I'm a Mermaid, Not a Merman

13

Danny sat silently as Sammy brushed his hair. He tried to avoid looking straight ahead, so that he wouldn't have to look at his reflection, but then he'd see the things in front of him. Bottles of nail polish, the next thing he was going to have to face.

His feeling of everything being out of control had only continued the past few days. What he was about to do was example enough of that.

Sammy parted his hair in a certain way, and then pinned it in place with a hair clip.

"What do you think?" Sammy asked.

Danny finally looked fully into the mirror. A girl stared back at him. He struggled to maintain his composure, fighting tears with all his might.

"It's good Sammy," he said quietly, "thanks."

"What color of nail polish do you want?" she asked.

He pointed silently to an aqua blue color. She opened the bottle, and he laid out his hands for her to apply it to his nails, which she'd help him clean up.

"You know," she said, beginning to paint his nails, "you could learn how to do this yourself."

"I don't plan on ever doing this again," he said.

"Well," Sammy said, "I think that this color looks nice. It was a good choice."

Danny sat in silence. He didn't have much going on in his mind thankfully. No, there was just a dull, emptiness inside him. He'd lost a sense of who he was. He had no idea what mattered to him anymore. A sliver of his mind said that this all wasn't true, and that he was overexaggerating his problems.

That was probably true, but everything inside him felt twisted into knots. While he didn't feel like the world was ending, it felt like he had no idea where to go in life. Not "life" as in college, and a career, but "life" as in how to move forward in just his day to day actions.

He heard Sammy twist the cap on the nail polish. "There, I think that's just about everything. Are you ready to go in a half an hour?"

"No," Danny said in a shaky whisper.

Sammy sat down in a chair she'd brought into her room. "It's alright to be scared," she said in a tender voice. "Going on a date with a guy must be really difficult for you."

"It is," he said, "but you don't know the half of it."

"Well," Sammy said, "then tell me about the half I don't know."

Danny felt tears appearing. He held them back. Thankfully, he'd insisted on not much makeup, so crying wouldn't mess up much. However, he... he was just sick of crying all the time lately.

The opportunity was there. He could tell Sammy about what he was feeling. He could get the problem out of his head and examine it in reality. But he held it in.

Because he was afraid. Because he didn't want to be embarrassed. Because he didn't want his poor sister have to watch her brother collapse emotionally in front of her, and realize how bizarre he really was.

He sobbed there for a second. He was doing a really bad job of not crying.

"I think," Sammy said, "that you have a lot on your mind. And I think... that it would help you if you talked about it."

He wiped his eyes. She was now presenting the opportunity openly to him. The opportunity to do something about the horrible, wracking pain inside of him. But he couldn't do it... he... he was too much of a coward...

"I... I saw how much you liked that swimsuit the other day," Sammy said.

Danny sniffled. "Yeah. I guess. Whatever."