A couple years ago, I wrote "A Life of Scales and Wings" for Wattpad's The One That Got Away Anthology that was up on the Paid profile. I want to thank anyone who supported me by purchasing the story to read. I can now post it on my own profile and wanted to give anyone who might have wanted to read it but couldn't the chance to read it! "A Life of Scales and Wings" is a gender-swapped modern-day sequel to The Little Mermaid. I hope you'll enjoy! It's not very long, and I'll be posting it in two parts.

"I know that I shall love the world up there, and all the people who live in it."

~ Hans Christian Andersen, "The Little Mermaid."

I tug Clarissa's wet silicone tail off her. The faux scales in neon green and pink dull in the harsh amber light of the Drop—the name for a room painted dark gray and filled with mermaid tails and drying racks. The Drop gets its name from is the fifteen by seventeen-foot opening in the floor, the top of the tank that Clarissa and the other 'finlancers' swim around in during their shifts at Han's.

Clarissa rubs a fraying towel over her face, not giving a damn that she smears her face paint. What once were red and green scales now streak her face in runny lines. It doesn't matter. She's done for the day.

Merfolk don't have scales on their faces, not that Dad, Clarissa, or any of the other finlancers—freelance mermaids—would take my word for it. "Since when do you care about mermaids?" they'd ask.

The tail off, I hoist it into my arms, gritting my teeth under its weight and carry it over to the drying rack, near where two other tails air out, for Clarissa to clean it later.

The finlancers make their living imitating creatures they've never seen. They could attach a horn to their foreheads, and no one could say they were wrong. It would be a hit. Unicorns and mermaids: the world's two favorite things combined at last.

Clarissa tosses the towel onto the bench beside her. "This college guy couldn't peel his face off the glass, Kingsley," she says, her tone derisive. "Kept tapping the glass too."

We have signs posted warning against such behaviors. Even during spring break, when the colleges release their flocks to fill up Haven Beach, we never have much of an issue despite the number of diners that visit Dad's mer-themed restaurant. Haven Beach is famous for two things: the one mermaid—or merman—that was spotted here a hundred years ago by the then-mayor and Han's, where you can devour a crab cake while watching mermaids swim around a human-sized tank for your enjoyment.

No self-respecting tourist leaves Haven Beach without grabbing a meal at Han's and buying a figurine from our gift shop.

"I have to take over for Tyron in the store." I wipe my hands off on a towel. "If I see him, I'll handle it."

Clarissa waves me off, heading for the detergent on the shelf near her tail.

***

A quick scan of the restaurant turns up no boy who looks anywhere near college age. They're all middle schoolers or younger or in their late twenties and beyond. All diners are where they should be, appropriately oohing and ahhing as Timothy does a tumble roll in the tank, the tank's lights catching his scales.

While I set up shop behind the register in the gift shop that's located at the front of the restaurant, Tyron leaves to clock out.

Mer knick-knacks line the shelves and walls. Magnets with fishy puns clutter the register. A row of marble-colored figures—a mermaid held in the arms of a man, her arms slung around his neck—lines the shelf above my head. A little plaque on each reads

I tap my nails against the wooden countertop. Seven years later, and Dad still hasn't bothered upgrading their look. Seven years since one of these figurines was set down in front of me right beside the register. I can still hear the soft thud it made when it connected with the wood.

And then his words.

"Excuse me, Miss. Does this belong to you?"

I stiffen. I never hear the words that clearly.

With a slow precision and without daring to blink, I raise my eyes.

"Gerardo."

His lips pull into a smile at hearing his name, his brown eyes filling with warmth, none of the coldness present that I had last seen in them. He's filled out, no longer the lanky boy of fifteen. He's a man now. His hair has remained a constant, black and short, but long enough to tempt wandering hands, and wet strands of hair cling to his forehead.

He must have just arrived.

And he must be the guy Clarissa was complaining about.

"What are you doing here?" My voice sounds as if I've been chugging saltwater.

He looks like he's about to laugh. "Returning what belongs to you."

I place my hands on the counter, hoping that if my legs give out, I'll pitch forward onto the counter and not down onto the tile. He can't be real, but I can't be hallucinating. I'm not on any sort of medication, and I've been steering clear of Dad's stash of weed. I have to be dreaming.

Because there is no way in the five oceans and seven continents that Gerardo could be standing in front of me in Haven Beach. He shouldn't even have legs. He could only have them for a month. But here he is, dressed in a t-shirt and swim trunks.

"What belongs to me?"

He has no figurine this time.

He bows his head, feigning innocence, his finger setting off a bobblehead of a merman. Innocence from the man who asked me to marry him at fifteen. "Me."

"You don't belong to me."

"My heart does." His voice has deepened over the years but still holds the accent he developed from living with his pod in the warm waters around Cuba. It was in those waters that he found the figurine from Han's. The only explanation I could think of was that some tourist had it with them on a dive boat, maybe to snap a picture for a travel blog.

When I don't say anything, he starts to look nervous and asks, "Kingsley?"

"How are you here?" It's a struggle not to punctuate each word with a curse.

"I'll explain."

"No." I swipe my hands over my face, recalling that day. "No."

"Marry me, Kingsley."

"Are you high?"

He cast his gaze over the edge of the dock. The water was murky that day despite the piercing sunlight. His grip tightened on my hands, and he met my eyes, his face devoid of hope. "Yes or no?"

"Gerardo, is that really you?" Dad's voice drags me back to the present. He strolls into the gift shop, and he and Gerardo clasp each other by their elbows. "What's it been? Four years?" Seven, but who's counting? "What are you doing back?" His eyes shift to me. "Did you offer him a table?"

I open my mouth, but as usual, Dad doesn't let anyone answer his questions.

"Go on break. You two should catch up."

I press my lips into a thin line and then work that line into a smile. If Dad ever suspected that Gerardo and I had a heart-throbbing teen romance for exactly a month, he never said a word. Dad lamented Gerardo disappearing when he was forced to return to the sea after I turned him down, but he was only around for a month. Why should Dad have thought much of it? After all, how much damage could Gerardo have done to his daughter's heart?

A lot actually, when I've spent seven years blaming myself for being the reason a merman couldn't remain human. Enough for the guilt to eat me that I've chased away any mention of 'mer' that I can, which is hard to do when Dad's restaurant is basically a shrine to all things . Easier once I went off to college.

Until this summer, though, when Dad called asking for help while he tries to get his boat tour business off the ground.

Dad eyes me. "Kingsley, you'll get him settled?" A pause. "Hmm?"

I plaster a smile on my face that I'm sure comes across as more of a grimace. "I'd be happy to."

Dad takes my place behind the register, and I follow Gerardo out of the store and into the restaurant.

I head for the hostess stand. "How are you here?"

He rakes his hand through his hair, sidestepping a customer. "I can keep this form for two hours before I have to return to the sea, or I'll fall ill."

I circle with a dry erase marker the table at which I'll seat us. "But before?" Why did he need me to marry him?

Red darkens his cheeks. "I know how it sounds, but the circumstances were different. At fifteen, before a mer is fully grown, we're offered a month to try to change our destiny if we choose it."

"And you had to marry me to change it?"

I lead us to our table near the tank. He pulls out my chair for me, and I stiffen when I accidentally brush up against his hand. I'm not in danger of throwing myself at him. My last ex maybe, but that was a two-year relationship. I haven't been pining after Gerardo all these years: that would be absurd. It was one month of my life: a lifetime when you're fifteen, but a mere passing phase to a twenty-two-year-old.

"I don't make the rules. Though in the past, they were easier to follow through with." His eyes drift to Timothy, whose tail swishes as he swims upward for a quick break. I had thought it would be weird for Gerardo to see the finlancers, but he assured me years ago that he loves it. I'm not surprised his face was pressed against the tank.

Lincoln comes by to take our orders and grins at me, wiggling his eyebrows when he sees I'm seated at a table with a man. That doesn't make this a date. We're two exes catching up. Never mind that he's no longer the little merman I once knew. In his place is a . . . sea god—but why should that mean this is a date?

With Timothy on break, Gerardo begins taking in the life around us. The kids coloring. Parents on their phones. The smells. His eyes hold a hunger, a desire.

I smile, reminded of the need he had to experience every human thing.

Through the windows, I can see the deck and beyond that the ocean where the water rolls in small waves. Underneath those waves, an endless ocean. What would it be like to live in such an abyss? To call that abyss home?

"I heard you went to college."

I frown. "How did you hear that?"

"I tried to see you again four years ago. One of your waitresses said you had gone off to college, but that you would be back in the summer."

I do the math. That would have been my freshman year. "And I didn't come back."
"No, you didn't." He unwraps his silverware. "I'm not here to ask you to marry me if you're worried about that." He picks up the fork. I can't help but see it as a mini trident.

"Why are you here?"

Lincoln sets our drinks in front of us and moves on to his next table.

Gerardo wraps his hands around his cup of soda, condensation transferring to his fingers. "I've never wanted anything more than I've wanted to be human. I want to be able to go to the movies and play those games on TV."

"Sports?"

"Yes, but I mean the ones with the remote."

"Video games."

His hands tighten on the glass. "I want to go to your colleges and study anything. What did you study?"

"Accounting." I'm not sure numbers are what he's looking for. Maybe archeology. It's humans that are his interest.

He pushes his cup to the side and lays his palms flat on the dark table. "Kingsley, have you ever wanted anything for as long as you can remember?"

I've wanted many things over the years, but nothing that has consumed my entire existence.

"You lost your chance though, and I swear Gerardo if you really do need me to marry you well then I . . ." Can't? Even if it means subjecting him to a life in that abyss? Is that selfish?

"There's another way." He looks back at the tank where Timothy swims back to the bottom. "I'll explain tonight. I'll have to return to the sea after we eat, and it's a conversation that should be done in private."