Danny sat silently as Sammy brushed his hair. He tried to avoid looking straight ahead, so that he wouldn't have to look at his reflection, but then he'd see the things in front of him. Bottles of nail polish, the next thing he was going to have to face.

His feeling of everything being out of control had only continued the past few days. What he was about to do was example enough of that.

Sammy parted his hair in a certain way, and then pinned it in place with a hair clip.

"What do you think?" Sammy asked.

Danny finally looked fully into the mirror. A girl stared back at him. He struggled to maintain his composure, fighting tears with all his might.

"It's good Sammy," he said quietly, "thanks."

"What color of nail polish do you want?" she asked.

He pointed silently to an aqua blue color. She opened the bottle, and he laid out his hands for her to apply it to his nails, which she'd help him clean up.

"You know," she said, beginning to paint his nails, "you could learn how to do this yourself."

"I don't plan on ever doing this again," he said.

"Well," Sammy said, "I think that this color looks nice. It was a good choice."

Danny sat in silence. He didn't have much going on in his mind thankfully. No, there was just a dull, emptiness inside him. He'd lost a sense of who he was. He had no idea what mattered to him anymore. A sliver of his mind said that this all wasn't true, and that he was overexaggerating his problems.

That was probably true, but everything inside him felt twisted into knots. While he didn't feel like the world was ending, it felt like he had no idea where to go in life. Not "life" as in college, and a career, but "life" as in how to move forward in just his day to day actions.

He heard Sammy twist the cap on the nail polish. "There, I think that's just about everything. Are you ready to go in a half an hour?"

"No," Danny said in a shaky whisper.

Sammy sat down in a chair she'd brought into her room. "It's alright to be scared," she said in a tender voice. "Going on a date with a guy must be really difficult for you."

"It is," he said, "but you don't know the half of it."

"Well," Sammy said, "then tell me about the half I don't know."

Danny felt tears appearing. He held them back. Thankfully, he'd insisted on not much makeup, so crying wouldn't mess up much. However, he... he was just sick of crying all the time lately.

The opportunity was there. He could tell Sammy about what he was feeling. He could get the problem out of his head and examine it in reality. But he held it in.

Because he was afraid. Because he didn't want to be embarrassed. Because he didn't want his poor sister have to watch her brother collapse emotionally in front of her, and realize how bizarre he really was.

He sobbed there for a second. He was doing a really bad job of not crying.

"I think," Sammy said, "that you have a lot on your mind. And I think... that it would help you if you talked about it."

He wiped his eyes. She was now presenting the opportunity openly to him. The opportunity to do something about the horrible, wracking pain inside of him. But he couldn't do it... he... he was too much of a coward...

"I... I saw how much you liked that swimsuit the other day," Sammy said.

Danny sniffled. "Yeah. I guess. Whatever."

Sammy hugged him, and he readily accepted it.

"You talk about how it hurts you to see people in pain," Sammy said. "Right now, I'm feeling that way about you. But I can't help you unless you talk to me."

He let go of the hug, and dropped his gaze once more to the floor. He stood up, and walked without a word through the open bathroom doors, and into his room. Sammy followed behind him, and the two sat on his bed.

If... If I don't have the courage to say it... I can wimp out and show her instead.

He knelt down on the floor, and pulled it into plain sight for the first time. He then let it lay across the floor.

He didn't say anything. Neither did Sammy as he sat back down on the bed. She stooped down and felt the fabric in the fin.

There was a horrible silence for a while, when Sammy finally spoke up.

"Where did you get this?" she asked.

He sniffled. "Online. I bought it."

"What do you use it for?"

"I... I swim in it. That's... that's what this group of friends has been. They're people like me. People... people who dress up as mermaids."

Saying the word "mermaid" felt strange in the presence of a family member. He'd hidden it for so many years, and now his forbidden interest was finally made apparent. Now that it was out, he may as well explain.

"I... I've always felt really embarrassed about it. I'm a guy who likes mermaids. It's been hard to deal with, and I've kept it a secret."

Sammy didn't say anything, she just gave him a look that said "go on."

"And so, I found out about this group on Facebook, but I saw that there were no guys in it. I felt really embarrassed to go and be the only guy there, especially with my breasts."

It took him several moments to be able to say the next part.

"And so I went there, pretending to be a girl."

Sammy put a reassuring arm around him. "How was it?"

"What?"

"How was it?" she asked. "Did you like it?"

Danny was quiet for a bit, then swallowed.

"I... I did. It was a lot of fun. And for the first time in ages, I.... I didn't feel embarrassed about my breasts."

"That's great Danny," Sammy said. "I'm glad you feel comfortable around them."

Danny tensed, feeling another crying fit coming on. "I'm... I'm sorry that I can't feel comfortable around you, or the rest of our family."

Sammy held him tighter. "You don't have to be sorry about anything. That sounds like really hard - that you're interested in mermaids, but you felt like you couldn't be yourself around us. You're afraid of how we'll feel. I understand."

Danny placed his hand on Sammy's, where she was holding onto his side. She grasped his hand, and he held onto hers firmly for a moment before letting go.

"I didn't think that it was going to be a big deal," Danny said. "I was walking unsteady ground keeping who I was a secret from them, but I thought that it was just going to stay there."

He clenched his jaw, and swallowed deeply, and harshly.
 
"And then, and then there was the incident at the mall," he said. "It seemed at first like just a conversation, and then blew up into all of this...

"But then we went to look at the swimsuits."

He stayed silent for several moments. His crying, thankfully, had stopped. But now he just felt a deadness of emotion.

"I never thought that I... that I'd enjoy wearing something like that. But... but I have. My emotions have just gotten more and more mixed up, and on Wednesday, they got twisted up more than ever before."

"What happened on Wednesday?" Sammy asked.

It took him a while to respond. But when he did, he just blurted it out.

"I realized that I'm attracted to guys."

The tears began to run down his face again, and Sammy placed her arm back around him.

"When I first... went to the group...," he sobbed, "I... I found out there were other guys there...but I didn't..."

He sniffled.

"I didn't tell them who I really was. I was still self conscious about my breasts. And they thought I was a girl. I didn't feel ashamed at all for having breasts."

He groaned. "But on Wednesday, I was talking to one of the guys there - a guy named Liam - and... and he... he called me cute."

His slow streams of tears became a little more intense.

"And... and then... and then I realized... I was feeling... attracted to him. I... I realized that... I liked hearing him call me cute."

Sammy pulled him into a hug, and he cried on her shoulder for about a minute or so. He just let himself cry, and not think about the world around him for a moment. Once his crying slowed, Sammy spoke up.

"Oh Danny," she said, holding him tight. "You have been through a lot lately."

"Yeah," he squeaked out.

"Please don't feel embarrassed to be yourself," she said. "I love you. You're my sibling. You're my twin. And you're my friend. I'll stick with you wherever you go."

He held on tightly to her. "I love you Sammy."

"I love you too."

They ended their hug, and he looked into Sammy's eyes, seeing that she was tearing up too.

"Look," she said, "I don't know everything you're feeling. It sounds really tough. But I think that you shouldn't feel like you need to suppress these emotions. I don't think that you should hide from them."

He nodded slowly, wiping away his tears.

"I know," he said. "But... I just feel so weird. I feel... I feel like I don't know who I am anymore. I'm... I'm really afraid of giving into these feelings. I'm scared of how everyone will react."

"You know how I'm reacting," Sammy said. "And I know - I know it because I've seen how much Mom and Dad have supported you with your breasts, and with everything else in your life, that they love you too, and so does Jason."

He wiped more tears as they came. "I... I don't know if I can tell them about all this."

"Then give it some time," Sammy said. "You don't have to figure everything out right now. Just be yourself on the date, and have fun."

Finally, after a really difficult, but very helpful conversation, Danny finally managed to smile.

"I...," he got out a few tears, "am so going to destroy you in bowling."

Sammy let out a little laugh, and they hugged. He hugged one of the greatest people he'd ever known.