Four - The Mermaid is Suicidal

Hunter

When I informed Blue that I was taking her back to her home, she was excited and sat right up on the bed, rubbing her eyes. She was ready to go. Leslie continued to bark as if he has a premonition that Blue wasn’t coming back home once she left.

Stupid dog. He got attached to every person that walked into the house but Blue was the first that he’d taken a liking to in such a short time.

She smiled at him lovingly and ruffled his ears. “He loves you a lot.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I can see that.”

She shook her head. “I can feel it, and Les told me that himself. He loves you and cares for you, but he just wishes you didn’t date bitches.”

I stared at her incredulously. “What?”

“He said all the girls you dated before were lying bitches.”

I stared at Leslie, looking at me with gooey eyes, his pink tongue lolling out.

How could Blue be making some of these stuff up? And what the hell? She looked so innocent yet she said something like this without even batting an eye.

“Leslie’s a dog. He can’t speak!” I said, I couldn’t keep the frustration off my voice.

“But he speaks to me.” Blue said defensively.

“Huh?” I folded my arms across my chest. “Okay. Prove it to me then. Tell him to tell you something that you don’t know.”

Blue touched him, and the way Leslie was looking at her was suspicious. She then looked back at me and said. “He told me you’re really careless and left a full cartoon of milk out on the counter for two days until it went bad.”

“That’s something that you can guess. Tell me something else that only Leslie and I would know.”

“He says last month when you got another girl on a date, he was in the front seat and you thought he was sleeping but he saw how badly you fucked that chick in the backseat.” And as if that wasn’t enough, Blue added. “He says real smooth.”

“Okay! Okay enough. Does Leslie know something else that’s not explicit? Something that doesn’t include me and random girls.”

I was starting to wonder if she even understood the meaning of it. From the looks of it, she surely didn’t.

She glanced at Leslie and back at me, her fingers caressing the dog. Her eyes suddenly turning sad. “He says that...even though you are a manwhore, he’s really thankful that you picked him up from the dumpster that day. It was raining and his previous owner had dumped him there because he was sick.” A few more tears grazed her cheek. “He says he would have died if it wasn’t for you, Hunter. He says Thank you.”

And as if Leslie could hear what Blue just said, he approached me and stood on his hind legs, clawing my legs with his paws. When I reached out to him, he licked my hand.

There was no way Blue could find out about that bit of information in just one day, and I was pretty sure I hadn’t said a word about how I’d met the dog.

“Oh god!” I whispered, putting my hands behind my head and looking at the ceiling. I was going to cry.

Did that mean Blue had some super powers to talk to animals? How was that even possible?

I petted Leslie, and placed a leash around him. Blue was looking at me curiously. “Do you believe me?”

I nodded. “For some reason, I do.”

Blue climbed into the passenger side of the car while Leslie sat in the backseat. He normally like to ride shot-gun in the front seat but I guess he loved the girl enough to sacrifice his usual space.

“Ready?”

---

Blue led me to the beach again, the same beach that I’d found her on. She insisted we walk to the beach so followed her, Leslie was on his heels on a leash trudging through the soft sand. He went wild and began rolling in it like he always did.

We walked a few minutes and then Blue turned to me. “This is it, I guess. Thank you for everything, Hunter.”

I had a sinking feeling even though she’d been with me for just over twenty-four hours. It’d been nice to have someone around the house. Also, the four legged fur-ball loved her.

“No problem.” I said. “But, I don’t see any beach house around here. Where do you live? I could walk you there.”

She shook her head. “I’ll have to swim there. You stay here at the store okay? Don’t follow me into the water.”

Before I could say another word she reached for the hem of my t-shirt, pulled it over her head and dropped it on the sand below, clasping her hands to her breasts and began walking into the ocean slowly. The waves lapping with force.

I stared at the t-shirt in disbelief.

What the hell did she think she was doing?

I watched her for a few seconds thinking she must be bluffing and then when she didn’t didn’t stop, I went right after her but she continued to walk deeper into the darkness. I caught her wrist. “You’re suicidal, aren’t you?”

I was so stupid. I should have known. She kept talking about going into the ocean, what I’d seen yesterday wasn’t her getting wild at a party, but she had probably tried to kill herself by walking into the ocean and somehow managed to survive.

“What are you doing, Hunter? I told you not to follow me in the water! Let me go!” Blue pleaded silently.

I didn’t even think what I was doing as I pulled her into a hug. Maybe all she needed was a little reassurance that her life mattered. Nothing in this life was worth dying for.

“It’s okay to be sad, Blue. We all go through that at one point of our life but dying isn’t the answer to it. It’s just a phase.”

“What are you—”

I continued. “Don’t do this to yourself. I know we aren’t that familiar with each other but giving up like this is so wrong. There’s more to life than depression.”

“But I’m not killing myself!” She exclaimed, almost too frustrated.

“Listen to me. If you ran away from home or you were badly treated by anyone, I can make some arrangements. You can stay at my place or my father’s. My sister is a nice girl, she’ll help you find a good place and a steady job. But, don’t just....”

“Hunter! You’re being ridiculous.” She shrieked. “I’m a mermaid, I can swim home.”

I was knee deep under water but I didn’t care, I couldn’t let her do this. If Blue walked further, she would be neck deep in and it would only be a matter of time before the water level rose up to her mouth. She would stop breathing eventually. Just then, I felt something graze my feet. I let go of my hand holding her hair and let it dip into the water. My hands were shaking when I touched her waist and my fingers grazed scales.

Fucking fish scales.

I pulled my hand out as if I’d touched a hot pan. Blue continued to stare at me when I dipped my head inside the water and saw it with my own eyes.

A silver blue fish tail glowing underwater. I came up for air and completely freaked out. I totally lost it and ran in the opposite direction, panting. Leslie was barking in circles in the sand and howling in the distance, whimpering at the waves where the mermaid had been in. I sat up straight and tried to see through my watery eyes. Blue wasn’t in view. From a distance, I saw a tail flutter once before it disappeared into the dark waves of the ocean.

She’d disappeared into the fucking ocean!

I slapped myself.

Wake up, Hunter! It’s a dream.

I slapped myself even harder.

Wake up goddamnit!

But this was reality. It wasn’t a dream at all. Whatever that I’d witnessed a few minutes ago had actually happened which proved Blue wasn’t lying. It also meant that she wasn’t mentally ill. She hadn’t known these simple human ethics because she hadn’t been from here.

She really was a mermaid.

Those beautiful half fish, half women species we’d always heard about and thought of it as a myth.

No wonder I’d seen that fish tail yesterday when I picked her up before it vanished and turned into human legs. No wonder she couldn’t walk.

It all made sense now.

I couldn’t see Blue anymore so I assumed she was swimming back home. Leslie continued to bark in the oceans direction, like he was calling out to Blue asking her to come back.

I pulled at his leash. “Come on, Les. She went home, she’s not coming back and it’s time for us to head home too.”

He whimpered as he followed me, still looking behind him to see if Blue would magically appear.

I drove home feeling strange and quite frustrated with myself. I’d met a rare mythical creature and had treated her like she was a normal girl.

Yeah, that was such a fucking douche move.

I wanted to punch myself.

If Mermaids existed then so would the aliens, unicorns or Bigfoot. Perhaps even the Loch Ness monster.

I wasn’t even hungry when I got home so I fixed myself with a glass of hot cocoa and went straight to bed. I couldn’t sleep for about an hour, I kept changing sides.

My mind was still on the aqua haired mermaid. I couldn’t stop thinking of her.

I kept wondering if she made it home safely or was it possible she could have lost her way into the ocean? She’d been lost before, she could get lost again.

I remembered she’d mentioned some fishermen catching her in a net. I could only imagine what would happen to Blue if anyone found someone like her. People could see her fishtail and inform the police or worse, take pictures and give it to museums and scientists and claim some ridiculous amount of money.

I imagined Blue caged in a glass tank surrounded by people analyzing her, watching her.

Torturing her.

Keeping her locked.

I jumped right out of bed, grabbed my jacket and keys and went straight downstairs to my car. This time I made sure, Leslie stayed home.

I drove fast like I always did and it usually got me a ticket, I looked in the rear view mirror and made sure there weren’t any patrol cars because heck the last thing I needed right now was to get pulled over and have my time wasted.

I was sure Blue had made it safely home, but there was a small part of me that wondered about the what if? What if she were to get lost again and decided to swim back?

I parked my car exactly near to where I’d left her and walked towards the beach.

There wasn’t anyone on the beach. Not a soul.

“Hey Blue!” I called out to her even though I knew I wouldn’t get an answer. “Blue!”

Guess she made it home.

I turned to leave home when I saw something near the dark rocks from the corner of my eye. Blue hair. I approach slowly towards the rocks. She was huddled by the rock, hugging herself. I could hear the familiar soft sobs. I stood behind her.

Thank God I’d come back.

“Blue?” I called out to her.

She stopped sobbing suddenly and turned her tear stained eyes towards me, her expressions surprised. “Hunter?”

“Let’s go home.” I said