Chapter 2

"Holly, are you in here?"

Holly recognized the familiar voice and groaned before she turned around to face Hanna. "What are you doing here Hanna?"

"For some absurd reason I thought you'd have a warmer reception towards me."

It had been years since Holly had seen her.

"Whatever gave you that idea?" Holly asked.

All the fond memories the two had shared were a faded blur to Holly. On her departure, everything that had once held meaning for her had been left behind and her relationship with Hanna had been one of the contributing factors that had driven her out of town.

"Well, we have a past together," Hanna said.

Holly stood upright and slightly tilted her head. "What do you want?"

"I heard you were back. Until yesterday, I didn't have the courage to come see you. I need to apologize for the way things ended between us. What I did to you was unforgivable. I understand if you still hate me but I was really hoping you could find it in your heart to forgive me," Hanna said.

"I don't hate you, Hanna. I don't feel anything but indifference towards you."

Hanna went silent, and Holly thought she was going to leave.

"You've changed," she said.

Holly was glad to hear that. She'd been a naïve, sensitive, vulnerable little girl but now she was a strong, independent woman. Circumstances had forced her to grow up and difficult times had matured her nature.

She noticed the traces of physical change in Hanna as well. She had developed into a pretty woman. Her hair was a light shade of blonde and her eyes were a dull grey.

"You should leave," she said.

"I know I hurt you-."

Holly immediately gestured her into silence with her right hand. "You and I have nothing to discuss. Next time I ask you to leave, I won't be so kind."

Hanna appeared surprised, but she did as Holly asked, reluctantly turned and left.

Holly tried to put her mind back to work but Hanna's last statement left a sour taste in her mouth, stirring up old dying memories.

She took a brush and went to the stables. As she softly ran the bristles of the hair brush over the mare, she remembered her encounters with Hanna.

*

She was sixteen again. Hanna Harris, her best friend, was getting ready to go out on a date. She was young, beautiful, and full of life. Holly didn't understand why she wanted to go out with some boy from her science class when she could have gone out with any jock she wanted.

"You know you can do better than him," Holly remarked, and Hanna stopped applying her makeup to look at her.

"It's not like the other boys are interested in me," Hanna grumbled.

"You're beautiful and smart. Any boy would love to go out with you."

"Well, someone should tell them that so they can ask me out."

"It's not them, Hanna. It's you. You're too shy and conservative. You're only yourself when you're with me."

"Well then you should ask me out. I bet I'd have a much better time with you anyway."

Holly laughed at her statement.

"What about you? I never see you paying any attention to boys. You only talk about them when I bring it up," Hanna said, looking at herself in the mirror.

"What about Mark? I talk about him."

"Mark has had the longest crush on you and you don't even seem to notice. And when boys flirt with you, you don't seem to care."

"That's because it's not a big deal, and boys are gross." She leaned back on the bed and stared at the ceiling.

"Boys are gross? Do you hear yourself?"

"Yes, and I like Mark too. Just not in the same way he likes me. I don't know, I guess I'm different."

"You amaze me, Mackenzie," Hanna said, sitting beside her on the bed.

"How so?"

"Like you said, you're different. I know people don't understand our friendship. You're social, you can walk up to anyone and stir up a conversation, and I can't. You can be best friends with a boy and make him see past the fact that you're a girl, and I can't do that. You have this unwavering confidence that I lack."

"If it was possible, I'd share it with you," Holly said playfully.

"It's weird though," Hanna said.

"What is?"

"The way boys don't matter to you when it's all every girl our age can talk about."

"Maybe I'm abnormal," Holly joked, but Hanna retained a serious expression.

"No, you're special."

Holly smiled. "Your date is going to be here any second. You should finish getting ready."

*

"How is she doing?" Holly asked Tony later on that day.

"Her vitals are stronger, there's a bit of improvement," he said.

"Can I see her?" she asked, recalling the poor, pale and lifeless state Mermaid had been in when she'd found her on the shore.

"Yes, I'll show you to her room."

She followed him to Mermaid's hospital room.

"I'll leave you alone with her," Tony said, leaving to go tend to his other patients.

Mermaid's skin was still pale and if it wasn't for the machine monitoring her, anyone could have thought she was dead but even in death, she was a stunning sight.

Holly took a seat beside the bed and silently watched her, wondering if she was peaceful and happy in her dreams. Her expression was unreadable and except for the weak movement of her chest, she looked lifeless.

Death could not wear such a beautiful face, Holly thought as she slightly stretched out her hand and touched Mermaid's.

She really was a beautiful woman. She resembled a princess out of a storybook romance with long untamed dark hair, lovely manicured fingers, dazzling flawless face and perfect full lips.

"What is the color of your eyes, Mermaid?" she asked rhetorically and ventured a wild guess.

They had to be as blue as the sea or as green as the land. No, it had to be blue. It much more suited her. She may have had an unreadable expression but Holly imagined she could shine life into a dying heart with her smile.

Softly laughing at her own silliness, she realized that for once since her return, she'd put all her fears and disturbing thoughts aside.

"I bet there is someone out there looking for you," she said, carefully reaching for Mermaid's left hand to find an empty ring finger. "Maybe family." The absence of a ring didn't mean she didn't have someone special in her life.

"I have a big family and I had a lot of friends." She remembered. "Its funny how I've never stopped feeling alone, though." Saying it made the impact a little more brutal. "I don't have those friends now and my family..." She tried to think of a word as her fingers lingered on Mermaid's. "I don't know."

She exhaled and closed her eyes. "I've made a mistake on top of another. I look at myself in the mirror and I swear I don't recognize the person looking back at me," she confessed and slowly opened her eyes to find startlingly blue eyes staring back at her and froze.

She was unsure of what to do as Mermaid continued to stare at her. The whole room fell silent as Mermaid's soft gaze extracted layer after layer of her open, making Holly feel terrifyingly exposed.

"What's your name?" Mermaid asked in a low weak voice.

"Holly," she said, surprised by how right her guess had been about Mermaid's eyes.

Mermaid's unwavering blue gaze penetrated a hole into her. She tried to speak and her lips were moving but no words came out. That was when Holly realized she had to call for help.

She pressed a button on Mermaid's bed to summon someone who could help and a moment later, a female nurse walked in.

"She woke up," Holly said breathlessly as she tried to let go of Mermaid's hand, which was now holding onto hers.

"Please wait outside," the nurse ordered and called for a doctor.

Mermaid released her and Holly walked out, passing Tony by the door. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath as Mermaid's blue eyes continued to haunt her. She couldn't even remember what she'd been blabbering on about.

A while later, after she'd calmed down, Tony walked out of the hospital room. She was surprised to learn how eager she was to know how Mermaid was doing.

"Is she okay?" she asked.

"She's fine, just a little exhausted."

Holly exhaled in relief.

"She's asking for you," he said.

"She is?"

That unwavering gaze still haunted her.

"Yes and I think you should go see her. A familiar face will relax her," he said.

"But she doesn't know who I am."

"You're the first face she saw when she woke up, everything before that is a bit of a blur but once she gets enough rest, it'll start coming back to her. For now, she requested to see you."

"Did you ask for her name?" she asked, hoping to replace the name Mermaid with something more realistic.

"Yes, but she doesn't remember. Like I said, everything is a bit of a blur. Once she's well rested and recovered, it'll come back to her."

She nodded and he reassuringly patted her back. She took a deep breath and walked back into the hospital room just as the nurse was leaving.

She made her way over to the bed and felt those blue eyes on her once again. Knowing Mermaid had no idea how she'd ended up in the hospital, Holly wondered what to say.

"Dr. Calloway told me that you found me," her voice was still a little hoarse, but her eyes were startlingly arresting.

"The girls and I found you washed up on the beach. They thought you were a mermaid and that's what everyone's been calling you since no one knows your name," Holly said.

"The girls?"

"My nieces, Alanna and Madison. They're eleven and nine. They're actually Dr. Calloway's kids."

"He's your brother?"

"Brother-in-law, he's married to my sister, Cassandra."

"So you found me washed up on the beach, brought me to the hospital and then came back to check up on me?"

Holly nodded.

When Mermaid smiled at her, she recalled her earlier assumption about her having a smile that could shine life into a dying heart and realized she'd been right about that too.

"You're a very nice person," she said.

"I only did what any other person would've done."

"I'm glad it was you who found me."

"I'm glad you're going to be okay," Holly said, noticing that Mermaid did not sound like she was from Reedsdale. "Why do you keep looking at me like that?" she asked because Mermaid had not blinked once since Holly had walked back into the room.

"I guess I don't understand what you mean when you say that when you look at yourself in the mirror, you don't recognize the person looking back at you."

The statement surprised her as the words replayed themselves in her mind. "You heard what I was saying?" She'd thought Mermaid had been unconscious and totally out of it.

"Some of it," Mermaid said. "Was I not supposed to hear it?"

On some level, Holly thought that maybe she had wanted her to. "I guess sometimes it's easier to confide in a stranger. You should rest. Dr. Calloway said you were tired."

Mermaid continued looking at her until her eyes finally closed. Holly stayed a while longer, watching as she slept. She was so graceful. Holly wished she could get a glimpse of her dreams.