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underwater. I watched an orange and black fish swim around his aquarium—three-hundred gallons of tropical reef, smack-dab in the middle of his living room. Little did he know a real version awaited me just outside his door. How could I tell him I had been turned into a supposedly mythical creature? The very thought of it seemed so insane.
    He scratched his flaking forearms and I grabbed the bottle of cocoa butter from the coffee table. Treatments dried out his skin, and he was awful at taking care of himself.
    "It's amazing how your place didn't get hit." I rubbed lotion into his arms and hands. "Did you see my house? It's in shambles."
    He waved me away and wiped off the excess lotion with the bottom of his shirt. "Storms are finicky things. The sisters of nature must have kept my house out of their path of destruction."
    Storms. One of the few things my mother had loved, and one of the only things we had in common. "Do you think my mom would have cared what happened to our house?"
    "My guess would be no. But I do think she would have enjoyed the storm. Nature's fury dancing on our little island would have made her smile."
    "My mother never smiled."
    He studied me all fatherly-like and mussed up my hair. "Once upon a time she smiled a lot."
    The only memories I had of my mother were of her sad and crying, or her mumbling—in a drunken, catatonic state—that she wished I was never born. If she had never had me, maybe she would've been the happy, goodhearted person my uncle spoke of so fondly.
    She died when I was eight, so Uncle Lloyd took me in. He was the only person in my life I truly loved and trusted. I could still remember moving into his house. My room had periwinkle walls and white lace curtains. The dresser and headboard looked like dollhouse furniture—not that I knew what dolls were at the time. He said it was my new home, and that he and I were family.
    "The kind who takes care of each other," he said.
    He held me when I cried, made me love-cooked meals, and tucked me in at night. All of those things were strange and new to me, things my mother had never done. One night Uncle Lloyd gave me a stuffed teddy bear, but I didn't know what to do with it.
    "You just love it," he told me.
    "Love?"
    He sighed and shook his head. He did that a lot the first year of us living together. As I got older and learned about the world beyond our little island, I discovered many interpretations of childhood, family, and love. But my uncle's definition of love—the one he told me while I held my first teddy bear in my hands—was my favorite. "It's when you care about someone so much you would risk everything to keep them safe."
    We never kept things from each other, but this mermaid craziness would have to be an exception. He would be safer not knowing, and part of loving him meant keeping him safe.
    "Decided to try being a blonde?" Uncle Lloyd asked.
    I froze. I had forgotten about my hair. He had been gone a couple days. I could say I had dyed it before the storm. Easy peasy. "I d-d-d—"
    Crap! Why couldn't I speak?
    He saved me from my stuttering spell. "Didn't think I would notice? I must say, you look beautiful."
    His compliment made me smile, but the knock at the door made me smile even bigger. "That's Rownan. We're gonna do damage control on the house, but I'll be back in the morning."
    I kissed Uncle Lloyd's cheek, and he grunted as I left the room. He didn't think Rownan was good enough for me. Truth be told, in his opinion, no man would ever be good enough.
     

     
    R ownan swooped me into his arms and carried me up the steps to my house. Things felt off between us, but what could I expect after being transformed into a half-fish?
    "Is this what it'll be like on our wedding day?" I teased.
    He rolled his eyes and nodded at the front door. "Open that and you'll get it."
    I turned the handle and pushed the door, which was much harder to open than usual. The floors were covered with an inch of water. "Aw, crud."
    "I