I looked up to find my friend Anastasia. "Melissa, what's wrong?" She asked obviously noticing my tears. I didn't answer. I couldn't get the image of Jordan with that other women out of my head. She seemed to look like she knew what was wrong, but wanted to know before she jumped to conclusions. "Come on," She told me. "I'll get you a drink and we can talk all about it."
She walkd us back to the Sea Shanty, a little inn not too far from Port Gambino. After ordering our drinks, she asked, "Why were you running?" I looked down at my cup of tea and at my reflection in the water. "I needed to see you," I said, wiping away a few tears that were still in her eyes. "It's about Jordan." I looked up at her slightly, and then back down at my cup, where my hands sat around it shaking. "I thought so.Did he dump you?" The word dump was all it took to make the tears start up again. "No, much worse. He was being with another woman, behind my back and to my face." She looked like she was boiling with anger towards Jordan. "8 rejections. 8 heartbreaks." I mumbled. "I can't take it anymore, Anastasia! When do I get love!? When do I get my fairy tale ending! I'm a mermaid! I'm supposed to be beautiful and get love! So why haven't I found it! When's it my turn! What's wrong with me! Why don't they like me!?" I exclaimed through my tears. "You'll find it." She said. "You are beautiful. There's nothing wrong with you. Just give it time. But for now don't think about it." I nodded trying to forget about Jordan. I tried to push the image of him hurting me....of him kissing that other women out of my head. I tried not to think about the fact that he could be having sex with that women right now.
"So, why were you running?" I asked, looking up at her again, but quickly looking back down at my tea. My voice sounded so much more quite. I was surprised she could even hear my voice. "That's a fair question considering we both were running to see each other about something," She replied. I looked up her slightly, then looked back down. Had my father been right? Where humans cruel and always meant to be cruel? Well at least not all of them. I had meet several humans sense I came to the surface, and not all of them where cruel. "What is it then?" I finally said.
"Well...it's kind of a long story." She said. "I've got nothing better to do." I said softly. "Hell it might help me get my mind off of ....." I trailed off. I couldn't bring myself to say his name. I didn't want to think about him, and I wasn't going to think about him. "Just tell me." I said. She told me everything. About an excursion on the sea-floor, the two eels she found, a miraculous operation she had performed with Flotsam's help. "So you're saying, you have Ursula's henchmen under narcotics and they're asleep in your grotto right now?!" I finally said when she was done. "Yes. That's basically it. They were in pretty bad shape when I found them, so I'm guessing they're her ex-henchmen, or hencheels, or whatever they are. But that's not even the weirdest part." I looked at her again.
"What is the weirdest part?" I asked. I probably sounded very depressed. And I was doing my absoulute best not to show it. But I had a feeling she was seeing right throught it. "They look like humans." She said. I spit my drink out of my mouth. "HUMANS!" I exclaimed. "WHAT THE ********!" I yelled. With her last sentence it was like my depression had vanished completely. And I was so distracted by everything...I didn't even notice that I was being watched sense the second Jordan had hurt me. Watched....by an angel of the strangest sort. 
To be continued in Chapter 19...
