some hunting mermaids down for something outlandish like saying your very existence is against nature or that it’s witchcraft or something.
I could see men of science wanting to capture or kill you to study you.
But they might do all sorts of things first. The researcher who stayed here said he sometimes studied live specimens.
He said…he said he liked to cut into living creatures to see how the organs were working underneath.
I don’t know. I doubt it was necessary. Other people, hmm, I know people keep zoos too for exotic pets.
I could imagine schools wanting you too or people who—” She stopped.
She couldn’t say it, but she imagined some would keep a mermaid just to force them to do something sexual.
Locked in a tank, it would be very hard to get away, and she could imagine Kallias now, stuck to do another’s will.
“Don’t make me say any more. I imagine you in each and it’s too painful. ”
His hands moved so his arms hugged her waist and they tightened around her.
He said nothing, and she didn’t know what he could possibly be thinking.
Part of her wished she never had told him—she really didn’t want him thinking poorly of humans—and part of her wished she had told him sooner so he could have known why she didn’t want Mr. Wilson to see him.
After a long time, he said, “Are you sure? Are you sure they might not just leave us alone?”
“That’s the one thing I’m sure they would never do.”
And he held her tighter.