capsize me and douse me in your bay

chapter eleven

With a fuzzy brain and the feeling of slender fingers scratching gently at her scalp, Toni started to come to. Slowly blinking her eyes open, she was immediately met with harsh white light glowing like a halo behind Cheryl, who was hovering over her with concern written all over her face.

"Are you all right, Toni?" her voice was soft and gentle as her fingertips continued their massage under her pink hair.

"Yeah...I had the craziest dream," Toni mumbled, reaching up to rub her forehead, "You had run away and I found you and brought you back, you had a-" she paused, glancing around at her surroundings. But the feeling of the cold bathroom tile beneath her and the look of guilt etched all over Cheryl's features made her stomach turn as she sat up slowly. "It wasn't a dream, was it?" she muttered, unsure if her dizziness was from her head hitting the floor or from the shock of discovering that Cheryl was a mermaid. A living, breathing, straight out of a fairytale, mermaid.

"It was not a dream," the redhead's voice was soft and full of shame as she ducked her head.

"So you're a...you're a...," she breathed out, struggling for air as her shoulders rose and fell. She couldn't even get the word to leave her mouth.

Mermaid! M-E-R-M-A-I-D! Mermaid! With a tail! Lives in the ocean! Mermaid!

"I am sorry, Toni, I did not want you to find out like this. I wanted to tell you-"

"When...were you planning on telling me, Cheryl?" The pink haired girl cut her off, her eyes casting down to the smooth pale legs that took the place of the iridescent tail that she saw not too long ago.

"I-I..." tears brimmed in her eyes as she tried to think of an answer, "I do not know. I was just supposed to return the locket-"

"That was my mother's locket! Why do you have it and where did you get it?!" her voice was raising with each word as she ignored the tears falling down Cheryl's flushed cheeks. Of all the things the redhead had done over the past week, this was the most unbelievable. And she'd done a lot of shit. "Wait...were you the one who...when I was six...was that you?"

The younger girl just nodded slowly, not meeting her eyes, "It was me."

"This is unbelievable," Toni placed a hand on her throbbing forehead, trying to wrap her mind around all of this. Not only was Cheryl a fucking mermaid, but she just so happened to be the same mermaid that Toni had convinced herself was just a hallucination. After years of uncertainty and being called crazy by her uncle, she had finally accepted that she was just an imaginative little kid who just swallowed too much sea water. And now here she was, sitting on her bathroom floor with the mermaid who saved her life. "This is a joke, right? This has to be a joke," Toni shook her head incredulously, "Look, I don't know what Jughead told you, but if this is some kind of cruel prank, it's not funny. And I'm gonna kick his ass next time I see him."

Cheryl wiped at her eyes with a pitiful sniffle, "Please, Toni, I do not want you to be upset. I did not want you to find out this way."

Scoffing, Toni got up from her spot on the floor, ignoring the dizziness and pain she felt in her head. "It's a little late for that, Cheryl! Do you really expect me to just sit here and be okay with this? I've been letting a fucking mermaid sleep in my apartment for the past week, and you think I can just shrug my shoulders and be okay with it?"

"Toni-" the flushed redhead stood up slowly, but Toni cut her off once more.

"No. I don't...I can't do this, right now, okay? I need to clear my head or something," she shook her head and left the bathroom.

"Wait, where are you going?" she heard the frantic voice and scurrying of feet on the hardwood behind her before her hand was taken firmly between Cheryl's.