My skin itched, the in-between of scale and flesh making it hard to wear anything too heavy or too tight. I rubbed my arms trying to relive the itch. I pulled at the collar of my shirt and squirmed. Mom glanced back her ebony hair framing cerulean blue eyes.
"We're almost there, sweetie." She reached a hand back and patted my knee.
My dad met my eyes in the review mirror, the warm brown of his eyes reminding me I am part human, I can live on land too. My gills ached as if to remind me I needed water, the translucent patches covering them running low as I sat in the car.
"I need to change my gill patches." I sighed peeling the old ones away, my gills, still not all the way opened and unwilling to close when they touched air.
Mom dug through the bag at her feet and handed them back to me. "Do you need help?" she asked as I handed the old ones to her.
"I can handle it," I grumbled peeling the cover off the fresh patches and placing the thin pouch to my aching gills. With the new pouches in place, I took a lung full of air, my gills opening a little more as they were submerged in water.
"First day of school Monday." My dad flicked a glance " Last semester of senior year, excited?"
"I was." I crossed my arms and sank back into my seat, it had been a pain to convince them to let me finish the first semester back home. Mom put her foot down on the second one, 'for my safety'... right.
My parents glanced at each other and sighed. It both was and wasn't their fault that I sprouted gills at the beginning of senior year. But it's also kind of their fault that they just had to pick each other. What kind of kid did they think a half mermaid half selkie and human would make? My body didn't even know what it wanted to be. My half-formed gills and eel-like skin seemed to mock me at that moment. A constant reminder that as human as I felt it was not all of me and the ocean loved to take back what was hers.