When I was a human, my brain preferred to forget—a skill learned from swim practice, from strenuous races, from the teasing of my teammates, from Jim’s inflicted emotional scarring. I suppose deletion was my chosen method for putting myself through repeated torture. I had to forget how painful a 100 butterfly sprint could be, or else there was no way I would let myself do it again. But mermaids—mermaids relish pain. Mermaids embrace pain. Mermaids accept the pain of discipline is far less than the pain of regret.
