The Real Mermaid

~~~Two~~~

The next afternoon Nya left Liam to deal with their last few patients alone, and after a swift kiss and a promise to call him often during the following two days, she picked up her bag and rushed towards the bus that would take her through the city's pre-weeked, slow-moving, rain-clogged traffic to the train station.

She was surprised to find the train reaching its destination after what felt like a few minutes, rather than hours, even as she finished re-reading the Seaside Simian for the third time.

Grandma, smiling broadly, was waiting for her outside the small station. Her exclamations of happiness didn't allow Nya to absorb the surprisingly rain-free place, her pleasure of being back, the strange, irresistible pull of the sea which she could see spreading on the horizon under the setting sun. The endless expanse of shimmering water seemed to penetrate her body with each lungful of air she breathed, making her blood, her entire being hum with the nearly forgotten, otherworldly impatience and anticipation.

"I missed you. You changed. Grew up again," Grandma said, pulling Nya into an embrace, her fingers strolling up the side of her neck, to her ear... She doesn't know, does she? Nya wondered. She had never told her...

"Grandma!" She laughed to distract her, kissing one old, wrinkled cheek, then pulling away. "It was only a few weeks."

"It was nearly ten weeks, young lady."

"But I'm here now. And you know you can come to visit me whenever you want."

"What would I do in the city? You would not have time for me between your school and work... and your fiancé." The old woman chuckled. "Wasn't he supposed to come with you, by the way?"

"Doctor Wallace is not my fiancé," Nya said, frowning at her. Not yet. But she missed him, she realised, pulling the phone from her pocket, finding a text from him. 'Have you arrived yet? How was the journey?'

"Whatever you say." Grandma smiled, her eyes strolling to Nya's phone. "Let us go home."

'Home' was one of the impressive Victorian houses on the seafront, not far from the ancient Palace Pier. It took precisely two minutes to cross the road and reach the closest shingle beach from the front door. So, after a long talk and a dinner, Nya could not resist her urge to feel the sea-- which she could hear rushing to the shore then pulling away in a constant pace and rhythm even through the brick walls of the house-- on her skin.

She left Grandma watching an old movie and walked outside alone. She didn't have many friends here, despite having grown up in this place, Nya had never felt... like she belonged. Her feelings of alienation grew after her parents' death, and she always felt more... normal later, when she moved to the city, where she lived distant from the sea. As if leaving the shore somehow changed her, made her more similar to the people populating the world around her.

The weather had already changed since she had arrived, the sunny evening turning into the typical night of the late autumn. Cold wind blew from the dark sea as she walked along the beach, whipping her long hair around her face, tangling it with the cold streams of raindrops and saline water.

She was alone in the world. The beach and the pier-- its soaring, snow-white pillars and the elaborate Victorian railing silhouetted against the charcoal cloudscape resembling lace, rather than wood and iron-- were abandoned this late in the day, in the autumn.

That's how she preferred it, free of disturbance of the world of humans.

Looking around once to make sure no one would see her except for the few stubborn seagulls struggling against the darkness and the wind high in the sky, their cries ricocheting off the agitated water, she walked under the pier, shed most of her clothes on the beach, then stepped into the shallows.

She let her body recall the caress of the sea, the waves of the tide lapping at her thighs washing away the chill of the night. It had been a long time since she had stopped thinking how it was weird that she never felt cold in the water, that she could stay under the surface so much longer than any other human she knew. Smiling, Nya slipped into the waves, swam away from the shore, then dived, and once she reached the seabed, settled comfortably, trying to empty her mind, sending all interfering thoughts towards the distant surface on the string of air bubbles that escaped from her lips.

Now she was really at home, in this place void of people, teeming with other forms of life. Here, she neither felt alone nor alien. Never. She could feel... them... watching her.

This was the place where it had all started, where she had lost half of her heart to the sea-- the part which she couldn't give to Liam now, not until she properly understood what had happened to her on her fifteenth birthday.

Nya recalled how, still shaken by her parents' death, she had stayed under the water too long... and... he saved her. He brought her back to the beach, brought her back to life, and never left her until a passerby appeared nearby, hours later. Then, before anyone could see him, after one swift kiss, the... merman... was gone, taking a chunk of her heart with him. Ever since that day, Nya longed to find him.

How could she love Liam wholeheartedly when her heart wasn't whole? She needed to make sure what had happened back then, whom she had seen, before taking this relationship any further.

But even if she hadn't dreamed the merman up, if he really existed and she found him now, if he felt anything for her... could she find a way to live underwater? Years had passed since that day... would he even remember her?

Despite the theory she had memorized encouraging her crazy beliefs, there were still too many questions without matching answers confusing her mind. Liam was right, it seemed... impossible.

When she started to feel lightheaded from the lack of oxygen, Nya swam to the surface unwillingly. She needed to find a better way to do this. Sitting on the seabed for hours would not bring the merman to her.