Love On the Water

Chapter Three

The sun was barely rising when I woke up the next morning, out of habit I looked at my phone on the table beside my bed and saw a message from my mom. I picked up my phone and drew the unlock pattern across the screen and went down to my messages knowing it would just be pictures of my parents on the dang cruise without me. I was right, all the message had was a three sentence text and like twenty different pictures of my parents doing random activities on the cruise.

Setting my phone back on the table I got up and quietly walked up onto the deck. I pulled out a big black inner tube and tied it to the boat with a long coil of rope. Tossing the float in the water near the water I quickly fell back into it in a sitting position and let the momentum push me away from the boat. It seems I just live in my swimsuit now, with nothing else to do all I really for is swim, well that and go crazy by seeing some weird chick in the water that couldn't have been there.

Maybe I really was starting to go crazy out here, but according to my parents I needed to get far away from all electronics possible. Closing my eyes and bobbing up and down softly on small waves as the sun's morning rays shone down on my face, then I started feeling something moving beneath me. Looking down in the water in the early morning sun I once again saw the silhouette of the same creature that I had followed through the water to no avail just days before.

This time I stayed calm and didn't dive from the tube and chase the creature down deep into the waters like I had done before. Instead I pulled myself back to the boat and climbed up the ladder. I ran down the steps as silently as possible and grabbed a glass of sweet tea and went back on deck. I fell back on the inner tube and drifted out into the water sipping on the sweet tea. I saw the silhouette dart past me again as I floated and I relaxed back into the inner tube. I felt the currents change as the creature swam in circles beneath me and caused me to drift in slow circles. Whatever this thing was I knew it wouldn't hurt me, because if it had wanted me hurt it would have hurt me already, right?

I laid there just floating in the water until my aunt called me back in for breakfast. Pulling myself back to the boat with the rope I pulled myself and the inner tube up on to the deck of the boat and storing it back in the little closet thing on deck.

After we had eaten I went back up the stairs to the deck and dove down into the warm waters. No, I wasn't going to chase the creature, but I was going to find out what it was. I knew the creature was still around because before I had dove into the water I saw the silhouette making slow lazy circles around the boat.

Diving under the water I came face-to-face with the most beautiful girl I had ever seen, only it wasn't a normal girl. This girl had a fish tail. Ok, let me put it this way, I'm a guy. Never in my life would I have actually believed that mermaids actually existed. At least until that moment I didn't anyway.

All the air I had in my lungs whooshed out of me in a gasp and I clawed my way to the surface. When I was back on top of the water I gasped for air as the girl slowly surfaced in front of me. Her vibrant red hair framed her face in wild waves that were somehow completely dry. We had surfaced behind the boat so unless my aunt looked really hard she'd never see us.

Her sapphire eyes stared at me and searched my face as I pulled myself onto the small platform attached the boat to act as a seat. I stared at her as she brushed back the waves in her hair from her face. Looking up and down at her I saw her breasts were hidden by two sea seashells bound to her chest by what looked like thin strands of what I assumed to be kelp. Her hair hung long, at least to the middle of her back, and was the most vibrant red I had ever seen in my life.

"What are you?" I asked not even knowing if she could understand me.

"I believe you know very well what I am Troy Granger. " She replied her voice soft and melodic.

"H-how do you know my name?! " I asked as she swam closer to me.

"I have been watching you, Troy, I know you better than you might think. " She replied.

Ok, now that was a little creepy. She had been watching me! I had only seen her once before and I still wasn't exactly sure as to if she was real right then. I mean I could have been hallucinating from lack of oxygen from trying to stay under so long. I saw her look down at the water then start swimming away from me.

"Wait! You'll be back right? I mean I still don't know your name. "

"I will return sooner then you think, Troy, and my name is Nixie. " She said then she vanished into the water.