I had no intentions of saying anything of the sort until I saw her leaving and it flew out of my mouth.
She stares at me with her famous steely glare and I think she’s about to shout at me, but then I see a quirk at the corner of her lips.
“About time, Dawson.” And then she leaves.
I deflate like a balloon with a puncture when she’s gone. What a bloody day!
Slumping against my bunk wall, I take a few slow breaths. I’ve still got one thing I need to do before I collapse. Picking up my phone, I navigate to my message thread with Cleo.
You
I’m sorry and I miss you.
It’s short and sweet, but I hope it’s enough to start a bigger conversation.
34
Cleo
On the days Imiss River the most, I scroll all the way back to the six-word text message she sent me the day I left the HMS Queen Elizabeth almost seven months ago.
Re-reading the text reminds me of how we began and how far we’ve come since then. It’s not been a cakewalk, that’s for sure. It took hours of phone conversations and video calls for us to get back to where we were. When I found out what my father had said to her that day, I was livid. I knew he’d poked his nose in, but I would never have guessed just how out of order he’d been.
Because of him, it took River a long time to believe I wanted to be with her, even after I’d forgiven her for the short bout of ghosting she did those last few days aboard the ship. The situation wasn’t helped by our distance either.River wasn’t allowed off the ship, let alone off the base, and I went straight back to London.
I was happy to hear Cheddar had stayed on board with her, rather than River being alone for weeks on end. Kit offered but River wouldn’t hear of it, not when Sarah, Kit’s sister, had delivered her baby the day after the ship docked in Portsmouth. Boot visited her parents for a week and then returned to be with her friends, and I couldn’t have been more grateful.
When I first saw the message that day, I remember my breath physically stalling in my throat. I’d hoped Kit had relayed my words to River, but I wasn’t overly confident she would take them to heart and contact me. River was in panic mode and her defences were up, which meant she was running away. I knew her well enough to see that. So when my phone vibrated and I saw her name, I was temporarily stunned.
My first thought was she’d contacted me to break it off officially, but she hadn’t. She lowered her walls and let me back in. We went back and forth all day and agreed to carry on where we’d left off.
Even though the distance has been hard for us both, I think it’s served a bigger purpose. Being on the ship with River close by was like an alternative world. We got closequickly, and our feelings grew rapidly, but the time we spent together wasn’t an accurate reflection of how our relationship would be in the future. Reality is now, with me working in London and River deployed. River confessed she’d worried when we first started dating about how we’d fare after the training exercise was over. I’d worried too, so it was nice to talk it through together.
River never ran away from me again. Even when the investigation got heated and she had to undergo interviews with an independent review board, she never shut me out. We had daily conversations where she walked me through her day and how she was feeling. The whole Benson thing was hard on everyone. I myself got hauled in front of a lot of people in impressive uniforms. I’m just thankful the Navy was swift in their actions and the whole thing didn’t drag on for too long, although the investigation did delay the ship’s departure for their deployment by three months.
The conclusion? Benson was arrested by the military police and sentenced to three years in prison, after which he would be discharged without his pension. The investigation revealed he’d started the fire in the propulsion room as a way to gain access to River’s quarters. The man had lost the plot.
Grey was instrumental in bringing those charges to light. It seemed she wasn’t as daft as everyone thought. The second she saw how serious the situation was, she rolled over and spilled the beans. Her testimony allotted her some leeway. Plus, River spoke on her behalf, because she was convinced Grey had been gaslighted into making some very terrible decisions by a very manipulative man. The outcome for Grey was suspension without pay, a permanent black mark in her file, and a lifetime of knowing River had been the bigger person when she could’ve stayed quiet.
Hardman was disciplined for his discriminatory behaviour and stripped of his lieutenant rank. He was also transferred off the Queen Elizabeth. All in all it was a win for those who’d had to deal with Benson, Hardman, and Grey, but it still made me mad they’d gotten away with it for so long.
After the drama died down, River and I fell into a kind of rhythm. I knew I’d receive a text message from her every morning, and a thirty-minute video call once a week. River laughed that she finally had a reason to use her allotted Paradigm credit, and, boy, did we make good use of every second.
To begin with we used the whole time to talk and continue getting to know each other, but it didn’t take longbefore the conversations turned flirty and then X-rated. I laughed the first time River shuffled back onto her bunk and drew her curtain. She plugged in her headphones and wiggled her eyebrows at me. It was the oddest video sex I’d ever had, but hell if it wasn’t the sexiest.
Several times our weekly chat was interrupted by the girls. It was impossible not to laugh at their antics, and it made me miss them all so much. But the distance was part and parcel of dating a sailor. I still shake my head in disbelief that I…Cleo Carter…wassuccessfullydating a sailor. Who’d’ve thought it?
The banging on my apartment door pulls me from staring at the “I’m sorry and I miss you” text message. Honor calls my name through the letterbox, making me laugh. She’s been a godsend since I got home. Honor was with me every step of the way during the investigation, and when I met my dad to hash things out. I’m still not on the best terms with him, but we are mending…slowly.
As much as I came to understand his love of the Navy and the reasons he put his heart into his career, there were too many other things he’d done that weren’t as easy to forget. When I first met River I thought she was just like him, but there is a major difference. River loves being a sailor, but it’s not her whole life. Not anymore.She’s deliberately made room for me and our relationship, and that’s something my father never did. River texts me every morning, even when she’s exhausted. She saves her Paradigm credit for our weekly calls. She tells me about her day, asks about mine, makes plans for our future.
She chooses me. Every single day, she chooses me.
It’s something my dad still struggles with. He is still my dad, though, and I love him. I just don’t have to like him all that much.
Scuttling down the hall, I slide across the wooden floor in my fluffy house socks until I reach the door and unlatch it. Honor stands there looking regal, whereas I look like a trash panda.
“Well, that’s a look,” she says. “Missing River by any chance?”
