Ocean Blue | gxg ✓

chapter eight

alyssa

Pools. I hate pools.

I feel like I probably hate way too many things, but whatever—pools? Pools suck. One time, when we were about four, our mom took us to the local swimming pool. We had just moved to Minnesota, and for the time being, we were just focused on embracing the humidity and suddenly-necessary sunblock.

Mom was swinging me around in the water, the two of us laughing and breathing in the strong smell of sunblock and chlorine. She set me down after what could have been seconds or days and moved to pick up Tanner, who held out his hands and announced that a mouse had swam over to him.

My mother shrieked and batted the Michael Phelps of mice out of my brother's hands, because of course it wasn't actually the Michael Phelps of mice, but instead a gloriously hard turd.

The gloriously hard turd whacked my shoulder. Which was fantastic for four-year-old me, who was so sensitive to literally everything that I started sobbing, whilst Tanner began to cry about the loss of Michael Phelps mouse/turd.

We were rushed home without warning—not because of the turd (we didn't even tell anyone about the turd we found, actually; I like to think it floated past the deep end and into the sunset), but instead because my mom felt the first tail attack she'd had in years coming on.

Everything went downhill from there.

So, yes. I don't like pools. Which should be fine. But, of course, in this small town of practically-none, the only job available to me was here. At the pool. With pool things. Like turds.

Dad and Tanner are insistent that I "move on" or whatever. Like, the second we're on the run from Woodbury, I'm supposed to act like nothing happened. Everything is fine, Alyssa. You didn't uproot our lives at allll, Alyssa.

At least I'm not a lifeguard, I guess. I'm an ironically weak swimmer, considering my whole scaly situation, and I'm so pale that if I don't leave the house covered in one bottle of sunscreen and dressed like a vampire Helena Bonham Carter, I will burn. To a crisp. And my ashes will sprinkle away with the breeze, a la Infinity War.

I'm working concessions, which shouldn't be too terrible. I brought a book, which I probably won't read, if I'm even allowed to, but it's there as a crutch. The owner, some guy named Hal with a semi-disturbing email handle, told me that I'll have a coworker. Aforementioned coworker bodes either very well, or very poorly, for my existence.

My bet is on the latter, but if I shared that with Tanner, he'd probably yeet a turd at me.

Tanner dropped me off right before work. He didn't have to get a job, but he seems to earn his keep by doing everything the mom-bot in Umbrella Academy would do. Also, I'm pretty sure that Dad forcing me to get this job is just a way to get me to socialise. I hate how predictable I am, that as soon as we move here, Dad insists that I get a job, because this is obviously the only way I'm to receive any non-familial human contact.

I mean, he's not wrong. I just think it's stupid.

There's a big "OPEN" sign next to this ominous break in a tan brick wall, like something out of Labyrinth but minus the caterpillar puppets inviting me over for tea and no King David Bowie. The sign is worn and sun-bleached, and five steps through the break in the wall shows that worn and bleached is a stylistic trend.

There are a few people in the pool, all wearing swimsuits one would typically associate with lifeguards and swim gear I would typically associate with people who actually like flapping through water. I ignore them and instead focus my attention on stumbling blindly through the pool, because nowhere is there a bleached, worn sign that says "NEW EMPLOYEE, ANON."