Marin was the most beautiful girl at Tallulah High. She looked like something out of an anime; her shoulder-length, dyed-purple hair was vibrant like a lilac blossom, but it never faded like flowers do. Her skin was without blemish, and the tanned legs flowing out from her white, black, and red plaid miniskirts she always wore suggested she spent more time outdoors than in. Ever her eyes were captivating, if she ever looked up.  If I were a jeweler, I don't think I could find emeralds that shone any brighter.

She was the kind of girl that sat in the back of the classroom, only speaking when spoken to. It didn't matter the subject she was in, she always knew the answer to every teacher's questions, and in the classes we shared, she'd whisper them to me. I once asked her why she'd always let me take her credit, but all she said in that subdued voice of hers was it was a waste of time if the teacher waited for an answer no one was going to give.

I don't know when exactly I fell in love with her, but I did.

We were friends as much as an awkward teen and a quiet girl could be, but I wanted to be more. I wanted to make her smile. Not the smile that anyone acknowledging her as they passed in the halls got, but the smile I once saw her give her sister, Nerissa, when Nerissa cheered her up after Marin thought she had failed her Latin test. I wanted that smile, the smile that said thank you for loving me.

It wasn't for lack of trying that we were just friends. Over the course of our 9th and 10th years, I had asked her out on three separate occasions. Every time, she answered the same way. She would smile at me, a smile that was approaching but not quite what I desired, brush her lilac bangs to the right side (always the right side), and say, "We shouldn't, Dylan."

I just accepted it the first time. It wasn't my first rejection, so I took it as well as any kid with a decent, well-adjusted head on his shoulders should, and we continued to be friends. But I couldn't get Marin out of my mind, out of my head. My grades began to slip because I spent more time thinking about her than trigonometric identities or the names of all the countries in the European Union, so I asked a second time. At the second rejection, I asked why. Again I got that almost-smile, but that time it faltered as she shook her head and looked away. After the third and most recent rejection during the summer between our 10th and 11th years, I sought answers from Nerissa.

Nerissa was in many ways like her younger sister. She kept her hair dyed, though her color of choice was a deep, lapis lazuli blue. She was a couple inches taller, about as tall as me, and her skin tone also suggested an increased level of outdoor enjoyment. I knew she was an exceptional swimmer, because the one class we ever had together was PE, though she assured me Marin was just as good, if not better. Where they differed most was personality. Nerissa was as outgoing as Marin was quiet.

I hadn't gone to Nerissa right after the third attempt failed. I gave myself time to think, to consider if I was making the right move. If anyone had noticed my low-key, relentless pursuit of Marin, it was bound to be her older sister. Nerissa wasn't known for belligerence, but what if she decided I wasn't good enough for her little sister? What would I do then? She was more athletic than I could ever hope to be, so if she decided to stand in my way, I didn't know what I could do.

When classes began again on the tail end of summer, I had decided. I would ask, and I would take Nerissa's advice to heart. I was panicking, over-thinking things before. We hung out together all the time, the three of us. If she didn't want me around her sister, she'd have said so by now. So when our second PE class together let out, I made my move.

"Hey, Nerissa," I said as we walked the halls of Tallulah High en route to the Physics class I shared with Marin. She was headed the same way because Marin had forgotten the notebook she used for that class at home. "Do you mind if I ask you something?"

"It's about Marin, right?" she said over her shoulder. I paused in the middle of the bustling hall in my surprise, and Nerissa had to wade back through the throng to pull me by the hand back into motion. "What are you acting like that for?" she said with a laugh. "It's not like you haven't been obviously head-over-heels for my sister for years now. If anyone should be surprised, it's me, since you took so long to ask me about her."

My hand slipped from hers and found its way into my pocket. "Yeah, well, I…"

"Listen," she said, pulling me to the side in front of the lockers outside of the classroom we were headed for. "I can only say so much, you know. Marin is," Nerissa glanced over her shoulder at the open classroom door, "different. She's not what you think she is. Any more than that she'll have to tell you herself."

"But that's why I like her!" I said. "Because she's different!"

Nerissa smiled a crooked smile that suggested she was trying to hold back a laugh. "Right, of course." And with that, she left to deliver her sister's notebook.

I entered the classroom after Nerissa left, and for the first time since I met her, sitting next to Marin was awkward. I caught myself staring at her more times than I cared to count, and every time she looked at me I looked away, my face burning hot. I couldn't understand why I suddenly felt like I was no longer in love with a girl I had pretty much grown up with, but was instead crushing on a stranger. Did I really know her? Was Nerissa right? What could Marin possibly be hiding that would prevent our being together? Was there another man?

The bell rang and I stood too quick and tripped over my own feet, saved only by one hand catching my weight on the desk and Marin grasping the other as I flailed. As she helped me straighten up, she looked at me, and that time I couldn't help but stare back into her lush, green eyes.

"Dylan, are you alright?" she asked, squeezing my hand. "You've been a little, um, different today."

I attempted to swallow the lump forming in my throat, but it persisted. "I, uh, yeah, I guess I have." I broke eye contact to pick my book bag up off the floor and set it on the desk. I couldn't look back at her. Instead, I focused on the window over her left shoulder when I spoke again. "I asked Nerissa why. About why we can't, that is."

From the corner of my eye I saw her head incline. Her hand slipped from mine.

"She didn't say much," I said, looking everywhere in the room but at her. "Just that you're different. I told her that that's why I like you but she—"

At that moment, Marin took my hand in both of hers and pressed them to her chest, just below the collar of her white blouse. I looked at her as she looked up at me. There were tears in her eyes.

"Marin, are you—?" I threw my gaze about the emptying room, frantic. What was I supposed to do? I didn't mean to make her cry. Everyone was going to think I hurt her, or worse, she finally decided to be with me, and I turned her down. I couldn't live with myself if—

"Dylan," Marin said, and sniffled.

All my attentions focused on her in an instant.

"Is it true? That you like me because I'm different?"

I nodded.

"Do you…?" She paused to sigh. "Do you love me because I'm different?"

I nodded once more. "Yes, Marin. Ever since the first time I asked."

"Then meet me at the old gym at lunch," she said, and she ran from the classroom before I could respond.

The next class was torture. Never mind that the teacher called on me on three separate occasions and I remained oblivious until prompted by a classmate each time. Now Marin was the one acting strange, and I had to figure out why. What caused those pearly tears to form in her eyes? It could have been what Nerissa said, because in a way, it was forcing Marin to do something she had avoided for years. But it couldn't have been me, right? I didn't make her cry. I couldn't have made her cry, because that was the opposite of what I wanted. I wanted to make her smile.

The bell signaling the end of the period served as release from my personal torture. This time, I took my time getting to my feet and retrieving my bag. I waited for the classmates ahead of me to clear out, and then I too left. They were headed to the cafeteria, but my destination was different. I headed to the old gym.

There was only one reason anyone ever went to the old gym, and that was for privacy. The building stood apart from the rest of the school, on the other side of the track. It was officially closed when the new gym was completed, but no one really knows why it was never torn down. The current rumor was that it was haunted, so most students avoided it, even if they weren't superstitious. So it made sense to me that, if Marin was going to share with me what made her different, this would be the place to do it.

I circled around to the back of the gym, because the doors remained locked at all times. In order to get in, I had to climb the ladder on the side of the massive air conditioning unit to reach an open window. Under normal circumstances, I would have complained to myself about how I wasn't in good enough shape to be scaling buildings, but Marin was waiting for me. The memory of seeing her with tears in her eyes spurred me on, erased any doubts from my mind, and I pulled myself through the window, to fall ungracefully onto the top row of the stands.

I stood and dusted myself off, and smiled when I noticed her staring at me from the middle of the gym floor. After covering a small sneeze caused by the dust I kicked up, I ran down the steps of the stands, sometimes skipping two or three at a time to keep from falling on my face, and I didn't stop until I had thrown my arms around her and spun halfway around to keep us both from toppling over with my momentum.

"Marin, are you alright?" I asked as I held her tight. "When you started crying, I didn't know what to—all I could think about last period was—Marin, you just ran off and I didn't—"

As I gushed into her neck, she pried an arm loose and pushed a finger to my lips to silence me. When I tried to say more, she actually shushed me. I stood straight and loosened my hold on her, and once I did, she stepped away from me. She was looking down again, not meeting my eyes.

"There's something you have to know," she said, taking another step back and out of my arms. "If you really do feel that way about me, there's something you should know."

"Whatever it is, Marin, I'm sure it will be fine," I said, taking a step towards her. She retreated the same distance.

"I really should have done this sooner," Marin said. "I shouldn't have stayed quiet so long." And then she began to unbutton her blouse.

I turned before burning color in my cheeks betrayed my embarrassment. "Wh-what are you doing, Marin?" I stammered. "This isn't—you shouldn't. This place is filthy. What if someone sees us? They'll think—you shouldn't—we should talk about this somewhere else right?"

She said nothing. The next thing I heard was fabric unzipping and dropping to the ground.

"Marin?"

She cleared her throat. "It's okay. You can look."

I started to look over my shoulder, but thought better of it and shut my eyes tight. "But you're, you…"

"I know. That's why you have to look."

I couldn't do it on my own. It wasn't until she took my hand and led me around to facing her again that I beheld her once more. And what I saw, my mind had difficulty understanding.

Before me stood Marin. Her eyes were the same emerald green. Her hair was the same lilac purple. But her skin wasn't skin at all. She was covered in fine scales that were cream-colored on her flattened chest and stomach and blue-gray with faint stripes of that lilac purple everywhere else. Protruding from her forearms were thick fins that arched up to just below her shoulder. From behind her, a wide, finned tail waved back and forth inches from the dusty hardwood floor. Her face tapered down to a broad, flat nose. Marin looked just like—

"—a shark."

Marin nodded but still would not look up.

"This…" I looked her over once more, from tail to lilac hair.  "This is why you thought it wouldn't work between us? Because you're a shark?"

"Well, not a shark, but we're related."

"So your hair is naturally that color? I always thought you dyed it."

For the first time since I entered the gym, she looked up and smiled. But there was something more hidden behind the gesture. Something that caused the smile to falter, then disappear altogether.

"Dylan, Look at me," she said, studying the flooring once more. "Don't you see?"

"Yeah, you're right in front of me," I said, stepping forward and taking her hand. "So what. You're a shark-person-mermaid-something, I don't know. I love you for who you are, not what you are. Is your sister the same? Does anyone else know?"

I made to embrace Marin, but before I could wrap my arms around her, she snatched her hand out of mine and glared up at me.

"Look at me!" she cried, and tears formed in the corners of her eyes. "Can't you see, or do I have to explain it to you?"

I didn't understand what had I had done to make her so mad. I had already looked at her and saw her for what she was. So what if she was some kind of shark that could pose as human! I didn't care that she was truly flat-chested, or that she'd be smooth if I rubbed her one way and rough the other. I didn't understand what she wanted me to see that I was missing. It wasn't like there was a penis where there shouldn't have been.

"Maybe if I answer your questions, you'll understand. No one outside of our family knows. And my sister," Marin interlaced her fingers and let her hands settle at waist level. "My sister isn't like me—"

"So she actually does dye her hair?"

"—in that she's actually female."

It took a moment for that last phrase to register. I had just seen what her hands were covering. What did she mean, saying her sister is actually female? There was nothing there. I saw with my own eyes. There was nothing there.

"Marin, that's not funny. I just saw—"

"That's my cloacal vent."

"Well yeah, a fish's gonads are internal, that explains the lack of a chest, so—"

"There's a penis in there, Dylan."

I'm not sure how long I stood there blinking. I think Marin asked me if I was okay, but I wasn't sure I was making proper sense of the things I was hearing just then. Marin, the girl that I had known for years, the female with the breasts and the skirts and the soft, female voice, had told me she had a penis. Surely my ears were defective. Surely I had heard wrong. Surely she was joking.

Somehow, I found myself lying on a bleacher with my head in her—his—lap. When I recognized the proximity of my face to his crotch, I panicked a little. I bolted upright and slid away and immediately regretted my decision. I couldn't describe the look I saw on his face if I tried. If I could have seen Caesar's face when Brutus plunged the knife in his back, it would have scarcely compared to Marin. And through that special bond that people who have become close over the years share, his pain became mine.

I wanted to comfort him, to right my wrong to assuage both our hurts, but he shrank from my outstretched hand. It was what I deserved, I suppose. After I had betrayed someone I claimed to have loved like that, I deserved no less than being boiled in tar and dumped into feathers. But I persisted.

With a single finger, I reached for a tear that rolled down from his round, emerald eyes. Marin didn't shy away, but he still flinched at the contact. I wiped the tear away, then took his face in both my hands and made him look at me.

"I didn't mean that," I said, laying my head in his lap as before. I studied the faint bowing pattern of the scales around his navel as I waited for a response, but none came. "I wasn't thinking. It was sudden and I was trying to make sense of things. I didn't mean that."

"Are you sure?" Marin said, his sentence punctuated with a sniffle. "This is why I couldn't say anything. I didn't want to lose you. Can you really accept this?"

I followed the line of his stomach up until I met with emerald. "Yes. I think I can."

"Are you sure? I don't want to hear in two weeks that—"

The time for talking was finished. I sat up and told him as much with my lips.

"I wasn't lying when I said I loved you," I whispered as we parted. And then I laid my head back in his lap.

He smiled, and it said more than I ever hoped it would.