The Coral Crown

Chapter eleven

Authors notes usually bug me, and I know a lot of people don't read them, so that's why I don't have many of them in my storie.

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The next morning, I got up and made breakfast. We ate in silence, and I knew I needed to loosen their fear.

"I went to see him," I said with a mouthful of fish.

They gasped and then, when I said that he wasn't going to tell, they both sighed, and I knew that they were going to go back to normal.

I looked at our sundial and saw that it was noon. I swam up to the beach to find him sitting with a sketchpad and a pencil in his hand.

"Hey," I said.

He looked at me quickly, he obviously didn't hear me swim up.

"Hey." he said, sighing with relief.

"So what do you want to know?" i asked him as i pulled myself up onto the sand.

"I was wondering if I-I could draw you w-while we talked," he asked, ready to be denied.

I thought about it and decided that it was fine. He wouldn't actually show anyone the drawing. And if he did, we could hide in plain sight.

"Sure, " I said, "But you'd better draw the tail first because i'm already starting to dry off."

He got to work, sketching my tail, and I just laid in the sand, soaking up the sun.

"Who were those other mermaids with you at the docks?" He asked suddenly.

"My sisters were the two smaller ones, and the others are our friends."

"Are there lots of you?"

"I don't know," I answered honestly.

"What about other mythical creatures?" he asked.

"Obviously," I gestured to my tail, "I am not mythical. and I don't know."

I started to think about things, and I thought about the men in the white room. They had experimented on me all my life, taking me out of school at lunch once a month. I started to cry, and I couldn't stop myself. He came over to me and just put his arm around me. I cried into his shoulder, and, as I did, I saw a familiar face popping up out of the water. I turned to get another look, but it was gone. I didn't care. I knew who It was. Maria.

I told him I had to go, but would come back tomorrow if he still wanted to talk. He nodded, and I dove back into the water. I swam down to Alexis' home to be yelled at for talking to a human. Not just talking to him, but letting him touch me, comfort me. I didn't have to be told that this was wrong. I knew. I didn't care if I wasn't supposed to do this, he was nice and I wasn't going to loose a friend just because my mom told me I had to.