Chapter 3: Something's Fishy
After practice that afternoon Melanie did her best to walk and make sure it looked like she was okay despite pain pulsing all over her body. She knew the boys wouldn't go easy on her in practice—nor did she want them to—but she didn't expect to be in that much pain. Even her eyelashes hurt. Jackson's vendetta against Scott seemed to spill over to everyone else. Anyone that was in his way he bulldozed, including her. He knocked her around, slammed into her, smacked at her wrists with his stick, pushed her aside, whipped the ball at any part of her that wasn't protected, anything he could do to show that he didn't consider her an opponent.
But despite all of that she did her best to show why she deserved to be on the team. She ran faster than a good chunk of the boys and being smaller had its evasive advantages. Her catching and stick handling could do with some more improvement but out of ten shots on goal she managed to make six. She worked hard to push through the pain and keep up with the boys. Having Scott and Stiles shouting encouragement when they weren't playing helped a lot.
But even after all that she had to keep her head up high and any trace of pain off her face as she did her best not to limp back to the locker room once practice was over with. Jackson sure did a number on her, if she were to be honest. Of course she wouldn't say that to his face, why give him another reason to ridicule her.
He was a weird one. His lacrosse captain status made him a raging lunatic whenever the season started up, which amplified his jerkish tendencies. But when it came to the swim season he seemed a bit mellower towards her, which was saying something. Maybe it helped that she was one of the top swimmers on the team. The girl's team. She wasn't in his way.
It was almost like she was a fish when she was in the water, she could swim for days if it were humanly possible. There was nothing that could ease her mind better than a good swim. She would go for it now but she wasn't sure that her arms or legs would work properly enough to keep her above water. And if it weren't cold as fuck. She couldn't wait for Summer to come back around, then she could swim all she wanted between life-guarding shifts.
As she slowly pulled off her padding she thought back to how Scot dominated the field again. It just didn't make sense. This wasn't a Disney movie, how could he go from zero to hero so fast? Crossing her arms, she grabbed the hem of her practice shirt and pulled it off over her head. Her mind briefly went to drugs as a solution but then she wiped that away. Steroids didn't work that fast, not overnight. And Scott wouldn't ever stoop so low. So what could it be?
Her mind didn't get a chance to come up with any sort of explanation when the door opened. Expected to see Erica, Melanie leaned forward to greet her but felt her words dying on her tongue when Lydia flounced in with Allison walking in behind her.
"Yeah?" Melanie asked, brushing her sweaty bangs off her forehead. She couldn't be the only one who found the visit weird. She and Lydia have hardly spoken to each other over the years.
"Okay, I'm only going to say this once," Lydia said while brushing her hair off her shoulder. "We just wanted to say that we think it's…interesting that you want to try out for the lacrosse team." She wrapped one arm across her stomach while holding her other up, her purse hanging from the crook in her elbow.
"Thank…you," Melanie said slowly, her eyes shifting back and forth between the two girls. Did Lydia Martin just give her a compliment? Was the world ending?
"What she means is we and the rest of the girls thinks it's great what you're doing Trying out for the guy's team and all. Showing them who's boss," Allison said, her hands gripping the strap of her cross-body bag. A half smile appeared on her face, popping dimples into her cheeks. Melanie blushed and looked away.
"Yeah, only, make sure you stay out of Jackson's way," Lydia continued. She popped open her purse and dug around until she found her compact mirror and lipgloss. With a few swipes of the wand across her lips, she pinched it shut and then fluffed up her hair. "This may be revolutionizing to the school and all but if you cost us the championship…you'll regret it." She then smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes.
Melanie stared as, with a flip of her hair, Lydia turned and stalked out of the locker room. Allison glanced at Melanie over her shoulder before following her friend out. Melanie let out the breath she had been holding. That wasn't as bad as she expected but it still left he reeling. Lydia was a strong force at the school; she could get anyone to do what she wanted, especially with having the lacrosse team on her side. Angering her and them was not an option if she wanted to live to see graduation.
"Owww," she whimpered as she tried to tug a t-shirt down over her head. The angry bruise on her ribs was going to take a long while to go away, she could already tell. Now how was she going to hide it from her mom? Good thing she didn't have to worry about it just yet, she still had to stop by the Animal Clinic and drop Erica off at her house.
Finally managing to change back into her school clothes, which took a good ten minutes, she grabbed her bag and lacrosse stick and dragged them to the door to leave. She pushed open the door and had managed to get her backpack up on her shoulder only to stop when she came face to face with Stiles who was smiling at her. It was a creepy sort of smile that made her stop in her tracks.
"Dear God!" She uttered, her body jolting at the sight of him. Placing a hand on her chest, she shook her head. "That'd be a good face to use next Halloween; you could scare all the children away," she commented.
"Ha! You're so funny, Mels! What a knee slapper!" Stiles said loudly, reaching out to pat her arm. "This girl – so funny," he addressed the air next to him as if someone was there, jerking his thumb at her. Her eyes narrowed at his antics, wondering if he was drunk or high. Or both. "You're a riot, Crowe, that you are. A real…riot. Yeah." He stopped laughing and then popped his lips. "So! Can I borrow some of your books?"
Melanie blinked, her mind still reeling from his odd spiel. But that was Stiles for you, he was a bit odd. "What books?" she asked.
"Your supernatural books. The ones with ghosts and monsters and beings and stuff in them," he replied. "Those books."
"Oh!" She knew which ones he was referring to. She had only read them religiously throughout middle school. She didn't even need to look at them anymore to be able to recall information from it at the drop of a hat. It was one of the many phases she had gone through but one of the few that had stuck. Something about the supernatural, the impossible, fascinated her. "Yeah, I guess so. I mean, I don't have them on me right now but I can bring them in for you tomorrow."
"You will? Aw yes! Thanks! You rock!" he cheered, punching his fist into the air. "Great job on the field today, too."
"Mmm, you mean when I wasn't being body slammed into the ground by Whittemore?" Melanie asked, rolling her eyes. "Like, geeze, I get the guy's obsessed with Scott's new found powers and everything but…grrr!" Her vocalized frustrations made Stiles's lips twitch in the corner. "Can he lighten up?"
"Powers? Why powers? Why'd you say powers? Why powers?" Stiles demanded. His eyes were wide and he scratched behind his ear as he rattled off at the mouth. "I mean, ah, it's a very strange word to use, powers. Now that I think about it that's a weird word – powers. It's like combining 'pow' and 'flowers' only – uh – not really. Y'know?"
"No," Melanie replied deadpan. Her head tilted in concern as she stared at him. His eyes darted around the longer she stared at him. Clicking her tongue, she stepped forward and whispered, "How much Adderall have you taken today?"
"Oh, not that much, really!" Stiles replied, rubbing the back of his neck as he backed away from her. She squinted and spied a tiny bead of sweat drift from his hairline and slide behind his ear. "So you'll bring the books in? Great! Thanks! See you later!" He flashed a double thumbs up, turned, and then bolted down the hallway. Melanie stood still as she listened to his quickly fading footsteps and then the distinct sound of the door slamming open.
"Okayyy, weirdo," Melanie muttered aloud. Lifting her bag higher, she went out the closest door to her and walked around the school building to the parking lot where Erica was waiting by her truck. "Sorry to keep you waiting. I had a run in with Lydia."
"Lydia?" Erica repeated, eyes wide. As if Lydia were in comparison to, say, speaking with Beyonce. Which, in Beacon Hills, she supposed it was akin to the same thing. "Lydia wanted to talk to you?"
"I know, crazy right? Yeah, she and Allison were saying, basically, how they were glad that I'm trying to get on the lacrosse team and how I'm an inspiration to women everywhere or something." She threw her backpack and stick into the bed of her truck, unlocked the door with the push of a button, and climbed into the driver's seat. "Oww," she muttered under her breath. She tried to cut it off before Erica heard but it didn't stop her friend from catching on.
"I knew you'd get hurt," Erica said as she buckled up. Her brows furrowed and her lips turned down into a frown. The pull of her skin appeared to make her angry blemishes that much more red. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. Nothing a bath can't cure." And a whole jar of cover up added in for good measure. She stopped reversing when she noticed the stern expression on Erica's face. "Really. It's not that bad."
Erica rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. "On a scale of one to ten, how much pain are you in?" she demanded.
Melanie tapped her fingers against the steering wheel. "How honest do you want me to be?" she asked, stalling for time.
"Extremely."
"Oh my god, I'm gonna die!" Melanie wailed, her shoulders slumping as she gave into the pain that took over her body. Erica threw her head back and laughed. Melanie tried to glare at her but her lips started twitching and pressure built up in her stomach until she couldn't take it anymore and she burst into laughter as well.
# # #
"Where was it that you found the little guy?" Dr. Deaton asked as he turned the german shepherd puppy over in his hands. The little dog opened his mouth and tried to gnaw on his glove covered fingers. Chuckling, Dr. Deaton turned him around to look in its mouth.
"I was leaving home this morning and almost ran him over," Melanie replied, pulling her ponytail over her shoulder and tugged on the ends of her hair. "I think he just wandered into my yard. I almost didn't see him in time."
"It's a good thing you did. This little guy isn't that old, a couple months at the most," Dr. Deaton said as he continued looking the puppy over. "Doesn't seem to have any sort of trauma. He's a little malnourished, though. We would like to keep him here overnight just to be sure he gets the proper nutrients and then start to look for his owners."
"Okay, thank you," Melanie said with a nod. Dr. Deaton smiled, picked up the puppy, and then carried him into the back room. "Is it bad that I kinda don't want anyone to claim him?" she addressed Scott who had been sweeping dust off of the office floor. Scott was surprised when she walked in with the puppy in tow. Her visits before were minimal, she had to admit, considering she didn't own a pet herself. The only other time she stopped by was when she was in the area with leftovers from The Lighthouse Diner where she grabbed a snack. ...Okay, two of them. She didn't want Scott to get hungry. That's all.
"Nah, I feel the same way whenever I come in," he replied with a kind smile. "It's hard to see those cute little faces pressed up against the bars. The good thing is that most of them have owners so I don't get too attached."
"What about the ones that don't have owners?" she asked.
He hesitated, eyes briefly glancing at the floor before he spoke, "We have to take them to a shelter. And if no one gets them from there…they have to be put down." He sighed. "I'd adopt them all if I could but, you know Mom, she already has her hands full with me."
"Yeah, we don't need any more puppy eyes around us," Melanie joked, reaching out to ruffle his hair. He chuckled in a bashful manner and fixed his now mussed hair. A second later a thought occurred to her ad she said nonchalantly, "Oh, by the way, Allison asked me about you."
She watched in amusement as Scott nearly dropped the broom he had been holding. It took him a few tries to get it back in an upright position. Once it stood tall, he rested his body weight against it and peered at her. "She did?" he asked. "Wha-what did she say? Er, ask?"
Melanie pressed her lips together to suppress a laugh. "All she asked was if I was friends with you," she replied. "See, it was before French class and after I told her that we were friendly she was going to ask or say something else but then class started and we never got a chance to talk after that. Sorry." Scott nodded his head and looked down at his hands. "Oh!" She slapped her palm against her forehead. "Also! Does Stiles have a girlfriend?" Erica had asked her to ask Stiles but asking Scott was close enough, wasn't it? They were almost the same person, anyway.
Blinking at the sudden topic change, Scott slowly shook his head. "No, he's single," he replied. He paused, head tilting, and then asked, "Why? Do you like him? Do you want to go out with him?"
"What? Me? No!" Melanie replied, her eyes widening in horror. Her and Stiles? Maybe when pigs flew out of volcanoes. "No! I'm asking for a friend!"
"Is…is there really a friend?" he continued. "Because people say that all the time. That they're asking for a friend, when they're actually the friend they're asking for. Are you the friend?"
"I'm not the friend, Scott," she said through clenched teeth. "I am just asking for one."
"Okay, okay," he said, holding up his hands. "No need to get defensive about it."
She pushed a breath through her nose. The simple idea of her liking Stiles rubbed her the wrong way. For one thing, he was too sarcastic for his own good (and besides, she didn't catch onto it most of the time so she would spend too much time trying to figure out if he was telling the truth or not and she didn't have time for that). And for another, he wasn't the one who shared his chocolate cupcake with her when she dropped hers on the floor in fourth grade. No, he was the one who asked her if she had dropped hers—as if he hadn't seen her do it—and then painstakingly made a show of licking the icing off his.
She still hadn't forgiven him for that.
"So, um…what do you think Allison was going to ask?" Scott asked, tapping his fingers against the broom handle again. "I mean, you're a girl—"
"Thanks for noticing," Melanie cut in, flashing him an endearing smile.
"—you can read each other's minds or something like that, right? Do you have an idea of what she was going to ask you?" The hopeful look in his dark eyes made her want to pinch his cheeks.
"If I had to take a guess?" She rubbed her chin while thinking, stretching the silence as long as possible until she was sure he'd piss his pants from anticipation. "Probably if you're into her, you goof!" She rolled her eyes at the obvious answer she had to give and pushed his shoulder. "Which she should be able to see a mile away with the way you've been looking at her, Smiley." As she spoke a smile had blossomed over his face, as if he had been just given the most previous jewel in the world. "I mean, she keeps going to lacrosse practice to watch you."
"Well…she could be going to watch you," Scott countered, shrugging his shoulder, running a hand through his hair. "With that whole girl on a boy's team thing."
"Oh no, trust me, it's you," she replied. "Everyone has come to watch you. I mean, you've become a star player in one night. It's farfetched. You have to see it to believe it and people want to see it." She stepped closer, lowering her voice while asking, "What's your secret, Scotty? You've been holding back on us all this time?"
He chuckled and scratched behind his ear. "No, um, it's just…a lot of practice. That's all."
"So how come Stiles still plays like…that?"
"Because he's Stiles?"
That made sense in regards to their overzealous friend but his own explanation didn't. She practiced just as much as he did. ...Well, okay, he did have last season up on her, even though he and Stiles sat on the bench the whole year. But still, she worked hard and even she couldn't pull off the feats that he managed. Still, he wasn't exactly known for lying. She shook her head. Her suspicions were only giving her green eyes; it wasn't something she prided herself on experiencing.
"Hey, I'll let you get back to work." She flashed him a sweet smile. "I am happy for you, really. I hope you make first line." Scott's beaming smile put a flutter in her chest and she hurried away before she did something stupid like thing too long about it. The bell above the door dinged as she exited. Her hand had jut curled around the dingy silver of the door-handle when she stilled.
Frowning, her head cocked to the side and a prickly sensation settled on the side of her face. Almost as if...she were being watched. She looked around, her eyes bouncing from the rustling leaves, to the fly hovering around the light in the brick wall above the clinic sign, to the guy across the street in a leather jacket, to the squirrel that darted across a power-line—wait.
Melanie looked across the street again only to find it empty. She squinted, the sight across from her appearing to zoom in, like an extended camera lenses. She shook her head and her vision returned to normal. She frowned, took a step forward, only to stop when the dogs in the clinic became to bark and howl all at once. "Well that's not ominous," she muttered. With a dismissive shrug, she hopped into her car and drove home.
# # #
The warm bathwater lulled Melanie into a peaceful state once she was submerged. Her hair piled atop of her head, she sank as low into the water as possible, the water line resting right beneath her nose so it wavered and wobbled with every breath she blew out.
Her entire body became weightless within in the water, as if she were floating in a pool rather than in a bathub. With her eyes closed she let her mind drift far away, away from the pain that nagged in the back of her head, away from the worries and stress of the day, away from the muffled voices of her parents downstairs. She couldn't decipher if they were arguing or not but if they weren't she was sure an argument was going to start sometime soon.
Darkness seeped in as she closed her eyes and blew air out of her mouth, bubbles rising up to the surface. She sunk lower, her knees bending slightly to accommodate her whole body now under water. She could feel her beating heart slow in her chest. The previous need for oxygen had dissipated and she lay in comfortable silence.
Her eyes fluttered open and she spotted…seaweed? She opened her eyes fully and looked straight up. The end of a stalk of seaweed swayed to and fro and, high above her, the mottled rays of the sun wiggled up at the surface line,
If that hadn't surprised her before, looking down sure did. Gone were her legs and in place was a long, flowing tail. Blueish-purple scales covered the fin which bounced the sunlight off of it. Holding her hands out in front of her face she noticed that a thin web-like membrane stretched out between each finger. Her hands then flew to her neck where she felt two slits. Pressing down on them slightly she could feel water being sucked in. Her chest inflated as if she had taken a big gulp of fresh air and when she blew out bubbles streamed up to the surface.
What in the world was going on? She had been in her bathroom and now…where was she? She turned around so she was floating on her stomach and looked around at the vast waterscape. Finding nothing but the rolling waves high above her head she stretched her new muscles and gave her fin a good kick. It propelled her forward much faster than she expected, pushing her out at least ten feet in one kick.
Excitement running through her veins, she stretched her arms in front of her and slapped her fin through the water. The membrane between her fingers helped propel her forward through the water. A smile blossomed on her face as she passed by colorful reefs and seaweed and plant life. One thicket seemed to house a heard of the prettiest angelfish she had ever seen. She needed a closer look.
Shifting directions, she swam towards the angelfish heard, her hair billowing out behind her as if suspended in midair. Once she got close enough to the reef she floated above it, admiring the fish that swam around. Moving further down the reef, she began to get a closer look at the structure when something in the shadows beneath caught her eye. A red light? She tilted her head in curiosity and got closer. The red light split into two, almond-shaped glowing structures.
Eyes.
Melanie sucked in a breath to scream only to feel water rushing into her lungs. Her hands shot out and grabbed for anything as she struggled for air. Finally her fingertips scrambled against the smooth edges of the bathtub and she held on tight. Lifting herself up, her head broke through the surface of the water and she coughed and spluttered while trying to get air into her lungs. She brushed her wet hair out of her face and looked at her hands. They looked normal. Then she looked down to see her legs bent at the knees across the bottom of the tub. Her heart rammed against her chest and it lurched at the knocking on the door.
"Melanie? Are you okay in there?" Arabella called through the door.
"Y-yeah," Melanie called back. "Just fine. I'm getting out now."
"Okay. Dinner will be ready soon."
With shaky hands, Melanie reached over the edge of the tub and grabbed the towel that she had dropped on the floor nearby. She brushed the water off of her hands and then pulled herself up to sit on the edge of the tub to dry off her arms. Swinging her legs around, she placed her feet on the mat and began to dry them when the towel snagged. Eyebrows crinkling, Melanie moved the towel to see what it was that had caused the snag.
Scales lined the top of her legs.
She rubbed at her eyes with her thumbs and looked again. Smooth skin stared back at her. Sighing heavily, she ran a hand through her wet hair. Maybe she had gotten hit harder than she thought at practice. That was the only solution to this insanity.
a/n - So what do you think is going on with Melanie? And what about her dream? Or was it a dream? Please let me know what you think and thank you so much to those who have reviewed and faved and alerted this story. I'm glad to see that you all are enjoying it! Please leave a review!
**Revised 6/20/18**
