Born This Way

Summary: The Four daughters of the mermaids are each feeling differently about the powers and life they were born into, but relying on each other and their remaining parents to get through the life they were given.

Chapter One: Taking What Life Gives (Part 1)

Merissa Olivia Bennett

Merissa, meaning of the sea, that is my name. That is the name my ocean loving, water hating, hard to figure out parents gave me the day I was born. But that was fifteen years ago, and a lot has changed since that day. For one, my father was no longer with us, and no not like that. My father had left three years ago, leaving my mother with me and my four siblings, three of which are still under six, and the other is as much help as out pet fish. So I had to take on a lot at home, babysitting, cleaning, cooking. But I really didn't mind. I knew that all of this was harder on my mother than on me. I just wanted everything to be easier on her.

Three years and everything was still a bit crazy in the morning. My mother tried her best to get the kids ready for the day, while getting herself ready for the day. My older brother, Dean, slept until the last minute. I was up at the same time as my mother and the kids, doing all I could to help her.

"Get Julia, get Julia," My mother cried, turning the stove with the over boiling water down just as it topped over. I lifted my two-year-old sister out of her high chair and grabbed the towel that was closest to us and whipped the juice from her face.

"Stop it," Kate cried once more after Toler, her twin brother, throw another Cheerio at her. I sighed. There was always something going on, and between the two of us, I don't think we could always handle it all.

Just then Dean walked in, hair a mess, same pants he wore the day before, shirt from the top of the laundry stack. He had his earphones in and was blasting music just loud enough that everyone in the room could hear it. I knew my mom hated this, so it was no surprise when she yanked them from his ears and yelled, "Turn the music down."

Hating to be disrupted, Dean put his MP3 player in his pocket and sat down next to the twins. He made no attempt to even say hi to any of us. My dad and his friends use to say Dean was his father and mother combined, sort of a loner, mysterious, and very much his own person. Sometimes he was cool. Sometimes he could be a big pain. Right now, he was being a big pain.

"Dean, I need you to take Julia toady," My mother requested putting a bowl of oatmeal in front of him and me.

Dean groaned, but I knew he would give in. He always did. So half an hour later, I was running out of the house, bag on my shoulder as my mother pulled out of the drive and Dean drove down the street. You might think I mind walking, well I didn't. Everyone my aged walked or road their bikes to school. It was the cool thing to do. And my friends walked with me, Mako McCartney, and Aqua Benjamin. They also lived on my street and I had been friends with them for as long as I could remember. Our parents were friends, and they were never apart, so we became friends, easy as that.

Mako and Aqua were both grade 8 students and attended the lower school. I was in grade 9, in the upper school and over half a year older than Aqua and pretty much a year older than Mako. But I had been with them my whole life. I couldn't see myself with anyone my own age, or in my grade.

"Guess what," Aqua said as I met her and Mako at the end of our street, Aqua's yard, as I did every day. "Mako has new neighbors."

"New neighbors," I repeated. "How old?" It was the standard question someone my age would ask.

"Our age, fourteen," Mako answered as we began to walk. "But that is not the weird part. The father knows my parents, like already good friends with them."

"What about the mother?" Aqua asked, know that our mother's were closer than our fathers ever were.

"There… there wasn't one," Mako informed us. "I didn't see or hear anything about their mom." There was a short silence as we took in what Mako was saying. To break the silence, Mako started with, "There are three kids, the oldest is Lex, then there is the girl our age, Cora, and a younger girl, Nina. They were so nice and unsettling. I couldn't stand it."

I laughed. My mother and Mako's mother once said that Mako was more like my mother while I was more like hers. Mako's family was super smart science-knots. Even her eight-year-old twin sisters were science geniuses. Mako hated it. She could barely keep a C average in science, or any subject for that matter.

Before we knew it, we had made it to the school. The school was actually two schools put together, the upper school, grades 9-12 and the lower school, grades 6-8. As we walked up, I could already see the principle talking to a man who had three kids, stand next to him, two girls and a boy. Mako stopped short. I knew right away these were her new neighbors.

"Why don't we go say hi?" Aqua asked, as we watched the father and principle walk away.

I looked to Mako, then to my school. Smiling I said, "Have fun you two." Then I started for my first class of the day.

Cordelia Emilia Dove

It has been three years since my siblings and I thought that our mother hated us. Three years we had been living with our father in the small house our mother left us in, in L.A. California, USA. My family use to move around a lot. My mother had fallen in love with the world after a trip with her parents, and my father was a travailing business man. I've seen every place, except for my mother's home, and still her most favorite place.

Two months ago, my father announced that he was moving us back to his and our mother's home. He explained we would be living on the same street as their high school friends and their families. Told us how we were going to see every place he and my mother use to hang out. It sounded like now, after three years, he was trying to bring her back from where ever she disappeared to.

So now I stood next to my little sister as we watched our brother walk to the upper school and two girls walk towards us. I knew one of them, Mako McCartney, my new neighbor, but her friend was new to me. They had been talking to another girl, but she had walked off to the upper school with my brother. I didn't know what was about to happen, or what I was going to say, but I took a deep breath and smiled as the two girls got closer.

"I'm Aqua," The other girl, squealed out. She had Wavy blond hair and light blue eyes. She was also smiling like an idiot. I really didn't know what to do.

I was relieved when Nina piped in and said, "It's nice to meet you Aqua, and nice to see you again, Mako." Nina's sweetheart voice saved me from having to say anything.

My father had said a million times that I might look like my mother, but I was nothing like her. Nina might look more like my father, but it was obvious that she was more like my mother. I always looked to her that way, and after my mother left, I hated how much she reminded me of her. But right now, my sister was my savor.

"I'm Cora," I said quickly, not wanting to see me as weak, as I let my little sister take the lead. "And this is my little sister, Nina."

Right then the bell rang and Nina ran off for the front door of the school. Mako and Aqua smiled at me before heading in that direction as well. I took a deep breath and followed the two of them up to the school and to what was the start of something I was far not ready for.