La Mer est Rouge [GxG]

Milo and I watched her

I found Milo in the break room. It was away from the underwater exhibit, so all I could hear was the TV as I approached.

The door was open, so I just casually walked in. Before I could even take a seat, I noticed that Milo was watching CNN.

There she was. Edina was on TV, talking about a mermaid that I owned. It should've been my dad, not my girlfriend, but the local news already got his take on the situation.

They interviewed him the day the rumor spread. We got probably three or four news channels to come over and do stories on the mermaid. One student from my school came to take notes for our school newspaper, which was weird. I knew him. He was the editor-in-chief, and he greeted me with a peace sign and a smile.

I have never been more uncomfortable.

Otherwise, the local news showed up on TV and blew up on social media.

"What the hell is she doing on CNN?" Milo asked, turning off the small flat-screen and turning around to face me.

He could barely fit in his chair, but he continued to sit patiently as he waited for me to explain myself. His chin scrunched up whenever he was suspicious and angry.

I sighed. "If you wanted to be on CNN, you could just walk out there."

He was about to say something, but I cut him off.

"Right, I forgot you hate moving and talking to people."

He chuckled a bit, but his face grew darker and more serious as the seconds passed by. His eyes lowered until I was sure he was staring at my shoes. Not the nicest shoes either.

"Tori, I just wanted to make sure you had everything under control. It's okay that your girlfriend is on TV. Frankly, I'm not even surprised, but I'm worried that you're not ready for this type of responsibility. The mermaid is a fucking mermaid! She's actually a mermaid! We have a real, live mermaid swimming around in our zoo, and she's the first in the whole world! Do you know how many people are going to try to steal her and cut her up and study her? You can't let anything happen to her. People are going to offer you lots of money, but you can't say anything until your pa comes home, aight?"

I rolled my eyes. His dad-like speeches always made me roll my eyes, but I knew he meant well.

I said, "I know, I know. I'm still the baby of the family, but that doesn't mean I can't take care of myself or a fish."

"She's not just a fish," he said, smirking. "We both know you have a crush on her."

"Jesus Christ, you too? Is everyone attracted to her? She's a fish!"

He chuckled yet again. It was such a classic Milo laugh. They all start with a loud boom and die down with sizzles.

"For the record, I'm not attracted to her. We both know she's not my taste. I like bright, happy looking girls. That mermaid is the color of blood, dude," he said.

I laughed, crossing my arms and hanging my head low to hide my blush. It wasn't easy to see my blush because I'm half Native, but my skin still turned a tad red.

He had a point, but I thought Mer was pretty hot.

UGH! See what happens when you let me think?

He asked, "Hey, how about we go to the security office and watch her?"

I almost said her name. Her not-official name.

Instead, I just nodded with a sideways smile. He noticed the oddity, but he stood up and left without saying anything about it. I followed behind him like a puppy and stayed right at his heels until we made it to the security booth near the front entrance of the zoo.

Once Milo unlocked the door, we were in. The room was small and enclosed with dark gray walls and no windows, aside from the one on the door. It was dark, and the main source of light was from the huge monitor that had dozens of tiny squares of footage on it.

The cameras mostly showed empty hallways, but a couple showed angles of people crowding around the mermaid tank.

"There they are, the leeches! I can't believe they're treating her like an animal," he said.

I looked over with a raised eyebrow. "She is an animal, though."

"Tell me, does she really look like an animal to you? Look at her eyes. She's scared and uncomfortable. She understands what situation she's in, and she knows she's in captivity. See the way she's swimming quickly? That's not exercise. She's so anxious," he replied.

I watched Mer carefully. Adults in suits with big cameras snapped pictures of her. If she really was conscious of her situation, she would be beyond terrified.

Milo noticed Edina still blabbing to the press and pointed his pudgy finger at her on the screen. "There she is! What a trooper! She loves her limelight, doesn't she?"

I laughed, feeling my heart sink into my ass when he mentioned her. I didn't want to talk about her when a mermaid was swimming around in our zoo! "She'd be a good journalist or something."

"You'd be a good journalist. Maybe you could be a journalist that writes about zoology and animals! Maybe you could even do some extensive research on your mermaid crush and publish your findings!"

Milo always got nerdy about journalism and his animals.

"Do you think she can talk or understand us?"

He turned his head to look at my eyes. I had the darkest eyes on the planet, but Milo always said they were brighter than a thousand suns.

"I think she's smart. She clearly has similar anatomy to us, but it's hard to tell if she's capable of human speech." He watched her swim around and zoomed in close to her pool with one of the cameras. He pointed at her again, this time at her face and neck. "Look at her head shape and how it affects her gills. Her facial structure is sharp or curvy in certain places to improve her hydrodynamics. Notice her nose? I think she can breathe air, but her skin and scales get too dry too quickly."

I watched him carefully while he spoke. His lips always poked out and pursed at funny moments, and I couldn't help but smile around him. He was such a cutie.

"You haven't been with her for more than an hour, and you can already make hypotheses?"

He laughed and sat down in the operating chair. "You could make that conclusion if you really tried. What do you think about her lower body?"

I thought for a moment.

In all honesty, I had no idea what bones she was hiding down there, but I assumed it was similar to a fish's anatomy. Her spine probably continued all the way down, probably giving her a flexible, yet weak spine in general. Or perhaps her backbone ended at her hips and another spine continued down through her tail. Still, I was too unsure to answer.

"Milo, you can't expect me to make a scientific discovery on the spot!"

"Why not? You're an intelligent human being! You know, in college, they teach you how to guess. Guessing is like one of my best skills these days. That's all science is. It's guess and check," he said.

I remembered learning 'guess and check' in math.

I sat on the table, right beside the huge monitor. "If I had to guess, I'd also say that she's smart. The way she looked at me when I gave her food was pretty weird. It's almost like she was trying to read me."

"You should start talking to her and get close," he suggested. "She'll be able to read your kindness."

If only he knew that I already found her a name.

"Just so I can take advantage of her and write articles about her anatomy?"

He shook his head.

"She needs a friend, Tori," he said. "She needs you."