"You-you do?" Alex stammered, a huge smile growing across his face. "You like me?"
Melody instantly panicked when she saw his smile, her whole body filling up with regret. He's making fun of me! I knew it! I never should have said anything! But it was out in the open now. She couldn't take it back.
Alex was still smiling broadly at her.
That does it! Melody spun around, intent on running back to the palace. She could only take so much humiliation at the hands of her crush/best friend. How could she have ever thought she should confess to him?!
"Melody! Wait!"
"What?" Melody hated herself for stopping, but he had sounded so desperate that she had to. She refused to meet his eyes.
"Please don't run away. I…wow. Don't you want to hear what I was going to tell you?"
"No."
"I think you do." Alex gave Melody a sweet smile and grabbed her hands. Melody stared at their joined hands in confusion.
"Alex, what-?"
"I like you too," Alex confessed, his tan face alighting with a blush. "I've been wanting to tell you, but…"
"You were too shy?" Melody filled in, smiling.
Alex nodded. Then, without another word, they were suddenly kissing.
Melody came up for air (so to speak) and looked around in panic. "Oh my cod, Alex, what are we doing?"
"What?" Alex suddenly looked horrified. "Did…did you not want to kiss? I thought-well, I thought that-"
"Oh, no, no!" Melody cried. "Of course I wanted to! More than anything, actually." This confession made Alex smile. "It's just that we probably should not be kissing in the middle of the park like this. No one even knows that we are together. I mean, no one knows…if you want to be together, I mean, we can-"
"I want to!" Alex assured her. "But you're right."
Melody spied some coral off to the side. She placed her hands on Alex's bare chest (making a mental note to do this as often as possible-he was getting really muscular!) and gently shoved him behind the coral. They started kissing again.
"Hmm," Melody murmured against his lips.
"What?" Alex pulled back.
"I was just thinking that we should get back. You know how overprotective my parents are."
"Already?" Alex smiled and reached over to move Melody's thick dark hair out of her sparkling eyes.
Melody's heart sped up at his touch. But she knew, even though she was with her best friend, that her parents would probably still worry about her if she stayed out too long. Grandfather would send out a whole search party if she was late.
The teens stood up and faced the direction of the palace, but neither moved. Slowly, hesitantly, Alex reached for Melody's hand. She immediately slipped her hand into his, and they grinned at each other.
As they floated back to the palace, Melody thought about how excited her parents would be when they found out she and Alex were together. They adored him and were good friends with his parents, Urchin and Gabriella. Grandfather loved Alex's family too. He'd probably declare a national holiday in their honor or something. She was still lost in her thoughts when they reached the palace gates. Again, neither of them moved.
"I guess we should go in," Melody said hesitantly, not wanting her alone time with Alex (her boyfriend!) to end.
"Almost," Alex told her. He leaned in and gave her another kiss.
Finally, they broke apart and walked into the palace. They were about to enter the parlor when Melody heard her name.
"Are you sure, Daddy?" Melody heard her mother ask anxiously. "Maybe it's a mistake. I mean, Melody is-"
"I'm sorry, Ariel," Triton apologized. "It's not a mistake."
"What are they talking about?" Alex whispered. Melody shushed him with a wave of her hand.
"But how can this be?" Eric demanded. "We never had any sort of law like this before."
"It's a new decree," Triton explained. "I heard about it for the first time today at the Coalition for the Coexistence of Mer and Human counsel today."
Melody frowned. She had heard of the CCMH before. It was a group of royals and other representatives from nearby kingdoms (both mer and human) created to build and maintain peace between the two worlds. Grandfather was some sort of higher-up in the group, but Melody didn't know what his exact diplomatic function was.
"But Melody is only fifteen!" Eric protested. "She's too young to get married!"
Melody let go of the wall she was hiding behind in shock. No. This couldn't be happening. She replayed her father's words over and over again in her head, specifically the words "Melody" and "married."
Melody.
Married.
MARRIED.
MELODY.
Melody turned to look at Alex, her boyfriend of fifteen minutes, in terror. Maybe she had misheard the prince. But no. Alex looked just as shell shocked as she was. By unspoken silent agreement, the two quickly left their spot. Melody pulled Alex over to a seemingly ordinary painting of a young man holding a Grecian column over his head. It was a portrait of Melody's cousin Hercules, but it was no ordinary tableau. She crouched down to the bookshelf in front of the painting and tugged a blue book about mythology halfway off the shelf. Suddenly, the painting moved aside on the wall, revealing a secret room! Melody pulled Alex into it.
Despite himself, Alex was pretty impressed. There were a few cushions displayed around the room. It was decorated with seashells and other treasures Melody had found under the sea. But he forgot about this hideaway when he saw Melody's quivering lip.
"I can't get married!" she whimpered. "What about my life? What about …us?"
"We will fight this!" Alex promised her. "Besides…your grandfather is king. Can't he do away with a law like this?"
"He's the king of Atlantica," Melody pointed out. "There are other kingdoms around. And then the kingdoms on land. And…oh, Alex! What are we going to do?"
Alex didn't want to admit that he had no idea how to fix this. But when Melody looked into his eyes, she could see the truth written there anyway. Alex was just as lost as she was.
The pair spent another ten minutes or so trying to come up with a workaround for this new law. Melody got more despondent the more they talked about it, so they emerged from their hiding place and went to join the adults in the parlor. Before they reached it, though, the two sets of parents, plus Triton, came bustling out.
"Well, we'd better get home, son," Urchin, Alex's father, announced. He didn't meet his son's eyes. "We don't want to overstay our welcome!"
The other adults tittered nervously, but it was clear that everyone was on edge. When at last the palace doors were closed behind the guests, Melody whirled around, ready to make a beeline for her room.
"Oh, Melody?" Ariel called after her. "Wait a moment. Your father and I want to talk to you. And Grandfather, too."
Melody kept climbing the stairs, more rapidly than usua. "I'm kind of tired."
"It's important, Melody," Eric cut in. "Come back downstairs."
Slowly, Melody descended the steps again. She followed her parents into the parlor. Grandfather was there too. Ariel and Eric sat down, but Melody remained standing at the front of the room, awkwardly wringing her hands and shuffling her fins across the floor.
"Melody," Ariel began, "Grandfather heard something at the CCMH meeting today…"
Melody tuned her mother out instantly, trying instead to focus her mind on kissing Alex. It worked until the words "by the end of the month" entered her stream of consciousness. "Wait, what?"
Her mother repeated the fateful words she had just spoken: "You have to be married by the end of the month."
Author's note: There's a fan theory out there that Hercules and Ariel are cousins. The theory states that Poseidon is Triton's father (and Ariel's grandfather, Melody's great-grandfather) and that Zeus (Hercules' dad) and Poseidon are brothers. If this were true, Ariel and Hercules would be first cousins once removed, and Melody and Hercules would be first cousins twice removed. I first read this theory on Tumblr, but you can Google and read about it.
