I'm a Mermaid, Not a Merman

26

Cindy walked along the sidewalk, walking so that she'd put her right foot into the concrete squares on her right, and her left foot likewise on the other side, careful not to walk on the cracks, but still keep pace with her friends.

Today, Cindy was wearing nice, close fitting shorts, and a shirt that said "Always be yourself - unless you can be a mermaid, than always be a mermaid."

She'd gotten it when her, Sammy, and Mom had first gone shopping for her new clothes last month. It had been so awesome. Cindy could finally point out all the things that she wanted to wear, and Cindy could tell that Mom and Sammy really enjoyed it.

Nearly all of Cindy's old clothes were either passed to Jason, or given to Goodwill. It was a little thing, but as she slowly made her room more girly, it removed dysphoria she hadn't known she had.

Now August, her family had gotten used to calling her Cindy, and though she noticed that, while accepting, they were a bit unsteady about things at first, that had gotten much better. Cindy was more cheerful than she'd ever been, and it seemed like it rubbed off on the rest of her family.

"What are you doing?" Liam laughed as he walked with her, holding her hand.

"Dunno," she said, "just gotta make sure that my feet land on every square."

Liam laughed, and Cindy heard some chuckling from Sammy who was walking in front of them.

It was a nice, relatively cool August day, and their group of friends were at a little chalk art festival in town. Since she'd come out, Cindy had started going along with her friends to non-swimming activities, now that she felt more comfortable presenting as a girl in public.

They'd just gotten done eating lunch, where there'd been a bunch of food trucks parked outside the local library. It felt so odd to Cindy. Before this summer, she'd never just... done stuff like this. She still enjoyed the usual stuff she'd done by herself for fun, but it felt really thrilling to be more active and get out of the house.

They got to where the chalk art was being drawn, and gawked at the really cool drawings. There was a wide variety. Some where it looked as if the person had to have been painting, they saw some video game themed ones that emulated an 8-bit style. There were a few that were meant to be funny.

Walking around a fountain, Liam pulled on Cindy's hand, pointing to one of the drawings. It was a mermaid, surrounded with a bunch of abstract, flowery shapes.

"Woah," Cindy said, "that's so cool!"

Liam laughed. "There's merfolk all over the place if you look hard enough."

"My theory," Matt laughed from behind them, "is that you two are so crazy about them that you're starting to imagine that there's merpeople everywhere."

"Legit," Liam said, "if you just look, you can see merfolk everywhere. Playing cards, heraldry, they're a common artistic element. That fountain for example."

Matt turned towards the fountain, and bent down to examine the pattern in the metal.

"Oh, yeah," Matt said, "I... I see it."

Liam glanced to Cindy, both of them barely able to hold in their laughter.

"What in the world are you looking at?" Heather asked Matt.

"Don't you see the mermaid pattern on the fountain?" Matt asked her.

She shook her head. "We've really done a number on you, haven't we?"

Liam and Cindy burst out laughing, and Matt turned around with a pouting grin. "You guys take advantage of my gullibility far too often."

"It's only cause we know you're a good sport about it," Cindy smiled.