Justin comes to see me. He makes me happy. When I am with him, it is like being with a dolphin cousin or a dolphin brother. I like him very much. He makes his hair go back with his hand, like Doctor Beck, and watches me. He makes a soft sound between his lips. His teeth are very white. He is long in arms and legs and is moving all the time and many times, day and night, I think about swimming with him. His ears are small and pretty like the ears of Doctor Beck. I like his ears. Inside his clothes are strong bones. If Justin Beck was dolphin, I think he will be my mate. But he is not dolphin. And I am not human. Not human enough.

I ask if Justin will bring me to the Hump. The Hump is a place outside where you put your ear to a little hill of grass and listen to the sea.

Justin says to Doctor Beck, “I won’t let her run away.”

The world is busy outside. Across the noisy road the wind makes the river into a thousand ripples. New leaves, so green, are on the trees. The light grows stronger.

Justin sits with me on the grass, but not so close. Justin does not like to be so close. Not to me, not to Doctor Beck. In that way he is so different from the dolphin.

Justin asks, “What was it like, Mila? Living in the sea.” His voice is soft and rumbly, like the deep earth moving.

I say, “I can give a long answer. It is like a many hundred things. I can ask you what it is like living on the land. You can talk and talk all day. You can talk many days about all the little things there are and not say it all. Do you understand?”

Justin says, “Yes.”

I say, “Some days rain comes, some days wind comes. Some days there is no drink. Some days no food. But always the dolphins are together.”

Justin says, “All those years. How did you do it?”

I watch a boy and a girl walking, hands touching, shoulders touching, so good, so close. I look at Justin with the little ears, with the white teeth. Beautiful human boy. I say, “I did what the dolphins did. I went where the dolphins went. It was not hard. I did not know another thing to do.”

Justin runs his hand over the grass. “You must hate this. Being inside all the time. My mother telling you what to do. She thinks you can teach her to talk with dolphins. That’s all I ever hear about these days.”

I feel many signals from Justin Beck. I sense something, but I do not understand it. He has a need to be close, but it is not me he wants.

I look and look at his hand moving in the grass.

Justin says, “Do you ever get tired of all the attention?”

I say, “I like to play, and to talk, and to all the time do things with my hands and go places and see what I have not seen and hear what I have not heard. Sometimes people are so good to me, people I do not know. They give me things when they see me. They send me things.”

Justin says, “I don’t know how you do it. I can’t imagine what it would be like to live on land with your family one day and then be part of a dolphin pod the next. And then all of this. Do you remember any of the past, the plane crash or your mother …?”

My heart goes very loud inside me. I cannot make words.

Red comes to the face of Justin. “Hey, Mila, I’m sorry. Why would you want to remember that? I hate thinking about my family splitting, and that wasn’t anywhere near as bad as what happened to you.”

I am on this beach of grass with no ocean, with no quiet, with no clean air to breathe. The wind is cool. My ears hurt. The song of the ocean roars inside the Hump. Justin’s questions stir up feelings I don’t understand.

I ask, “Justin, where is the ocean I am hearing? Where is it? Is it under the grass?”

Justin says, “It’s really just the cars driving past us on Storrow Drive, the sound of their wheels inside the Hump. It’s a pretty crummy excuse for the sea.”

Listening, I imagine the real sea. A gull cries overhead.

Justin says, “Mila, are you okay?”

I say, “Justin, I want to go back where the warm food hides in the tide pools. I want to go back to the sea, where I do not feel the crushing of my heart by the ideas in my head.”

I am afraid what Justin will think, that he will be angry with me. Yet he is not angry. He listens.

“But if I do go back, Justin, I am the dolphin girl, the girl you laugh at.”

Justin says, “I am not laughing, Mila. I wish I could go back sometimes too.”

“Justin, I think about tomorrow and tomorrow always locked in my room, or the classroom, wearing clothes, eating dead food. I want to go back. To my dolphin family, to my dolphin home.” I wrap my arms around myself. I shut my eyes and let the sounds come inside me.

Justin sits at my side. He does not tell me what to do like Sandy or Doctor Beck. He does not treat me the way the doctors treat me. He does not look another place when I say a thing he does not like. He listens. He treats me the way we treat the new dolphin who comes to swim with us.

Justin says, “My mother won’t let you go.”

I say, “What if she keeps me locked here forever? Always to play the little games, always looking for dolphin talk? What if I do all she asks and I am still not good enough?”

Justin says, “You’re already good enough. You can do so much more than anyone ever thought. But they don’t know when to stop. Especially not my mother.”

He looks out over the Charles River. “My mother likes to be in control. It’s hard for her when she’s not in control. She can’t control me. She can control you. That’s why you’re her little darling right now. Why you’re her pet. But you don’t have to let her do all this to you, Mila. You don’t have to do everything she says. You don’t have to make her happy. You couldn’t. Believe me. I know from experience. Nothing can make her happy.”

I feel anger in him. A small eye of anger. But it is mostly liking I sense in Justin. I turn to Justin. I am listening to the sound of his heart. I am listening to the signals he sends. I see the white teeth, the beautiful ears. With this human I am most happy. With this human I am most sad.