Nervous tears were already welling up in the young teens eyes as she waited for her friend on the very edge of the docks. She wasn’t sure he would even show up, after what she had witnessed yesterday. A gruesome, horrifying tragedy of which she wasn’t sure Bruce was the victim; it was difficult to tell from so far away.
So, when the silhouette of a shark became visible from below the surface, Karen’s heart beat faster, and when the creature popped up from the surface with that recognizable grin, she all but lost control of herself, jumping into the water with no warning and latched onto him.
Her sobs only increased when she heard Bruce’s question, his calming presence helping her face her emotions. “I-ee– ee so ‘appy ‘er ‘ere,” she cried with broken speech, “I di’n’t th-think you–you’d be ‘ere…!”
A storm of questions and worries flurried through Bruce’s mind at typhoon speed; was it some terrible that happened at school? Someone bullied her, and just went too far? Her father? Was he still alive? Did something happen? It was too much to hold in, but the shark quelled his own anxiety for Karen’s sake especially at the state in which she currently was.
“‘f course I’m ‘ere,” the great white answered, angling his head at just the right position so Bruce could gaze at the human embracing him through one blue eye. “Did I take too long t’ come back?” he continued, worry sinking into his chest and churning his gut violently.
“Did somethin’ ‘appen when I was gone?” Had he not been there for Karen at a time when she needed him most? What did he miss?
