I don’t understand anymore what it was I tried to do with the music and dolphin talk for Doctor Beck. My mind cannot grasp the way the music flows unless I read it note for note on the page, following along slowly, simply, like the dicky bird song.

Shay is going away. The government funding for her to stay here has stopped. When I come into the room, she looks at me. She looks at me and I see her fear. She looks at me the way a solitary dolphin looks at a shark. Have I become one of the sharks?

But then her fear disappears and I see only an empty look in the eyes of Shay and I know she is already gone.

She is being moved tomorrow. To more locked doors. I think she knows. I think she knows enough now to know she has failed. She knows what it means to be locked in. She knows what it means to be alone. Before she came to Doctor Beck and Doctor Troy, she lived a life locked in and alone, but she did not know. Now she knows.

I go back to my room and get my old rubber boots. It has been many months since I wore them. I rub them together to make a dolphin sound. I stroke them with my hand. The good rubber feels like dolphin skin.

I bring the boots to Shay. Here, I say. A gift for you. Take them.

I make the dolphin sound for her with the boots. I put the boots on her feet and show her how to make the sound herself. Once that sound made Shay laugh. Now she lets me move her legs, but there is no laughter.

Shay is too tired to try anymore. She wants, but she doesn’t know what she wants. It is too late for her to go back to what she was.

And what about me? What do I want? Is it too late for me to go back? I feel cold, and I put on a sweater. When I am hungry, I eat. I do not have to hunt for my food. I do not have to catch it or kill it. My food waits for me. I do not have to go for days with the thick-tongued thirst swelling my throat. When I am thirsty, I pour a glass of fresh water and I drink. I read books and I learn different stories. Mostly they are little stories, they fade like the sunset, like the picture the waves make on the sand, but they are important. I learn a little about my first home. Not the sea. About the people who were my first family. If I should go back anywhere, should I go back to them? They say they want me back, but I think they are not interested in the girl named Mila. I think they are not interested in the girl named Olivia. I think they are interested in the dolphin girl, only the dolphin girl. All my life with humans it will be this way. I will always be this dolphin girl. The humans will be curious the way the dolphin is curious about a piece of garbage floating on the sea. A thing to play with, a thing to drag and toss around, but in the end a thing to leave behind.