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mortified
ready to throw myself off this ship
but we’ll stick with the four letters that really sum it up.
I didn’t mean to kiss him yesterday. I didn’t even want to kiss him yesterday. But it almost felt like I was supposed to kiss him, if that makes any sort of sense. He’d done this really nice, protective thing, keeping Denny away from me—a few times—and his laugh was so warm, and then his hand was on me, and I just did it.
I wonder if I could get an endorsement deal with Nike.
The clock reads 5:00 a.m., and I’m starving. I told Gram last night that I’d found a problem in my story I needed to work on, which is totally true, if “my story” equals my life, and kissing Sawyer Dawson is a problem. Which… of course it is.
The only way I could be sure to avoid him was to not leave my room at all, so when Gram went to dinner, I ordered a mango-salsa pork chop from room service, which I ate half of, because I found myself more inspired to write than I’ve been in the last year. Sorry, pirates and mermaids: you’ve been replaced.
My stomach growls again, and I don’t think my smuggled supply of KitKat bars is going to help with this level of hunger. I roll out of the sofa bed and slide my feet into flip-flops, brush my teeth, throw on a sweatshirt, and quietly close the door behind me so I don’t wake Gram.
I try the buffet, but it’s closed until seven. Instead, I change course and head toward the café, grateful that they’re open so early, and order a large latte and chocolate chip scone. A sign near the exit catches my eye, and I follow the arrows upstairs toward the ship’s library.
I’m happily surprised to see two walls lined with shelves, their glass doors displaying everything from board games and children’s books to hardcover biographies and dog-eared romance paperbacks.
The other pleasant surprise is the row of plush armchairs in the next room over, each framed by a window that provides a gorgeous ocean view to anyone who looks up from their book long enough to enjoy it.
I open a cabinet; my fingers trace the spines of the old romances and land on one that’s weathered to softness. It’s an old bodice-buster: Touch of the Fieldhand’s Hand.
The light of sunrise is a whisper among the clouds, and I sink into a velvet chair to read as I wait for the sun to come up.
It’s gloriously empty here. Quiet. A break from the bustle of the ship and the fast pace of home. But the quiet is also an invitation and an opportunity to think.
About the whirlwind of the past year.
About Tristan.
About what could have been, and what is.
The book takes me back, too. Visiting Gram’s house growing up, I’d see stacks of these period romance pieces, with the long-haired male models on the cover, doe-eyed damsels in distress melting into them. “They’re a nice break from reality. A guilty pleasure. Mindless reading,” Gram had said, trying to get Mom to pack one for a family vacation. “But that’s the problem: they’re mindless,” Mom had replied, leaving the paperbacks behind on Gram’s kitchen table.
I check the sunrise’s progress after each page. Out here, on the sea, it comes little by little and then all at once, and if I blink I might miss it all.
After four pages, I’m distracted by the view out the window: the vast expanse of navy, peaks of white in the moving waters. At the water’s edge, there’s a medley of color so vibrant it’s like a toddler opened a pack of neon Crayolas and started scribbling on the sky. Orange, yellow, turquoise, purple, hot pink—they’re all streaked above the horizon, punctuating clouds and chasing away the hazy blue remnants of night above me.
“Beautiful, huh?”
His voice snaps me from my trance. He’s in a chair facing mine, across a narrow aisle, a book in his lap. He gazes out the window—no, not gazes. It’s not wistful; it’s intentional. And his eyes flick to mine and a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth.
“I didn’t hear you come in.”
He swallows, and his smile grows. “That’s because I was here first, Gwen.”
Gwen. It rolls off his tongue so naturally, this name so few people use for me in my personal life. Despite it being part of my pen name, so many people use the full name that it always sounds like Gwendolyn. Away from writing, I am almost exclusively Gwendolyn—to my teachers, my family (except Gram), and most of the people I’ve counted as friends. Even Tristan called me Gwendolyn, at least in daily life. Gwen was the breathy moan that escaped his lips exactly twice, both times when we were tangled up together.
