A Gift Like No Other

July 13, 2018

(Evie's pov)

My feet pounded against the ground as I ran on the treadmill. Music was playing from my iPod, as sweat rolled down my face. It wasn't the best place I had ever been to for a workout, but it worked well enough for my needs. The old place I used to work out at had closed down, which disappointed me. It has been a relatively cheap place, but with semi-good equipment. I normally liked to run in the park near my house, but it was late and my mother would not be happy if I was running outside alone. Too many creepers outside she would say.

Not that I made it a habit to run in the middle of the night, but if I had a bad dream I liked to run to take away my problems. Instead of a bad dream tonight, though, I just had a feeling. Not necessarily a bad feeling, but something I wasn't quite sure of yet. It's probably imaginative; I seem to do that a lot.

When I was little, I had a friend that looked just like me. It was like staring into the mirror. Well that was exactly what I was doing; looking in the mirror. For a while, though, I had believed that she was real. One day she just seemed to disappear. I brushed it off thinking she would come back, but to no luck. I asked my mother about it a few years later. She just laughed nervously (probably because she thought I was crazy) and said that was my imaginary friend when I was little; her name was Tanya. I had a feeling like Tanya was more than an imaginary friend though, I suppose that all little kids think that about their imaginary friends though.

After running for about an hour, I got off the treadmill and started getting my things together. It was mid-July so the temperature outside wasn't too bad, but since it had been raining earlier it was very humid. I started walking along the canal that led to Sabine Lake. I lived in a small town called Sabine Pass, Texas. It's about 35 miles from Beaumont Texas, and right next to the border of Louisiana. My house was right on Sabine Lake. It was a light green two-story house with dark brown shutters. The first level we had a living room, the kitchen, and a bathroom. The second story had my room, my mother's room, and a bathroom. Since our house was on a hill, our basement also served as the backdoor to the backyard. We didn't have much in the basement; it was mostly just a hangout room.

I arrived at my house after about twenty minutes of jogging. Once I unlocked the door, I immediately went upstairs to my room and took a shower to wash all the grime off from my work out. Hoping that I would actually fall asleep this time, I got into bed. Like I always do after a workout when my head hit the pillow I was instantly asleep. Probably dreaming about knights, fairies, mermaids, or some other imaginary creature.

July 14, 2018

"Evie, it's time to wake up!" I heard my mom say from beside my bed.

My mother, unlike me, is a morning person. She wakes up at the crack of dawn each morning and, I might add, without an alarm clock. Over the years I've finally convinced her to at least give me an extra hour of sleep before she starts yelling in my ear in the morning. I had to start new chores for that hour of sleep, but it was worth it. An extra second can go a long way.

"Can't I sleep longerrr.." Doesn't mean I'm going to stop trying to negotiate even more sleep. "I was up late."

"I guess you could." I sigh in relief. "But I guess I'll just have to eat those strawberry pancakes all by myself." I cracked an eye open and looked at her. Just like I thought, there were no strawberry pancakes in sight.

"They'll sure be good since I was keeping them warm in the oven." She said as she was leaving my room.

Sleep or food

Sleep or pancakes

Sleep or STRAWBERRY pancakes

"If I die of sleep-deprivation I'm blaming my mother," I grumble as I got out of bed. It was worth it though. Strawberry pancakes were always worth it. I probably had an unhealthy obsession with them….scratch that, I did have an unhealthy obsession with them.

When I got downstairs, I saw a pile of strawberry pancakes topped with more strawberries and whipped cream at my place at the table. I quickly made my way over to the table, sat down, and started eating.

"What are your plans today?" My mother asked me.

"I'm going to the beach with Ruth after I get all my chores done," I say in between bites of the heavenly pancakes. "Brian and Ty will probably be there a little after lunch since they don't get off till 12:00."

"Fun." My mother says. "Listen I'll be working later than usual today so I probably won't be getting back till around 8:30. Will you be good till then?"

"Mom, I'll be an adult in less than 3 weeks. I think I'll be good." I say to her while rolling my eyes. "I'm not a baby anymore."

"I know but I'm still going to worry."

"Don't worry mom," I say. "We live in a small town. Everyone knows everyone in this town. It's not like we have fire-breathing dragons or mermaids that are going to put spells on us."

I laugh a little when I get up and start the dishes. I was so distracted on my task that I never heard my mother say, "you have no idea."

(A few hours later)

After I got done with my chores I got dressed in my bathing suit and a sundress over it. I grabbed my beach bag, phone, sunscreen, a beach towel, and a few snacks to share with Ruth and eventually Brian and Ty when they got off work.

It wasn't a long walk to the beach, nevertheless, I started putting on my sunscreen since I burn easily. That was the one thing with being a redhead; it was cool and all to be a redhead since only about 1-2% of the population had natural red hair, but the downfall was that I sunburn very easily. I've already bought a lot of aloe vera this summer and I don't really want to buy more.

Once I made to it to the beach, I looked around for Ruth's chocolate brown hair and her purple beach towel. After a short scan of the beach, I saw her laying on her blanket closer to the water. Instead of calling out to her like I would normally do, I crept up to her slowly so that she wouldn't hear me.

"BOO!" I screamed in her ear.

She jumped up off her beach towel and swung around ready to do some kind of advanced martial arts move. Which I guess she did, because a second later I wasn't looking at her, I was looking at the clouds.

"Why'd you come up behind me when you know I'd do that?" She asked as she came into view.

"Um…..so maybe I didn't think my plan completely through," I said. Ruth chuckled a little while helping me sit up. "'Groaaan' that hurts.'

"What does?" Ruth asks me.

"My back."

"Here let me take a look," she says.

Since I was in a bathing suit and we were on the beach, it was pretty easy to see my back. I really hope that I didn't break anything. Which is highly unlikely but still, it's not like I have money just flowing in.

"Looks like it's going to bruise," Ruth said after a moment. "Sorry Evie. At least I hope you learned your lesson about sneaking up on me."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it," I said with a pout. This was going to ruin my workouts; not completely, but it was definitely going to make it more difficult.

I got out my beach blanket and the snacks that I brought. Once everything was set up I laid down on the blanket next to Ruth. With the hot sun on my back and my semi-full stomach, I soon fell asleep dreaming about a mermaid and the one place I've always wanted to go….Greece.

I looked around at a place I've never been to before; although I have seen in pictures. It looked to be an island called Gyaros; my mother talked about it a lot, it's an island in Greece that my mother used to spend a lot of time at. She met my father in Athens, but she doesn't talk about him much. I do have a few pictures of him though.

When I looked around, everything seemed hazy; kind of like what happens in a dream…. wait dream? How did I get here? All of a sudden I hear a splash in the water and I look into the water. I see my mother swim up to shore, but when she gets closer I see that she doesn't look like herself. Her legs...her legs kind of looks like a tail of a mermaids. But how can that be? Now I definitely know I'm dreaming.

She swims up to shore and pulls herself out of the water. I can see her tail from where I'm standing, It's a shimmery jade green tail. She has on a soft black coral bikini top. She eventually pulled herself completely out of the water. I watched her lay there for a while, she looked so peaceful and happy. Don't get me wrong I've seen my mother peaceful and happy, but not quite this way. She seemed at ease with the world.

Suddenly, after a while of standing there watching her, something almost magical happens. Her body started to change, not painfully like you would think, but beautifully. It looked like her body was morphing into water bubbles. After a second or two of staying like that, she changed into her normal self...like I've always seen her. Red hair, green eyes, 5'1" (just two inches shorter than me), with her favorite jade green necklace.

From the beach, I could see her turn and look at me. Her eyes met mine, and I could see her lips moving, but I couldn't understand what she was saying since I was so far away from her.

My eyes flew open, and I wildly looked around me. After a few seconds, my eyes landed on my friend Ty….who was holding a bucket of water looking at me. It was at that moment that I realized that I was soaked from head to toe with water.

"Ty….I'm gonna kill you," I said glaring at him.

I think he got the message because he took no time in wasting running away from me. Practically flying off the blanket, I was off chasing after him. As I was running I could see people looking at us with either annoyance or a smile, and the sound of Brian and Ruth laughing behind me. When he finally started to slow down I managed to tackle him, and we called a truce. I was hot and sweaty, but it was worth it. I'd soon be swimming in the water anyway right?

(Later that day)

"...Oh come on! You have to think that was somewhat funny right?" Asked Ty as we walked towards my house.

"No Ty. Having cold water dumped on me while I'm sleeping is not fun," I said glaring at him.

"I don't know Evie that was pretty funny," I heard Brian say from behind me, Ruth soon after started giggling.

"Well, I now know where your allegiance lies Ruth."

Before she could come up with a defense, we arrived at my house. My mother, who was holding groceries, was standing at the front door looking over at us.

"Brian, Ty would you get the rest of the groceries from the car."

"Sure Ms. Sartre."

"Of course Ms. Sartre."

The boys handed Ruth and I there beach bags and headed over to the car to grab the groceries. While they were bringing the groceries in, Ruth and I set the beach bags by the front hall and made our way to the kitchen to put the food away.

"So what should we do tonight?" I asked Ruth while I put some cheese in the fridge.

"We could watch a movie. We haven't done that in a while."

"Evie! Honey, will you come into the living room for a second?" I heard my mom call the living room.

"Sure Mom let me just put the rest of the groceries away!" I called back.

I finished putting away the sandwich meat, bread, peanut butter, and other food items into their respective areas. Looking over at Ruth, I noticed that she was done with putting away her half of the groceries away. I turned away and made my over to the living room. When I walked in I noticed that all the lights were off...which was weird considering that my mom just called me to come into the living room.

"Mom?" I called and then turned on the lights.

"SURPRISE!" Ty, Brian, Mom, and Ruth yelled. "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"

"Ummm that's great and all...but my birthday is like two and a half weeks away."

"We know, but you're not going to be here for your birthday so we wanted to celebrate it early." Said Ruth.

"What do you mean I'm not going to be here? Of course I'll be here."

"I'm not so sure about that." Ty sing-songed from the other side of the room.

"Honey, where have you always wanted to go?" my mom asked me.

"Greece?" I responded

I looked around the room and finally understood.

"I'M GOING TO GREECE!?"