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is. No words, just a sad wail, the low notes of a violin being plucked with a tire iron. It’s the only thing I want to listen to. I want to wrap myself in those notes and sleep forever. A hand moves from my chest to my neck. I’ve stopped struggling. I want to close my eyes. The shark charges at me like a silver bullet.
    I shut my eyes and wait for the bite that never comes.
    The nails cut into my chest as the arms let go. The shark flips around, magnificent, and slaps the creature with his great white fin. It pushes back a few yards, but it doesn’t stop. It wails, screeches into the expanse of sea, stretching out so I can finally see her true form. I can see her . From head to fins. A mass of silvery-white hair spreads out around her face, so pale she’s almost see-through. Her eyes radiate in the water, white as lightning with needle pinpricks in the center.
    Her cheekbones are sharp and slope down to full blue lips that smirk at me. She’s long and slender, so skinny her bones look like they’re trying to poke out of her skin. Her breasts are covered with slick silver scales that fade out at the slopes of her waist and bloom out to form her tail. There’s an impression of legs, like they’re under there right up to the kneecaps and disappear down to long silvery fins.
    She swims in circles, a figure eight, her silver silhouette like a flash of light dancing in the water. Like she’s dancing for me. She stops inches away from me with that smirk still on her lips, telling me she knows everything I don’t. She grabs my wrists softly, like she’s going to pull me to her and kiss me. And I want her to. I’ve never wanted anything this badly before.
    The silver mermaid smiles, and when she smiles there is nothing more terrifying than the rows of her razor-sharp teeth.

She’s holding my wrists when I wake up.
    â€œYou almost took my head off.” Layla is staring at me with her giant hazel eyes. When we were little, I used to call her Bambi because her eyes were too big for her face and she was so skinny, almost frail-looking. It’s just looks, though. Layla can swim almost as fast as I can. Almost.
    Her hair is loose around her shoulders, thick and brown like fresh earth. She’s wearing a purple dress that ties around her neck and reaches all the way down to cover her toes. I am suddenly aware of my morning erection.
    â€œWhat are you doing here?”
    â€œWhat kind of a ‘good afternoon’ is that?”
    I look at the clock on my nightstand. It’s 2:43 p.m. “How long have you been sitting there, creeper?” I take an extra pillow and use it as a buffer between my erection and the world.
    â€œYou wish.”
    â€œI’m just saying.”
    â€œI only just got here,” Layla says. “I told your mom I’d pick up some chips and salsa on the way. My mom was still making her fancy Greek dip when I left, and my dad was sneaking a cigarette downstairs.”
    â€œDoesn’t your dad know by now that he can’t keep anything from your mom ’cause she’s got that all-seeing third eye in the back of her head?” I ask.
    â€œI actually think she gets a kick out of watching him squirm,” she laughs, “when she finds the butts hidden around the backyard.”
    â€œJust like a woman.”
    She punches me on the shoulder.
    â€œI’m going to start charging you every time you hit me,” I tell her.
    â€œThat would negate your purpose as my personal punching bag. And speaking of people who’d like to use you as one, Maddy called me. She’s not coming because she’s at her friend’s house.”
    â€œSee! And she got all mad at me when I said friends. ”
    â€œYeah, but you say friends in a mean way. I say friends because I don’t like her new friends .”
    â€œWhatever. I don’t need her crying all over the place, feeling guilty ’cause I’m not