I don't own the Little Mermaid.

Chapter 10

The third day comes and I am ready for it. Or so I'd like to pretend. I go through my normal routine: get dressed, have breakfast, go to school. But on the way out, Lucy stops me.

"Abby …" She speaks to me hesitantly. "Abby … Chris and I have been talking…"

She looks so horribly uncomfortable that I subconsciously wince in her stead. I wait. She waits. I decide to help her out.

"You and Chris were talking?" I prompt her kindly. Lucy nodded.

"We were wondering if it were best that you went to see the doctor."

Blink.

"I'm … not … sick … Luce." I tell her slowly and clearly, as though speaking to a toddler. Lucy fidgets and looks away.

"Yes … well, it's not an ordinary doctor, Abby dear. It's a psychiatrist."

Hang on, WHAT?

I back away from Lucy and out the door.

"Don't look at me like that, Abby." She pleads. "Chris thinks it's best!"

I continue to back away from my sister, as if I have never seen her before... which I haven't. Not in the truest sense of the phrase.

"Chris … isn't a parent." I tell her emptily. Lucy rests her head on the doorframe in despair.

"Yes, but while you live with us, you are his responsibility as well as mine!"

Then let it be so.

I turn around and start walking. Away from this place. I just have to get out of here. When I glance back Lucy has turned around and gone inside.

Goodbye.

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The water gleams invitingly from under the bridge. I stare down at it, silently mourning everything I have lost. Mother … Christine … Jeremy? No, not Jeremy, but what he represented: Love.

There are some hearts that never mend again after they have been broken. Or if they do mend, they mend crookedly, as though stitched together by a careless craftsman. It is those hearts, which are condemned to wander through the light and the dark, never actually belonging to either.

I don't want to be like that.

I can feel my heart breaking within me, and as I stand on the ledge of the bridge, gazing at the water, I turn my head backwards to observe the city behind me.

"I forgive you, Father." I whisper, because that is the only way that I can stop my heart from shattering into a million pieces. "Thank you, Christine." I continue, because for all she has done, she has been my friend. "I loved you, Jeremy." I smile, because that is all that I have left to do."

Water is rain; rain is water. Mother and I, we never belonged here. We belonged out there with the water and the waves and the foam. We were fools for trying. But even the wisest men are fools when it comes to love and living. We are all scared of death.

I look down at the water again.

I don't go to death. I go to Mother.

"I come, Mother. At last, I come."

The air seems to burn as I fall from the bridge … and my feet feel cool relief as it enters the water.

On the third day… it was finished.

The End.

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Thank you to everyone who has stuck with this story, I really appreciate it. I love you all.

Ever yours,

Sardine.