Morph, My Story, Page 3

wheels leads from the dock down to a floating platform level with the back of the boat. I move Deogi’s head from my lap and cross the ramp, keeping my momentum in check by constantly resisting the wheels from their desire to spin freely. The aft of the boat contains a large white chair with its own seatbelt mounted on a pole blocking my way.

  “Sorry, that’s the fighting chair for when we fish for marlin. We won’t be using it today,” Nick explains, as he pulls up the chair and hands it off to a guy probably a year or two out of high school with tanned skin a shade darker than mine but covered with tattoos.

  “If we do fish for marlin, I’ll teach you their language, they talk in color,” the tattooed boy tells me. I don’t know if he’s joking or not as he flashes the same smile as Nick, “Back me up, Papi.”

  “Is that true?” I ask Nick.

  “I might teach you their language one day. I’ve just shared it with family so far.”

  “Your boys?”

  “Grandkids, both of them. You can tell we’re related by the matching tattoos,” Nick jokes as he starts climbing up a ladder to a crow’s nest with a second set of controls for the boat. “Someone’s got to continuing loving the ocean when I’m gone.” He says the last part to no one in particular.

  Mom comes down and stands with me while the crew starts removing the ropes to the dock. Deogi pushes his way between us to grant me the pleasure of scratching his back once more. Thor and Deogi could be brothers if judged just by actions and not appearance.

  Nick’s tattooed grandkid joins me in petting Deogi. Across one arm fish race over coral towards his hand and on his back a mermaid swims heading for the surface just outside of the shadow of a fishing boat. The mermaid’s golden hair sweeps back and swirls forward to cover her chest. My own charcoal hair barely extends to my shoulder, never going to be mistaken for a mermaid.

  “I’m Dillon,” he discloses after turning around showing a shark dominating the scene on his chest, “and my brother is Slater.” Pointing at the smaller guy with the same tan body. “Named after Kelly Slater.” Dillon has light blue-gray eyes that stand out from his skin. “Slater, the surfer.”

  In response I shrug.

  “Where are you from?” he continues.

  “Oklahoma.”

  “Not much surfing in Oklahoma.”

  Can’t disagree with that. “Nope.”

  “Is your chair stable? Can you lock that down?”

  “Sure.” I flip down the wheel locks.

  Dillon grabs the back of my chair and rocks it back and forth. “That fighting chair would make me feel better,” he says trying to dislodge my wheelchair, still testing its stability. “Maybe next time we’ll go fishing and let you reel in a marlin, give you a chance to test the chair.” The whole time we talk he never looks at my legs or the scars on my skin, just his eyes on mine. Dillon, never met a boy named Dillon before, let’s hope he doesn’t ruin the name.

  The boat’s engines already rumbling when we arrived at the dock increase in volume as they engage and we pull away. My mom, only slightly less afraid of boats than airplanes, grabs my arm with one hand while the other clinches a railing by her chair.

  Leaving the marina we head due south into the Atlantic. The boat crashes through the rolling waves and my locked wheelchair slides a bit but I stay on board. With each bounce I tug on my lifejacket, it’s snug, and Deogi remains at my side.

  The wheelchair slides some more and then Dillon grabs it. “Do you want to be in a regular chair?” he asks.

  I start to say, “No,” and then the entire wheelchair loses touch with the boat as it drops. “Yes, please.”

  Dillon reaches down and puts me on the bench next to my mom. I normally hate when people grab me. Being smaller seems to be an open ticket for people to want to pick you up, but I don’t mind right now.

  After ten minutes of rolling waves the sea flattens, as the boat levels I can see more of the ocean in front of us, but its behind the boat that keeps my attention. In the wake with each breath, a dolphin exposes part of its body out of the water before disappearing below.

  The largest one in the pod has a notched dorsal fin. While the others stay partially hidden, this one jumps out to expose his whole body. His last leap instead of at the wake occurs right next to me and culminates with a front flip.

  “That’s Sam, he is a bit of a showoff,” Dillon from over my shoulder tells me. “He’s normally on his own, but today he’s looking for a lady. He will probably keep that up all day.”

  “You’re a dolphin expert?”

  “Dolphins, no; guys, yes. See Sam is a guy. He wants to be noticed. Not much a dolphin can do to get noticed by a girl. Can’t text her, can’t send her flowers, he’s a dolphin. So what does he do? Jumps, flips and hopes that some girl notices him.”

  Sam matches the speed of our boat keeping his head just below the surface. His left eye locked on me through the water.

  “So you think Sam shows off just to attract girls?”

  “He acts like every other guy I know.” At that moment Sam disappears diving straight down. The other dolphins continue playing in the wake. Then the water explodes in front of them as Sam bursts out of the water and he does a double flip over them. “Yep, no other reason,” Dillon concludes.

  After awhile the dolphins grow bored and stop following us. As they swim away, Sam continues to do his flips over the females as they retreat.

  We continue without the dolphin escort with Dillon on one side of me and Deogi on the other. They act like it’s the most natural thing in the world to be standing next to me and it feels right.

   We reach the dive site and tie our boat to a mooring buoy that with each roll of the ocean exposes layers of sea life living on its bottom. An identical marker nearby already has boats and divers in the water.

  Dillon unlatches the back rail revealing the diving platform behind the boat. Small waves rock the boat, as the ocean’s current treats us like a large kite pulling and tugging away at our anchor line. Even from above the surface I can see hints of color in the reef below as fish swim through a maze of coral.

  Deogi paces at the back of the boat searching the water for fish. Tail wagging back and forth, turning back from his search, looking at Nick for permission, “Go for it, boy,” and with that Deogi leaps out and begins paddling around the reef. “Kara, stay within thirty yards of the boat today. It’s calm but I don’t want to lose you on our first day out. Dillon will be your human partner.”

  “Do you need help?” Dillon offers.

  As much as I did not mind the thought of Dillon helping, I do not like being considered weak. “I’ve got it.” I lower myself to the deck to crawl with my hands. While Nick claims this is calm, I’ve never had to maneuver on a tilting floor that rises and falls with each wave. I snap my new life jacket to my chair to leave it on board. I’m going to explore today, not just going to float on the surface and with the next wave lifting us I slide towards the back. Right before I plunge in the water, I grab the side of the boat and catch myself at the edge. Being thrown into the water on my first day would have been embarrassing. Holding on allows me to watch Dillon barreling past and looking back bewildered as he sees me still clutching the boat, while he can’t stop himself from plunging into the water.

  When he resurfaces, I scream, “I don’t need rescuing,” to my want-a-be hero. I drop myself onto the diving platform and with extra confidence, “I’m fine.”

  “Scared me,” he responds head soaked just bobbing in the water. Nick tosses him a snorkel and mask, and while he puts it on I scoot so that my legs dangle off the diving platform. Sitting here enjoying the water I put on webbed swimming gloves making my entire hand into a paddle. Then on my own terms I slide into the water.

  In the water I’m almost the same height as Dillon, both of our heads just out of the water, it’s an equalizer. No more looking up from the wheelchair. We can now face each other at eye level. Deogi swims between us, salt water splashing us both equally.


  Time to put on my mask and before inserting the snorkel I shout, “Race you.”

  Swimming face down fully exposes the reef below me. In parts the coral runs further down than the deep end of our pool back home, but it feels closer. I enjoy coasting across the surface, Dillon is next to me and the loud splashing noise must be Deogi following us. The valley in the coral below me forces a school of light blue fish with yellow tails to swim in a tight formation. I dive down to get closer. Totally submersed, all the surface noise diminishes, replaced with uniform calm.

  The school of fish startled by my presence dart away to my left. A small golden fish not part of the group hovers in front of me, daring me to race before dashing off. I feel like Harry Potter and give chase. He dives down between the coral rising from the bottom. Following above I’m able to keep pace in a somewhat straight line as he zigzags around obstacles that fail to reach to my height. When I travel near the surface, I take quick breathes through the snorkel not wanting to ever move my eyes from the racer. All the other fish scatter as we plunge forward. I’m gaining on him, hand out reaching for the prize, when I feel someone tugging on me. Looking back it’s Dillon holding on to me and frantically pointing to the surface. When I look to the bottom my challenger is gone.

  I head up, with Dillon by my side. Under the water, Dillon appears huge next to me, all allusions of equivalent sizes gone.

  I break to