Manan OS: Set Me Free... full updated + Note pg 3

I was shocked speechless, and as I saw her breathe out her last breath I ran for the pool, I didn't know if I could reach the 5 meter deep bottom before she died.

Whatever' was my answer.

HIM

As I headed to swim practice a few days later I still couldn't get her out of my mind, mermaid. I knew that it was a joke but sometimes I wondered in the last week if I had indeed imagined her. Tomorrow would be Wednesday, my off day I would wait in the locker room after hours in the hope of catching her.

After team practice as everyone went home, I decided to cram that extra practice for the backstroke competition a month later. After an hour of practice I decided to eat something and rest for sometime before continuing. As I laid on the bleacher thinking about her, was wasting my day off on her worth it, should I wait for her tomorrow or not. As I started to get up to go back to practice, I heard the gate open so I dunked under the bleachers, why was I hiding when I was the one authorized to use the pool after hours and not the intruder, maybe it was in the hopes that it was her, mermaid.

I heard sniffling noises, and soon a voice said, her voice said "She wouldn't let me have your things, she says it's hard to look in my eyes and not feel a pang of regret, it's hard to look at me when I'm so alive and well while you are gone."

I knew that voice very well, it had haunted me for a week questioning my sanity and I could finally see her again, my mermaid. Who was she talking to or what was she talking about. As I peeked from under the bleachers she turned at the moment and met my eyes, she screamed as her eyes turned to saucers.

"Who's there?" she asked.

"It's just me mermaid." I said coming out from under the bleachers.

"What are you doing here" she asked.

"You see I'm the authorized person here, you are not allowed here, so I should be the one to ask that and I'm pretty sure you don't even go to this school."

"Why tried to find me pretty boy? Couldn't forget me I guess" I faltered at her words because it was true after last week I had tried to find her in school thinking she went to this school.

"No only wanted to know your name mermaid."

"So you could turn in my name for trespassing, tell them then you saw a mermaid in the school swimming pool"

"I'm not one of those busybodies so don't worry I just wanted to know your name."

"Look I'm here for a swim so if you want to join me you are free to do so otherwise you are free to go." She replied

"All right lets go for a swim" as soon as my words ended she started stripping in front of me, I was shocked at first but turned out she was wearing a swimsuit underneath that sweatshirt. I stripped my T-shirt off and joined her in the water.

"Let's have a race to that end then." I proposed.

"Who said I was going to swim to the other end, I'm here to swim to the bottom." She said and dived in.

I chased her to the bottom; I reached her just as she sat at the bottom, I tried to yank her up but she just pulled me down and made me sit at the bottom with her. As I sat facing her I didn't know what to do, I was a swimmer so I could hold my breath for a long time but what about her. I still decided to wait it out; if she started losing her breath then he would drag her up and give her a lesson. What stunt was she trying to pull; clearly she didn't plan on dying in front of him. She closed her eyes but she was not unconscious, the water stung my eyes so I closed my eyes too. As I slowly became breathless all my thoughts went out of the window and all I could think about was a breath of air. And as I tried to yank her up with me as I couldn't hold my breath anymore she just didn't budge but I knew I didn't go up now I lose my consciousness, so I left her to swim up I could come back to take her but if we both lost consciousness then we would surely die. As I reached the top she came out 5 seconds later smirking at me.

"Curious, how my so called savior decided to leave me at the bottom to save his *ss"

"I would have gone back for you but you seem fine so I don't see any reason for apologizing." I replied irritated.

"No I'm not angry neither do I want your apology. I'm just confirming basic human nature, then how could someone suicide by drowning don't you think? I mean your survival instinct just kicks in at the last moment so why would someone not swim back up?" she asked a little angry.

"Who are we talking about exactly? Maybe that person was not a good enough swimmer to reach back to the top in time. You seem like a pretty good swimmer and I'm the best swimmer on my school team so it isn't impossible for us but for somebody less unfortunate it could happen" I replied a little hesitant.

"What! You are on this school's swim team" she asked incredulous.

"Yes, obviously otherwise why I would be spending so much time in the water or near it?" I asked laughing at her expression but I stopped as soon I saw her expression turning hard.

"I suddenly remembered an errand I have to run, have a nice life." She said and stalked off.

HER

By the time I reached my orphanage I had cooled down my anger enough to think clearly so I sat down by the window sill in my room and stared at the yellow ginkgo tree and envied it. Why it was called a living fossil while human life was so transient. But what bothered me most was that if that pretty boy was indeed in the school swim team how he hadn't recognized her, after all she was an identical twin of her sister. I had to get some answers from him; I would head out to the pool again tomorrow.

But at the moment what pained me most was that lady's comment about my alive status and my sister's not so much. Sometimes I wondered if I had known my sister better would she still have done what she did. She was the one who had contacted me to tell me that she was my twin separated at birth, we had been same in our looks but everything else about us had been different, while I was an orphan she was adopted at an early age and she lived a pleasant life. While my life had been anything but pleasant, paraded in front of childless parents in hope of them adopting us, trying squelch that hope every time one of them decided they may adopt but then abandoning me, and at a later age trying to wade off all the weird proposition of adopting me because I was beautiful turned my stomach and hoping that sister wouldn't sell me off to some creep just to feed the other kids. I had been jealous of my sister, while she went to the best school in town I was homeschooled.

So one day when she had invited me to come to her school to see her swim practice I had gone, she hadn't said anything to her parents about me so we could only meet when she practiced swimming at her school. After a few weeks of seeing her practice she had told me that she had a secret method of forgetting all her worries and that is when she had taken me to the bottom of the pool, I couldn't even stand it for 30 seconds, so day after day I had practiced with my sister to hold my breath and I started to find the process relieving, it was our hideout from the world, it was our thing, though I never knew why she did it I was happy to be doing something with her. And it had been a Wednesday when I had missed going to meet her one day because parents were coming to adopt kids and I had to help sister with the kids. And the next day I had read of her death in the newspaper. I was too broken to go to her funeral so I decided to visit her grave secretly after it and tried to forget everything until a letter arrived a year later at the orphanage.

It was from my sister, apparently it had been lost somewhere and it reached a year late, I read and reread the letter a million times.

My dear sister I wanted to tell you this face to face I have been trying for a few weeks to tell you but I couldn't so I'm writing you a letter. I was never meant to be adopted by my present parents it was you I took your place and I have been living in guilt ever since, but it took me so many years to finally find the courage to face you. My parents had visited your orphanage first and had decided on you and when they saw me at another orphanage by chance they thought you were shifted here and adopted me, I never told them anything. Now that I have met you I think what if I had told them what if they had adopted both of us would we have a different life. But it didn't happen so I want to say sorry for stealing your chance at a different life, I know you may not want to see me again. But if you do forgive me meet at the swimming pool on Wednesday after school.'

I didn't know what to make of it, I didn't believe that my sister stole something from me but it did put a suspicion in my mind, what if my sister's death hadn't been an accident, what if she had committed suicide because I hadn't shown up. With this niggling feeling I had decided to test my theory so I went to the pool every Wednesday for a month and sat at the bottom, at first I couldn't hold my breath for long but in a month I was staying at the bottom for a long time, at the end of it though I always came up, it was an instinct even in my last breath to reach the top and she had been a swimmer why would she drown it didn't make any sense. And on the day when I had pushed my limit as I was being lulled into a sweet dream a rude hand had yanked me up and taken all my answers away, him, that pretty boy. So I had decided it was finally time to meet her parents.

HIM

I was in the pool when she came in the next day, the way she had stalked off he had no idea if she would ever come back but she had. She came into the water without a word and swam towards me. I could feel my heart beat fast, I had dreamed of her last day and not the haunting dreams of last week where she had been dead and he couldn't save her but in the latest one he had dreamed of kissing her.

"Do you know me?" she asked as she reached my.

"Yes, you are my mermaid" I said a little too seriously.

"No like do you recognize my face?" she asked again.

"No" I said confused now.

"How long have you been in this school?" she asked a little skeptical.

"Almost a year now, I didn't live in this city before." I replied. At my words she sighed, understanding dawning on her face.

"Why would you ask?" I said

"I, um my identical twin used to be a student here" she said slowly.

"Oh did she transfer? Even though I don't know everyone in school but when I tried to find you I would have ran into her otherwise." I said cheerily. I saw her face turn hard and a sorrow seep into her eyes.

"She is dead" a tear slid down her cheek. I couldn't say anything for a few seconds as my mind processed this news. Then I just took her in my arms. She stilled at my touch at first then slowly relaxed and after a second she started sobbing in my arms. We were dripping wet but it was as if I could still feel her tears burning down my chest. I didn't know what to say so I just patted her and caressed her hair, it seemed like a second or a lifetime when she finally stopped crying and disentangled from my arms.

She looked at me with puffy red eyes and said sorry and tried to go away I held her hand.

"I'll trade" I said.

"Trade what?" she asked sniffling.

"A secret, like you told yours, my parents abandoned me when I was a kid." I said with a sigh. It was a secret that nobody from my new life knew and yet it didn't feel weird telling her. To his new friends he was simply the son of a widowed lady they never knew what had actually happened with his life.

"We were separated at birth, I didn't know her until I turned 15" she said quietly

"My father actually abandoned my family and I saw him walk away in the middle of the night and didn't say anything, I knew it was coming but what I didn't expect was my mother to get remarried and leave me at grandmas' and then pretend for years that I was not alive."

"I think she committed suicide because I didn't forgive her, she took my place when she was adopted and I lived my life as an orphan, but I didn't know this until it was too late and couldn't meet her in time and she drowned."

"It was not your fault she took that last leap alone, if she did feel guilty she should have somehow made it right and not just die in vain" I replied a little angry that she blamed herself for her sister's death.

"Don't say anything when you didn't know her" she replied a little indignant and stalked off, this time though I gave her a chase.

I caught her and turned her around and gave her a sound kiss on the lips, she froze at first and then bit my lips and shoved me off.

"Just because I told you about me doesn't mean you get to have me." She said and went away and this time I let her go.

As I trudged home I could only laugh, the first kiss of my life and I get bitten in the lips. As I came inside the house I could hear my mother and sister having an argument. I went closer to listen properly.

"Mom you know very well brother doesn't like swimming then why do you encourage him to do it?" my sister asked.

"Because if I don't then he would paint away his life just like his father and then one day leave us all" my mother shouted.

"What about you mother? you also left him to have a fresh start when you married my dad because he didn't want a son. You got him back only after dad died, you can't expect him to stick with us. You know at least let him live his life in peace." My step-sister said.

HER

I had no idea what I was doing the next Wednesday in the school swimming pool, I had thought for a week about that kiss and how I had reacted to it, I didn't want to lose this new friendship based on a rash moment.

I waited for over an hour and he didn't show up just when I made up my mind that he was not coming, the front door opened and there he appeared. I thought I would be awkward but as soon as I saw him I took off in his direction and hugged him.

"I'm sorry, this is a friendship reconciliation hug doesn't mean you can kiss me anytime you want" I said smiling, but then I saw his expression, he had huge dark circle around his eyes and he looked like he had lost weight.

"Let's play that game, secret sharing" I said ignoring his condition.

"I never told you the whole story, this sitting at the pool floor was a move I learned from my sister, she used to do it even though I have no idea why, I want to learn swimming properly now even if for my sister's sake" I told him

"I don't want to be a swimmer, I want to paint." He said

"My sister's mother said that she was sad her daughter had died while I got to live just because she had taken my place and if I thought they would adopt me just because I looked like her I was mistaken, I just wanted to have her diary you know, they had 7 years with her I had few months, I deserve to know her too"

"My mother told me to swim since I am good at it so I'm going to be a swimmer."

"I think I'm going to be a swimmer too, my sister wanted to be one so much." I said.

"When will you leave this guilt behind?" he suddenly shouted at my face.

"Why are you relieving your anger at me?" I replied.

"I'm angry at you, you blame yourself for her death while she was clearly suicidal even before she met you sitting at the bottom of the pool, she was a swimmer she knows the risk she wouldn't risk her life for a few adrenaline kicks, you know that move is pretty much the same depressed people do when they cut their hands to feel the pain to remind themselves that they are alive, and I can't believe that that is also your fault. So don't waste your life in chasing someone else's dream, go make your own" he said in a breath.

"Oh really now who is giving whom an advice, you hypocrite. Don't tell me you don't blame yourself for your parents abandoning you, you think you did something wrong so you want to please people so much that now you are giving up your dream to chase someone else's and you tell me I can't do the same" I shouted back.

"You know sometimes you don't even realize you are drowning when you try to be everyone's anchor" I told him in controlled voice.

"What are you trying to do be my anchor too when you clearly need to find your balance first" I told him before he could say anything.

He was silent for a moment.

"No you don't need an anchor, you need to fly away" he said slowly

"Ad what will you do set me free?" I asked scoffing, he hadn't listened to a word I said and was still lecturing me.

THEM

He had thought about what she had said and after contemplating he decided she was right, he also made a cage and only he could set himself free.

The next day he sat his mother down and confronted her about her intentions and her reason for leaving him all those years ago. Her mother had looked at him and started crying. Maybe she didn't have any reason for all of that maybe she had just wanted her happiness and somehow he had figured it was his fault people kept leaving him. He had told his mother in no uncertain terms that he was not going to swim anymore. And just because two people shared a talent didn't mean their life paths would be the same.

After a lifetime he was free.

She had thought of what he had said and decided to meet the parents of her sister. She told them what she knew of her sister's habits, told them how she did nothing about it, told them how she had received the letter a year later, and told them how she believed it was not her fault. She also asked for her sister's diary because they had her for a lifetime compared to her and she deserved to know a sister even if they had been that for just a few months.

They had offered her the diary and a chance at adoption, but she did ask if they could perhaps sponsor her studies, maybe she didn't want to be a swimmer, maybe she wanted to be one she had to find out what she wanted and she needed to go to school for that.

After a lifetime she felt free.

"So where do you want to go to school?" Her sister's parents asked.

"I...

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Note: Yes its an open ending and no I'm not a mean person 😆