Sunday, March 17, 2013

Insatiable - A Mermaid's Curse - Chapter 1 Sneak Preview


Insatiable - A Mermaid's Curse

Chapter One Sneak Preview


He’s smiling down at me and all I can do is look away.  Happiness seems to be such a rare emotion for him, it always has, and I know it’s only a matter of time until I become the one responsible for that smile turning into something dark.
He places his finger under my chin, lifting my head up.  “Well, do you regret it?” he asks.
I want to tell him the truth, that I don’t regret it, that I’d rather have had one day with him than none at all, but the words don’t come out at first.  I take a deep breath and I know that I have to lie.  I have to push him as far away from me as I can, because I have no other option.  So I focus on the part that I do regret.  I focus on the fact that when offered my dreams to be made true, consequences didn’t even cross my mind.  Not just consequences to myself, but I also never once stopped to think about how my choices would impact those around me, how they would impact him.
All I can think is that my next words are going to shatter everything that both of us have lived for in the past few weeks.
***
There was only one thing that I ever wished for: to be human.  I always felt like I didn’t belong.  My dad used to tell me stories about the human world and how lucky I was to live in a place even humans considered magical.  I used to believe that to be true.  Everything seemed so fun: swimming all day, seeing the different colors around, and exploring the ships that ended up on the bottom of the ocean.  One day, I stopped feeling like that.
My dad and I lived near an island, which seemed to be owned by one family only; after all, they were always the only ones there.  Every summer when they came, I would swim as close to the island as I could and hide behind the rocks to watch them.  I wasn’t trying to be creepy, I was just curious about their world.
Years ago, when I was eleven years old, I was hiding behind the rocks when I saw the boy who looked a little older than me.  He seemed so mad.  I saw a woman coming out of the house yelling, ‘Blake!  He didn’t mean it!’
The boy just ignored her and ran toward the other side of the island.  That was the day my life changed.  I hated what I was because I wanted to go after him and see if he was okay, but I couldn’t.
All I could do was swim back as fast as I could and hide in one of the wrecked ships that wasn’t too far away from my home.  I was so mad about what I was and how limited I was because of it, that I didn’t want to see anyone.
I finally decided to go home when it started to get dark.  It was only a matter of time before dad decided to send the whole kingdom to look for me.
On the way back, I ran into my friend Desiree.  Like me, she liked to watch the humans every once in a while.  She came to tell me the humans were leaving and to ask if I wanted to watch them go.  I told her I had to get back and that was it. 
That was the last time I saw him that summer, but they always came back.  Year-after-year, I watched the boy come back to the island.  I knew that whenever he was alone, he was the saddest being I had ever seen.  I also knew that there were a few things that always made him smile.  He loved reading and writing, spending time with his younger brother, and years later, his little sister. I caught myself laughing with them several times, as he played with her at the beach.  And then there was this year, the most horrible year of my life… the year I turned eighteen.   That was when I saw him with a girl, both lying down on a blanket at the beach, and I felt things that I had never felt before.  When he leaned on top of her and I saw his lips touching hers, I wanted to be that girl.  I wanted to have legs instead of a stupid tail.  I wanted to be the one he kissed. 

©2013 Daniele Lanzarotta. May not be reprinted or reproduced in any manner, written, electronic or otherwise without express permission of author.

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