“Somebody left you too?” Sean asks, desperation in their eyes. I can tell they need to feel like they aren’t alone in this.

“More like I was forced to leave them.”

“You didn’t want to come here, did you?”

Apparently humans aren’t as entirely self-centered as I thought. Sean was able to pick up on my fish-out-of-water energy pretty quickly.

“Not exactly, no.”

“So your gap year is more forced than voluntary?”

“Definitely not voluntary. But it’s supposed to build up my character or something stupid like that.”

Sean laughs. “Parents, am I right?”

They’re not right, technically. I don’t have parents. Or more like I have lots of them. Mer are birthed by a spell and raised by Elders as a community. Regardless, Sean’s sentiment is pretty accurate. “They said to just think of it as a journey.” That was a little on the fin, but Sean doesn’t know, so no harm done.

Sean chews through their next bite before saying, “You’re kind of a secretive guy, you know that?”

A shiver runs up my spine at the word guy. And once again, Sean catches it. “You okay?”

I fidget with the edge of the foil wrapping my burrito. Elder Crab said the norm is to pick a gender and that we should just go with it while we’re on land, but that feels so un-me. So un-mer. It’s another way humans force torture upon themselves. So in the spirit of honesty and trying to get Sean to open up so I can help them and get the flick out of here, I say, “All those labels. Guy, he, him. Where I come from, we don’t take that lightly. We’re more into hearts over parts, but here, it just seems like everyone needs to know what’s between each other’s legs.”

Sean’s eyes crinkle with concern and they gently put a hand on my arm. They’re very touchy. Like seals. But with seals I know they’re just trying to play; with Sean I feel like words are trying to be said without actually saying them. If this was any of my friends back home, we’d brush fins together and I’d know just what was meant. A tap from Splash if a kraken looks like they’re about to get angry, a playful brush from Drop to suggest we sneak off and hit up the jellyfish blooms alone. Sean’s fingers are just as communicative as a fin, but it’s so not what I was expecting from the first human I met that it makes me uneasy.

I pull my arm away. Sean’s cheeks turn bright red, and they cringe. “Hey, I am so sorry. I never meant to misgender you. I just assumed, and you know what they say when you assume.”