She always said he had eyes the colour of the ocean – at least that's the way she remembered it.

She remembered he used to tease her about it; how everything she thought about revolved around the sea, how everything she did was on the sand, how her entire life was the ocean.

And she would picture the beach she knew so well in her head, with swirling grey matter entwining patterns like ribbons into the coconut trees and around the tanned bodies that lay hungry for sunlight on the sand.

He didn't mind when she asked him one day who Cinderella was, and how was she doing? Wasn't anyone doing anything to save her from her plight?

She loved the enchanting stories he told – fairytales, he called them. Stories of dead girls, trapped girls, swimming fish girls, all very beautiful, and just like her. Wild girl, fish girl, ocean girl, sleeping in caves, living on flowers and seaweed.

And if there were stories of swimming fish girls like her, why weren't there any of surfer boys like him?

He would laugh and kiss her and promise her that they would make their own fairytale someday, fish girls, surfer boys and all.

Maybe they weren't real at all. Maybe they had dreamt each other up. Whatever it was, they were twin mermaid water angels, reflections of each other.

Wings, fins and all.