Sean's dad glanced between the two of us , Sean's hand still gripped my wrist.
"Well Sean," his dad's eyes fell on our hands. "Introduce me to your friend."
Sean's shoulders curled forward. "This is my friend Dakota." He swallowed and looked to me. "Dakota, this is my dad. Brian."
I stepped forward and offered my free hand. Sean still clung to the other one. "Nice to meet you." Brian gripped my hand, squeezing harder than necessary.
"Pleasure's all mine." He looked me up and down. "You a boy or a girl?"
"My pronouns are they/them." I didn't drop his eyes, but his non-existent patience was already waning.
"I didn't ask that?" His fingers pressed into my hand. You got a pole or a hole."
His wording curdled my stomach. Why did it even matter and for all he knew I was a minor. Not that a fifty-year-old man saying that to an eighteen year old was any better. "I've told you what you need to know about me already." I drew myself up, he wasn't tall, only a few inches taller than me. Maybe five foot ten.
"Dad." Sean's voice was quieter than I thought possible for him. "It doesn't matter, their name is Dakota, alright.?"
Brian barely looked at his son, instead holding onto my gaze. "Come on, kid. I just want to know if I was right about my son?"
"Right about what?" I glanced back at Sean, pulling on my hand my nerves fizzling at the potential threat in front of me, but Sean gripped my hand tighter as if he needed the support.
"My son likes boys huh?" Brian dropped my hand and snatched me forward by my collar. "You gonna tell or am I gonna have to take a look for myself. He grabbed the bottom of my shirt. I grabbed his hand.
"Dad."
I gripped his wrist in my hands, digging my thumb into his bone to loosen his grip.
"Get off." I ordered trying to keep myself calm, trying to keep everything from escalating anymore.
He chuckled and looked down at my hand on his holding my shirt down to keep him from the satisfaction of knowing what I was born with just because he felt he had the right to know more than what he could address me as.
"Dad." Sean finally moved and stood beside me. "Please, they've got to go."
"What are they, Sean?" He asked. "You had 'em pinned down, you must have felt something."
Sean's face went red.
Brian's hand jerked up breaking my grip for half a second before I caught him again.
"Get off." I pushed against him, but he held tight trying to yank my shirt up. "Let go." I planted my feet, but I was already being pushed back and Sean was still holding my hand. "Brian, I'm going to break your wrist if you don't take your hands off me now."
"Come on, Dakota. Just tell me." He pulled on my shirt again. "Is my son gay?" He gave a hard yank and I plowed forward but he had height and weight on me. Fear prickled up my spine. Sean frozen beside me, helpless against a man he had been stuck with, and knowing his mom chose to leave Sean alone with him made me hate her. I met Sean's eyes and he seemed to reanimate, anger clouding his eyes as he pressed between his dad and me. "They said get off." he shoved his dad away. "Get off them." Sean stepped between us my shirt hung looser than before.
Brian laughed. "Sean's a big boy now huh?" He glanced behind him to me. "Maybe he likes girls after all. You a little girl. That why you didn't want me seeing the goods."
My hands shook, pain stabbing into my lower abdomen. "You're shit father." I stalked passed Sean and slammed my palms against Brian's chest. He staggered back and hit the wall. "This is how you treat your son?" I yelled shoving him again. "No wonder your wife left you."
His eyes darkened, all humor leaving his face as he tried to climb back to his feet "you got a big mouth on you." his eyes dropped to my chest. "You must be a little girl."
I wouldn't bite. I grabbed Sean's hand and pulled him beside me. "You follow and my mom will sing you into a watery grave." The threat felt too natural, as if I had said it before or at least had somehow known. But she always could convince anyone of anything. I didn't wait to see his reaction. I dragged Sean beside me down the driveway and back onto the path that had lead us there. We walked in silence for a few moments before Sean seemed to shake himself.
"Hey, I'm sorry about that, my dad's been saying I was gay since I was like five and... I'm sorry you were the one–"
"He doesn't get to treat you like that." I snapped. "That's your dad, he's supposed to help you, be there for you." anger seared through my veins and walking away suddenlt felt like a less appealing idea. I didn't know the laws on self-defense here or what was considered child abuse. I was only here because it had people like me hidden in a little pocket. Did anyone even watch the town? Any kind of Sheriff or protective service? "Has he always been like that."
Sean shrugged. "There's a reason my mom took to the ocean the second she got a chance, but he was worst to her." he choked on a laugh.
"I don't care if he was worse to her. She never should have left you with him." I dragged him behind me toward my house but the thought of having to explain everything to my parents and watch them get angry over it on both my and Sean's behalf made me cringe. If mom had any siren abilities, she'd probably kill him and dad didn't like to fight but if he heard what Brian was trying to do, he'd flip out. I didn't want to deal with it right now and Sean didn't need to deal with it. The ocean would make us both feel better.
Sean didn't even want to get in the water but he did roll up his pants and sit close enough that the ocean lapped over his feet. I sat beside him ignoring the pull of the water every time it grazed over my toes and watched Sean watch the ocean.
"I'm sorry." he said for the fifteenth time.
"It's not your fault." I leaned my shoulder against his trying to offer comfort, but he wasn't Emory and maybe touching him was making it worse but if I pulled away maybe that would be even worse than touching him in the first place. After a second, he rested against me, his lip quivered but if he wanted me to see him cry he would have already let it out.
"I hate it here." A tear slid down his cheek.
"It's almost over." The words felt inadequate. What did I know about his situation? My mom and dad had always been there for me and I'd had Emory since middle school. As much as I wanted to be angry about what was happening to me at that moment, I was never alone.
He shook his head. "I don't want to leave the ocean. This is where my brother and mom are. When it gets warmer, they'll come back. She always comes around mothers' day, we spend it on the beach." his shoulders tremble and I wrap an arm around him. "But there's nothing out here. No place to work unless you've already got a degree but I don't want to go to college. There's nothing I want to do. I always thought–" he hiccuped, and crossed his arms grabbing his biceps, squeezing them so hard his knuckles turned white. "There was no reality where I wouldn't end up in the water and now..." he held his hand up. "This stupid webbing is the closest I got."
I squeezed him to my side wishing I could just give him my gills because at least with the gills he could be in the water, even without a skin, if I could just give him everything that was happening to me, I would.
"Land sucks," he spat the words through his teeth.
"Yeah." I didn't have anything to argue with him. Being sentenced to land for him was probably worse than being stuck in the water for me. No matter where I ended up, I still had my family, still had Emory and Bay too. I wasn't alone. The rumors of Sean felt even more cruel now. He was constantly alone on land, at least in the ocean he was free.
"Please don't tell anyone," Sean whispered
"I won't." I wrapped my other arm around him and let him rest against me until he fell to sleep. At least at the moment I could off some kind of safety, a little bit of comfort. I could give him that much.
Sean's dad is my least favorite character in this story. *deep sigh*