Trish never really fit in during her formative years. She was a gawky awkward teen with glasses. The nerdy weird girl that was a science buff and dressed as non-girly as seemed possible. She was shy and quiet and lacked confidence through her early teen years.
She'd gone through some phases of trying to discover herself. The vegan phase, the pink hair phase, the Goth chick phase, plus more than she cared to remember or enumerate. She was studious and did well at school but her only friends were other rejects and nerds. The sort of kids that stimulated her intellect, but not much of anything else.
She was a three on the one to ten scale and she never bothered pushing it when it came to guys that she found attractive or interesting. As she got older and blossomed her body matured and she wound up growing some nice proportions. But she hid herself behind frumpy baggy clothes and her strange quirky personality that had become a defense mechanism to keep others from bothering with her.
Still Trish was lonely and she journaled and wrote and fantasized about finding a guy who was right for her. That special guy who would take the time to see beyond her defenses and oddball behavior. She could almost picture him. But he never really arrived. It was always just a faint shadow from her dreams.
Romance that others were destined for but not her. She grumbled and then laughed out loud when she told herself that she'd probably wind up one of those weird bitter old women with a lot of cats and not much upstairs. But her amusement in a sad way came to her when she remembered that her last cat had literally run away. A rescue cat of all of five days.
Great she thought! I'll be the one old cat lady who won't even have a cat to talk to.
Trish shook her head and continued to live her life and study and read books and magazines to fill the void that romance had left her with. She eventually got a biology degree and even considered teaching for a while.
One day she took a drive to the coast and while standing there she fell in love with the beach and the ocean. She decided to see if she could transfer her job to Florida and after a successful relocation she started spending time at the beach and even sitting on a bench at the Inter Coastal Waterway or ICW where she would read a book or watch boats cruising by with fishermen or vacationers or locals enjoying the water.
It was on such a day that she first saw Todd. He was tall and blond with wavy full hair and a great smile. He was nicely built and seemed very pleasant. He loved to come down to the water and fish a while near the bridge.
The benches and parking spaces where she always sat were about twenty or thirty feet from where he would cast out his fishing pole and where he cast netted for bait before he began fishing.
Todd always smiled and waved to her and she looked at him nervously and tried to smile back. But it was always awkward and she would hide her face back in her book while he returned to fishing and pretended that he had not just embarrassed her.
Trish was studying marine aquariums. She thought that perhaps one day she'd set up a tank of her own. In fact she'd done some looking into it and gone as far as purchasing a thirty-gallon aquarium and a small matching cabinet and filtration system.
Her set up was actually a very nice one and while she was terrified to actually try to set up the tank for fear that she might just kill the fish, the idea still appealed to her and she studied marine aquariums and husbandry more and more. So for now she had an empty aquarium and it's stand sitting in her living room as a continuous reminder of her goal.
Maybe she'd be able to get some sort of small hardy marine fish? Nothing too expensive or fancy. Just a little friend that she could have in her apartment to keep her company. She was reading an aquarium book on the morning that Todd cast his net out and gasped in astonishment as he spoke to the ground where he'd just pulled the net free.
"Well look at you! Aren't you a beauty?" Todd said to something that squirmed in the wet seawater and mud.
Curiosity overcame her shyness and she peeked out from her book and leaned over to have a look.
"What have you got there?" She asked nervously.
Todd was surprised to hear the shy girl speaking to him. He smiled.
"It's a sea horse! Come have a look."
Her eyes widened. A real sea horse? She'd never seen a live one up close before. She stood and walked timidly closer.
Sure enough a sea horse wriggled in the draining saltwater puddle as Todd smiled and grabbed his bucket. He picked it up and placed it into the water quickly.
The small tan and grey creature was rather dull in colour, but had a beautiful form and healthy fins. Todd looked at her smiling as she looked down at the sea horse.
"You're welcome to have a closer look. He won't bite you!"
She raised an eyebrow.
"He might. You don't know me too well."
Todd laughed and shook his head as she crouched down and took a closer look.
The sea horse may have been a dull ugly colour but it was stunningly graceful and swam effortlessly in the bucket. As she studied it Todd smiled again and spoke.
"They use their pectoral fins, the ones on the side, to swim with. The dorsal fin, that's the one on his back, is used like a rudder to steer with."
She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose with her middle finger. Todd wasn't sure if that was some sort of nerdish slight or just the digit she chose at the moment to get the job done.
"I know what dorsal and pectoral and caudal and ventral fins are! Duh!" She stood with her arms crossed and leaned back away from him for a moment.
"I know you do! Duh!"
Now she was getting nervous again. Was he flirting with her? Playing some sort of game? She had no clue. He looked at her with his bright blue eyes and she looked back at the bucket hoping to change the subject.
"So what are you going to do with him?"
Todd shrugged.
"They make crappy bait, but if I can net up about six or seven more they make excellent crunchy bar-b-Que kabobs! Mmmmmmmmmh Yummy!"
He said to her horror.
She looked at him wide eyed and upset.
"You're going to eat him!?"
Todd laughed. He had no intention of actually eating a sea horse, but the cute girl in glasses didn't need to know this.
"Maybe... maybe not. That depends on you!"
"On me?"
He nodded. "Yep! Totally up to you!"
"How so?"
"Well there are two things that can save him from my grill. Your name, and if you promise to take good care of him in your aquarium!"
"Huh? My name? I can't just tell you my name. You're a, ah... you're a total stranger!"
He raised an eyebrow.
"Seriously? That's the best you can do? A little melodramatic line and that bit about me being a total stranger is pure bullshit. You see me and I see you down here all the time. Try again or I'll eat that sucker like a nice crispy baby-back rib!"
"You wouldn't!"
He crossed his arms over his chest.
"The hell I won't! What's your name?"
"If I tell you you can't eat him, okay?"
He shrugged.
"You have two ways to spare him. So first tell me your name, then agree to take care of him and I'll let him live a happy healthy life!"
"Fine! My name is Martha! Happy now?"
He shook his head.
"You're lying! I thought you cared about the little sea horse! Oh well. They are mighty tasty and crispity crunchy if you prepare them right!"
"Okay, okay, fine! I'm Trish!" She gasped.
He looked at her and nodded with a smile.
"See that wasn't so hard was it now?"
She shrugged and looked at the sea horse again.
"I'm Todd." He offered extending his hand.
She gingerly took his first two fingers in hers and shook the extended fingers quickly as if he were diseased and she didn't want to touch him.
"Todd? What kind of name is Todd?" She said feeling a bit of disappointment. She had hoped he'd had a fancier name like Michael or William or maybe Daniel. Todd? She ran it through her head phonetically Tawwwd! Kind of crude and simple sounding. Oh well. Todd was his name. It could have been worse she supposed. He was still very cute.
"It's my name!" He said shaking his head.
"You don't get out much do you Trish?"
"Whatever Tawwwd!" She said it with emphasis on each sound like horking out a spitball of phlegm.
