(First Uploaded: 2014 Dates updated: January or February 2018 ; October; Jan. 13, 2020; June 27,2021; January 18, 2024)
The second Kylie gets home, she closes the door and yells. "Dad? Kyle?" Waiting for a response, she stands at the front door and locks it. She lets out a sigh of relief from the silence and sprints upstairs taking them two at a time. She trips at the last step. And continues to her room. She shuts the door and throws her backpack next to her bed and she face plants on her bed. Laying there she screams into her bedspread frustrated. She rolls over on her back and stares up at her ceiling. "What is going to happen to me?" She questions herself and God. She lays there silently wondering what tried to drown her and how'd she grow a tail. She could have sworn she saw a mermaid when she was being pulled under. Except the mermaid had gills on her neck and her skin was grey. But maybe she just didn't have enough oxygen and she was hallucinating. With everything that has happened in the past hour, she doesn't know what to believe.
She couldn't decide if she was more annoyed by the fact, that she had another secret to keep, or that it took forever to dry off and her clothes ended up in the water when she did dry off. She also couldn't stand the fact that she had to drive the boat to the dock and walk home passing multiple whistlers. The teenage boys sure liked her in a bikini. It made her feel queasy and nervous. She wanted to hide behind a rock. Especially when one of the gawkers was Finn. He wasn't whistling, but he was staring at her. She nodded quickly and shyly looked away. She saw him out of her peripheral vision, smiling and she thought she heard him whistle too as she was walking past him. But she couldn't be sure of that. All the surfing lessons with Finn, she always wore a one-piece bathing suit with shorts.
She sits up and looks down at the scar on her left leg tracing it. She runs her finger from her upper thigh to barely above her knee. Finn must have not seen it, because he still smiled at her. That scar has been a big reminder of one of the nights Jacob got out of hand. One of the many reasons she's been thinking over their relationship. Finn always questioned her when she wore the shorts for their surfing lessons. She always told him it was because she didn't feel comfortable in front of big crowds in her bathing suit.
Being a mermaid is going to be the biggest secret in the world to keep. Something like a secret pop star like Hannah Montana is even easier. With that, you have to be sure to not take the wig off near or in front of fans or the press. Which is something she's used to doing. Being a creature who sprouts a tail when she gets wet is something much bigger and more dangerous. If someone finds out, she could be a science project or killed! And this means she has to stop swimming and probably stop fishing with her dad and brother. Living in a country with practically all the activities in the water and being surrounded by water is a problem. Not to mention she'll have to sneak around her dad and go back to Moanie Island to find out more answers. So many lies, and so little space inside her heart to tell them.
With all the pent-up frustration she tugs at her hair. Not realizing it, she tugged out a small chunk of knotted blonde hair. She stares at the hair in her hand. She can't the stress anymore, she needs to call Lexie. She's always helped her calm down and rationalize things and she needs to update her on her new life in Australia anyway. She reaches down and grabs her phone out of her backpack and dials Lexie's number. It rings several times. She leaves her a message. She looks at the time and tries to figure out what time it is in West Virginia. She looks at the World Clock App on her phone and it's almost 12am in West Virginia. She stays up late when they don't have school.
Then she realizes West Virginia is 16 hours behind. Kylie doesn't have school because of the different schooling systems in Australia. The new school year hasn't started yet. Australians start the new school year in late January or early February. And they have about 3, 2 week holidays in between late January and mid-December. So she's technically not a Sophomore yet and Lexie is. Lexie finishes the school year in early June and Kylie finishes in mid-December and goes on break until the mid to end of January of the following year which is when she'll go on into her Junior year.
Kylie tries to call Lexie again and this time she leaves a message. Kylie tells Lexie about Nicholas's new friends and his Soccer team and her new classes. She wishes she could tell her more, but she's not telling her about the mermaid stuff over voicemail. She pauses and is cut off by the beep. Kylie sits on her bed staring at her closed door wishing she had someone to talk to. The only two people whom she can tell anything are in a different time zone and are asleep.
The only other person whom she ever really felt comfortable spilling her guts to isn't her best friend or her boyfriend. He'd think she was crazy anyway if she told him about the mermaid stuff. When she talked to Finn earlier, the way he talked about his aunt; she got a vibe that he hates mermaids because he believes they ruined his aunt. Who claims to be a mermaid? Well from Kylie's most recent development. Real mermaids do. Maybe Finn is wrong, maybe his aunt wasn't brainwashed into the entire "Mermaid" fantasy. Maybe she was telling the truth. How could she ever tell him? What would he think? It doesn't matter, they aren't together, it's not her responsibility to tell him everything. Her thoughts are getting out of hand! She needs to socialize. The silence is worse than Lexie going on about doing it with some boy. Something which Kylie usually just tunes out, she hates it when girls at school talk about their intimate lives like it's open for everyone to hear. She rolls her eyes and grunts.