It has been two weeks. Angela’s wound has healed quite nicely; contrary to her assumptions, the deep cut barely left a scar thanks to Francis’s various concoctions and balms that always make her nose twitch, with how strong they tend to smell.

‘What is that, anyway?’ she asks Francis, with signs that are a tad clumsy, yet are now enough to get her points across to him.

Francis pauses from cutting a strange flower across his dinner table that he’d crafted himself from a fallen tree, which had landed before his humble abode during the coldest days of last year’s Winter—one week ago, he moved the very same table into this bathroom so that the two of them could spend more time together. ‘What?’ Francis signs in return, in a way that looks much less clumsy and rather natural, before he holds the plant up in the air. He squints. ‘This?’

The siren nods. She makes a sign that indicates she is curious. ‘Always,’ she tells him, in the language that he has taught her. ‘You’re always fiddling with those plants in the morning, and late at night, too. What are you making?’

Instead of a concrete answer, however, Angela finds himself met with some of Francis’s endearing giggles.

The siren tenses, then grabs at Francis’s shoulder to get his attention, so that he is looking at her again—more precisely, at her hands. ‘Why are you laughing?’

Francis wipes a tear away from his eye. He bites his lip, apparently, to hold back another chuckle or two. Instead of signing back, he motions for Angela to wait. He rises then moves to grab the journal they barely use anymore, and eventually, scribbles something down between two pages.

As Angela waits, she wonders, what in the ocean’s name is so funny.

And when Francis is finally done after what feels like quite the long wait, the young man tilts the journal in an angle that allows for Angela to read. It is with horror, that Angela does in fact, look over the text.

‘Angela, I assume you wanted to sign the word for touch or fiddle,’ Francis has written. ‘But… there was a mistake in your wording. I feel it is best to let you know, you’ve just told me I masturbate my plants every morning.’

As Angela freezes, her lips curling into a frown once more, Francis takes this opportunity to point to another phrase scribbled across a distant corner of the page. ‘It’s like this,’ he silently communicates to her, before he abandons the notebook to a shelf full of other strange tomes, and demonstrates the proper way to form the word, right before Angela’s eyes.

The siren huffs. Once Francis is done with showing her the proper sign—and making sure she has repeated it at least thrice—Angela grasps at her lover’s palm, then holds it for a silent moment.

If there is one thing Angela has learned over these past couple days, it is that Francis is quite the chatterbox. He has told her many things, about lands Angela dares not even dream about, places she will never see due to her being oceanbound.

Soon, Francis squeezes her hand, then softly pulls away. Angela wonders if he has noticed the disappointment that has etched itself into her now furrowed brows.

‘Sad?’ Francis asks her.

And the siren shakes her head. ‘Disappointed. But I can’t do much about not having legs.’

Francis stops to consider her words, he purses his lips together.

Outside, it is raining again—Angela recalls the first time they promised each other this relationship would be more than an accident or a regret.

But a gentle tap that Francis leaves against the inside of her wrist, takes Angela out of her thoughts, grabs her attention.