Ever since we got out of school, time had a way of getting all hazy, like how the boardwalk looks just a short distance away on a sunny day. But I knew it was a Saturday morning when I saw my dad had beat me to making coffee for the house and was sitting out at the kitchen counter in his board shorts and rash-guard.

"Your mom's been a little busy lately," he said in a hushed voice with a nod back towards the stairs, towards their bedroom. "And Lena came back late last night. What do you say we have a traditional Saturday?"

I grinned—I knew exactly what tradition he was talking about.

"I'll be ready in a minute."

I darted back to my room and changed into one of my older rash-guards and board shorts that didn't match, and wound my hair into a loose braid curled into a bun at the base of my neck. I didn't need to look fancy today. 

The morning waves were beautiful. They weren't like the ones Mom grew up surfing in Hawaii, or even what the good people of California rode on the West Coast. The Atlantic had her own way of doing things.

But like my dad, I grew up surfing in Wilmington.

The waves were smaller, so it made spotting one actually worth riding all the more difficult. But the waiting was where the best part of it was. I loved sitting atop my freshly-waxed board, a hand-me-down from Lena when she decided she didn't like surfing anymore, with my legs in the cool water, the sun on my face. I could listen to the waves, to the song of the gulls and actually admire it all. And I could chat with Dad.

Out on the water, we could talk about anything and everything. 

"It's nice to be out here like this," I told him. 

In the afternoon, tourists would fill the beaches in town and in the neighborhood all the families would come out. Which had its own fun—but I selfishly liked moments like this the best, when the entire ocean seemed to be all our own.

The lines around Dad's eyes crinkled—not the smiley places, but the ones that meant he was sad. "I guess we haven't been home much this summer, have we?"

"It's barely started," I reminded him.

It had only been six days since my world had changed forever with the yacht party. And that had only been a week after school had let out and I begged my sister for a makeover. In two weeks, I had accomplished what I could only dream of for nearly all my life—I was finally pretty, and my life had finally changed.

"So it has," he murmured as he surveyed the landscape. "You want this one?" He nodded towards the incoming tide.

"I think so." I glanced at him. "Are you sure you don't want it?"

He laughed. "Go on, kiddo." 

That was as good of an invitation as any. I went flat on my board and started paddling towards the incoming wave. As I approached, I made my pop-up—or would have, if I was any good at it. 

As quickly as I'd started, I wiped out. 

I fell into the water, spluttering bubbles as up turned down and everything was a blur of dark and light. I didn't feel the same rush, the panic of before all the mermaid stuff whenever I'd fall. Now that I could actually breathe underwater, it took some of the urgency out of it. 

I oriented myself and kicked back up onto the board. In the time it had taken me to resurface, Dad had paddled over to me. 

"You okay, kiddo?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." I smiled. "You know me—I never can pop out."

"Not never," he said gently, with an encouraging nudge on my arm. "Remember last time? You got up three times! You're getting better at this, just give it some time."

"If you say so, Dad." I looked to the shoreline and nearly fell off my board. 

Because standing on the beach right in front of my house was none other than Kei. 

Dad caught on to what perturbed me pretty much instantly. "Friend of yours?"

"Yeah—something like that?"

I did my best to ignore the sidelong glance he was giving me.

"Your mom gave you the talk, right?"

"Which one?"

He sighed. "He's not a boyfriend, right, Mika?"

"Oh, god no." I laughed—and I think the earnestness of it was what convinced him. "Unless we're counting boys who just happen to be friends."

"We're not." The suspicion did not fully clear out of his light blue eyes, but his shoulders relaxed a little. "We should go say hello, then."

Kei was still waiting there for us, hands in the pockets of his board shorts. Looking him up and down, if it weren't for those strange silvery-blue pale scars coming down his arms and legs and a little around where his collarbone showed in the tank top he wore layered under an open button-down shirt with a cute little seal pattern on it, he would have passed for a normal cute guy my age on the beach. 

Dad eyed him warily as he stacked the boards up on the rack. Maybe it was because of his scars or his white hair—but I thought maybe it had more to do with that he'd walked onto a residential beach unannounced.

"Hello, Mika." Kei smiled pleasantly, none of the mischief I recalled previously hung about his words. "I thought I recognized you."

"This is a neighborhood beach, son," Dad said. "You can't just be wandering around here."

Kei smiled—there the mischief was. Specifically it was the kind of mischief where he had been told a very funny joke—but he somehow knew a secret punchline, and was keeping it from the original joke-teller. "I'll keep that in mind."

I crossed my arms. "I didn't know you'd be around here today."

He raised an eyebrow. "I do live here, Mika."

"Where are you staying—" Dad looked to me, the question evident on his face.

"Kei," I supplied, without taking my eyes off of him.

"I'm the one in the pink house over on Bahini Way, the one about a block from here, the one with the glowing starfish you can see from the harbor." He said it as casually, as boy-next-door as I'd thought him incapable of being. Nothing about it should have elicited any kind of reaction.

So I was in no way prepared for the way Dad blanched.

"I'm so sorry for your loss," he said. "I saw your dad every now and again, he was a good guy. And your mom—well, Kiana misses her every day."

I blinked and looked between the two of them. I didn't understand at all what they were talking about, even if I caught enough of the context.

"Would it be okay if I took Mika out to—" Kei checked a watch that had been concealed by him having hands in his pockets—"brunch, sir?"

Dad looked to me. "If you want to go, I see no reason why not to."

I hesitated. It had been so long since the two of us had gotten to hang out, with our surf mornings. I felt like it had just barely begun.

But the look in Dad's eye didn't just say that he was okay with me going. That look plus the way he nodded ever so slightly towards Kei went a little further than that.

You should go.

I shrugged and smiled my brightest as I turned back to Kei. "Just let me change, and I'll grab my purse."

Kei nodded, as if he expected that response. "Don't worry, I'll be here."