CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Five years ago
There’s a break between charters. Most of her American crew mates have taken the rare opportunity to go home for Thanksgiving, so it’s quiet on board, which isn’t a bad thing. She’s realized she needs time and space to think – about Simon, but also about what happened this past summer.
The dreams are back. The ones where she’s running through a house, one that starts off fairly normally but spawns new rooms at an alarming rate, each with a different decor and cast of characters. A party is in full swing, bodies everywhere, and she can’t seem to push through them fast enough, or open the right door to find her friend, even though she can hear her screaming.
And then the screaming turns to whimpering, and then the whimpering stops.
That’s when she wakes up gasping, her heart a piston in her chest.
There’s a knock on her cabin door. The South African deckhand nudges it open, wanting to know if she wants to go out to a club with them, but she shakes her head, even though it’s Saturday night and she should be out there living her life, enjoying herself,seeing new towns and enjoying a different country. That’s why she started yachting in the first place, wasn’t it?
But that was before the accident. She feels as if she’s had too much life since then, even though she’s only twenty-three.
She eyes the phone on the shelf beside her bunk that serves as a nightstand. What she really wants to do is talk to Simon. Somehow, he always makes everything seem better. And she suspects he might be struggling too. It’s probably why he’s been quiet. He might not want to burden her.
She had a patch like that herself over the summer, just before she started the winter season. She felt numb. She’d cried enough, she thought. Talked enough. But now it turns out that maybe she didn’t because the nightmares just won’t stop.
She picks the phone up and pulls up Simon’s number from ‘recents’. She just wants to hear his voice, especially since they’ve been back in contact for the last couple of weeks. His messages have been short and monosyllabic, but she supposes that’s better than nothing.
However, the phone rings and rings. She sighs and sinks back down onto the mattress, then taps out a message:
Can we talk? It’s important.
Not always the best way to get Simon engaged. Sometimes he shies away from serious things, but she has a gut feeling he needs this as much as she does.
Much to her surprise, a message pings back a few moments later.
Important? How?
How does she say this …?
Can I call? It’s too complicated to type.
A minute goes by and then he replies.
Signal not great here – and it’s expensive for you. Better to stick to messages.
He has a point here, though at this moment, she is tempted to empty her bank account just to hear his voice. The boat’s Wi-Fi can be patchy out at sea, but it’s usually okay in port.
Are you okay?
It takes her by surprise. She’s been so busy checking in on him, making sure he’s doing okay without her, that being on the receiving end of the question stops her in her tracks. If it was anyone else, she’d put on a good front, bluster it out, but this is him. The very man she might be about to fall in love with.
Not really.
Why? Horrible charter guests?
She sighs. The guests are fine. The work is fine, if demanding. Truly. It’s the one thing in her life that’s going okay. But she doesn’t want to waste time and energy typing all of that in, so she gets straight to the point.
I can’t stop thinking about the night of the party.
She waits, her pulse a steady beat in her ears.
Oh.
A breath leaves her body and she deflates along with it. She knows he finds this difficult.
