I'm a Mermaid, Not a Merman

Chapter 22

Danny stayed down in his room. Mom brought dinner down to him. Then he went to bed.

And there he endured nightmares.

By the time he woke up the next day, he wasn't sure what exactly had happened in his dreams. Something like him being naked at school. Other people had dreams like this, and no one noticed. But in this, everyone noticed. They noticed his two opposing body parts.

Mom tried to talk to him that morning. She left after he refused to talk about anything but scheduling surgery to remove his man-boobs.

Sammy came later in the afternoon, Jason actually was with her, to ask if Danny wanted to go on a bike ride. The answer was a quiet no.

Unlike Sammy had in the past, she didn't laugh, then drag Danny out of bed anyway. No, Danny did not want to show more people his messed up self. They quietly left him.

The worst part of the day had been the evening, when a certain someone tried to call him. He sent a simply text in reply.

Go to hell.

After sending it Danny suddenly felt cold. Never had he said something just so... so vicious. But Liam had hurt him. Hurt him deeply.

In a way, Danny was mad at him for a different reason. A boy had stolen his first kiss. The thoughts of his first date were forever going to be soiled by the thought of it being a date with a guy.

There was always the possibility that Danny was gay. There was also the possibility, that Danny might not want a relationship at all. After some time, Danny needed someone to talk to, and so he turned to the internet. He talked with some people on discord. Relating to them what Liam had done to him.

They were trying quite hard to get Danny to go back to being Dani again - but most of their discussion was related to how angry they were at religious people. Some of them talked about how they'd once been religious, and then their pastor had given sermons on how evil LGBTQ people were. Others gave like stories, but it was just a single church member who'd just gone up and denounced them as wicked.

Was this what happened at Liam's church? Dani had a really, really hard time imagining how it could be so. Liam, Lucy, and their parents were such nice people. But that was when they'd thought that Danny was a normal girl. Now would they try to passive aggressively push Danny "back to the light?"

Danny supposed it was like how people thought the same thing about some serial killers or other terrible people: that person can't abuse me, they're nice, they're friendly, everyone likes them. And then they were abused. 

In a sense, Danny felt ashamed of one reason why he'd latched on to Liam. He seemed normal. It made Danny feel validated that two "normal" guys that weren't covered in tattoos or piercings, or something like that, liked tail - swimming. Danny felt a stab of guilt at that. He'd always felt uncomfortable around people with more radical choices in appearance. Was he really that much better than Liam? Was this everyone? If you got down to it, did everyone harbor some degree of intolerance towards other people?

No. Liam... Liam wasn't a bad person. He... wasn't vicious.

Danny let out a deep, growling cry of frustration. Why was he still even subconsciously defending him? Liam had hurt Danny so deeply, had reminded him of how twisted and messed up he was. Liam deserved no defending. It didn't matter that he put on a persona of being nice and friendly. He was rotten inside, and didn't really care about others.

He couldn't let Liam be in his life any longer. This all had to change, he had to commit to it. When school started again, Danny would do everything he could to avoid him. He blocked Liam's number in his phone. He left their group chat. He left all of the merpeople related servers. A person messaged him soon after, asking why he had left. He ignored them.

And as Danny began this clean up of all these horrible, feminine things in his life, he made the infuriating realization that he'd left the mermaid tail back at Liam's house - he couldn't chuck it in the trash can. 

Danny let out an enraged yell, and then after it, curled up into a ball on his bed. 

He just wanted it to be over. He just wanted it to be over.

*****

She had blocked him. That was that.

But there was still one other option. He had Sammy's number. Liam felt dread build up in him as he dialed, and then the other line picked up.

"Hey... Sammy," he said timidly.

"Hey," she said, an edge in her voice.

"Um-"

"So what exactly did you do to my sister?"

"Is she... okay?"

"I think the better question is, is he okay," Sammy said. "Ever since Danny came home, he's insisted on going back to identifying as a boy. I guess you got your wish."

"I... wish what? No, that's not what I wanted at all."

"Danny said, in anger, that you didn't want to date her anymore because your church said that trans people aren't a thing. Am I correct in that understanding?"

Liam groaned. He hated this characterization - that somehow, all religious people were just being brainwashed, and only did things because pastors or priests told them what to believe. Liam chose to follow his church of his own free will.

"I told her that I would not feel comfortable continuing our relationship because of my religious beliefs," Liam said as calm as he could muster. "I knew that it would be really painful to say, but it was the truth. I don't believe Danny is evil, or anything like that. She - he's, been one of my best friends. I... I really felt something being around Danny. I just... I feel really badly that it all turned out this way."

"Well, I am too," Sammy said. "Danny was so happy. When he decided that he was a girl, he was more happy than he'd been in over a year, and now... now he wants to get surgery on his chest. That's the only thing he says to our Mom when she checks on him."

"I'm... I'm really sorry to hear that," Liam said, "but I don't know what else to say. I tried to break this to her gently -"

"Him."

Liam sighed. "To him gently, but... I don't know. I'm not sure I could've said much else that would've made him feel better."

"You could've said, 'I love you no matter who you are'."

Liam shook his head. "But that would be dishonest... I want to be nice to trans and other lgbtq people, I really, really do. I think it is wrong to mistreat them. to insult them, to mock them for their own life choices... but I wouldn't feel comfortable continuing our relationship."

He heard a long drawn out sigh on the other line. "Look Liam, I get where you're coming from... but everyone in our family is just really on edge now. We're really concerned about Danny, and... we just don't know what's going to happen with him."

"I know this is really trivial," Liam said, "But... he... left his tail here the other night."

"I'm not sure he's interested in keeping it," Sammy said. "I don't think, at the very least, that he wants to see you again."

Liam sobbed slightly. "I... I know. I know. Is there just... anything I can do?"

"I think that you should just keep your distance," Sammy said. "I don't think he wants you involved in his life anymore."

Liam had really hoped beyond hope that he could somehow salvage this situation. But now, this confirmation of it - that he was being cut off... it made him feel awful. Like they viewed him as a criminal. But he just... he wished that he could do something. Something to help his once-girlfriend. Something to alleviate both of their pain.