I'm a Mermaid, Not a Merman

Chapter 4

It had been a long while since Danny had been to a party - and he couldn't remember the last time he'd been to a pool party. There were as many as dozens of people their age swimming, chasing each other with various water weapons, and eating by the side of the pool. He realized that they'd arrived late, and most people seemed to have already eaten.

"Sammy!" Xander ran up to them, his hair plastered down his forehead from being in the water war. "There's still plenty to eat, just ask my parents to get you a hot dog or hamburger."

"Thanks," Sammy said, "Sorry that we're late."

"Oh it's no trouble."

"I wanted you to start the water war without me," Sammy said. "To weaken my enemy."

Xander adopted a wicked grin. "A mountain is not weathered easily by the howling wind."

"And mountains don't do so well when they get hit by an asteroid," Sammy said.

"Oh c'mon," Xander said, "it's more fun when you have a more serious metaphor."

"Only a foolish warrior plays by their enemy's games," Sammy replied.

Xander laughed. "I suppose so."

He glanced to Danny standing in the grass as if he was rooted there. "Hey Danny."

"Hey Xander," Danny said, with little effort to appear cheerful.

"Hey dude," Xander said, trying, and only barely succeeding, in getting Danny to fist bump him.

Danny got some food, and sat off alone. Having a burger put him in a better mood. At least no one was staring at him. It felt like he was in a dream where he was naked and no one in the dream seemed to notice.

Eventually however, he got full from eating. And he was bored. Sighing, he adjusted the swimsuit, put his towel and shirt on a pool chair, tied his hair back, and got into the pool. He avoided the cliques of people floating around, and practiced his dolphin kick - the signature move needed for tail-swimming.

It was pretty pathetic. He'd not been swimming in a long time, and he was trying to swim based off of videos he'd watched. It was really hard to feel like he was moving forward, and more that he was kind of just wiggling in the water. Maybe it would be easier with the monofin.

Gosh I wish I could just try it here, he thought.

But they would all shirk back, weirded out by his very unorthodox interest. He wasn't even sure if he could get away with swimming with only the monofin in public. Most people didn't swim with monofins, or even more traditional bi-fins in public. Then there was always the chance of someone recognizing the brand Fin Fun, and wondering why he was using a mermaid fin.

His work on his swimming continued. He practiced kicking up harder with his legs, and finally felt like he was making some improvements. When he resurfaced after one go up and down the pool, he found that a group of people across from him were staring.

"Training for the olympics?" a guy laughed.

"Yeah," another guy said, "I mean if you wanna exercise at a party... you can do that, but..."

Great. Danny had managed to be weird, even without thinking about it. This was why he hated people. He hated having to think about dumb social ettiquette like that.

"Come on over and talk," one of the girls in the group urged.

Tired from swimming, Danny complied, going to their side of the pool and grabbing onto the wall.

"You're not half bad at that," one of the guys said.

"I'm alright," Danny said, "I've wanted to get better at swimming, and I haven't done it in a while."

"Well for someone who doesn't swim a whole lot you do it pretty well," the guy said.

"Anyone seems like an athlete compared to you Tyler," one of the girls laughed.

"My swimming gets the job done," Tyler laughed, "even if it might not look pretty."

"Well I hope you're functional with your swimming," one of the girls said, "especially if you wanna go tubing with us."

"Have you done tubing before..." Tyler trailed off.

"Danny."

"Ah, Danny, cool. Have you ever gone tubing?"

"No," Danny said, "some of us don't have boats."

The girl that had talked earlier had a flash of discomfort on her face. Again. Danny had said something stupid. Again. Maybe he could just duck his head underwater and swim off. 

"Well it's really fun," Tyler said. "Once when Nina had a bunch of us go tubing with her family, we jumped from one tube to the other, and it launched the person on that tube up in the air, and they somehow landed right back on the tube."

"I call bs on that," one of the guys said, "there's no way that'd work."

"Okay then," Tyler said, "we'll have to make a science experiment out of it."

"Ugh," one of the girls said, "you ain't launching me up into the air. Find someone else to be your guinea pig."

"You wanna come tubing with us?" Tyler asked.

Danny lit up. "Wait, really?"

Someone wanted him to hang out with them? Why? Were there people in the world that actually thought he wasn't too socially incompetent to tolerate?

"Yeah," Tyler said, "Nina has a guy she's dating over there, pelting Xander with water balloons, we could make it a double date."

The June heat suddenly seemed as cold as deep space. Danny gripped tighter onto the side of the pool, trying to get some hold of himself, but he was just trembling in shock.

"Um," Tyler asked, "is there something wrong?"

"I... I... uh... uh," Danny stuttered, "sorry... but no."

Tyler's face became downcast. Then very dejected.

"Oh, I'm... I'm sorry. I didn't mean to come across so... I dunno. Forget it."

Now Danny felt worse. What was going through Tyler's mind at that moment? What could Danny say as any means of comfort?

Unfortunately, Danny said the only thing that was on his mind.

"I'm a boy."

Everyone appeared surprised, then quickly tried to mask it. 

"Oh... uh," Tyler said, "well, this is awkward. Sorry dude. I... I really am."

"Whatever," Danny said. Now he slipped beneath the water and swam away.

That... that was appallingly bad. It was the reason why he hated talking to people. A guy had asked him out. And Danny's attempt to patch up the situation only made things more crappy. What if Danny had misunderstood the situation, and Tyler was gay? No, more likely Danny had just made Tyler feel crappy, being rejected - and then made it worse by making them all feel dumb. Gosh maybe they thought Danny was a trans boy.

Before Danny got out of the pool he slammed a fist against the pool wall while underwater. He hated his stupid body. He hated that he couldn't be himself. He hated this rock and a hard place he was trapped between. Too embarrassed to show his bizarre real self, and too much of a freak to pretend to be normal. Even if his body was normal, he had the social understanding of an alien trying to be human. It made him wonder, as he had in the past, if he was on the autism spectrum.

No one bothered him for the rest of the party. With the cruelness of irony though, he wished that someone would've. He wished someone would've hugged him and told him it would be alright. But he knew that even if someone had done that, Danny would've rebuffed them.

For just as much as he was trapped in his body, he was trapped in his mind. His stupid, depressing, self-centered mind.