Chapter 17
Our group gathers on the deck to watch the sunset. Everyone gets ready for the night dive quietly, as if spellbound by the glowing orange and red of dusk. It feels like the ocean creatures have fallen asleep and we need to respect them, like we would if we were camping in a deep secluded forest and didn’t want to wake the baby deer.
The only people who feel no need to lower their voices are Miguel and Vanessa as they bossily hand out flashlights, instructing us on how to turn them off and on. Only once everyone has demonstrated their flashlights work does Vanessa pull Derek to the side, instructing him under her breath that he cannot bring his camera.
‘What!’ he exclaims.
‘We need everyone to focus—’ Vanessa stays firm ‘—and that’s easier when there is no extra equipment.’
‘But—’ Derek starts to argue.
Vanessa cuts him off swiftly. ‘No buts. The rules are for your safety. Either you dive without your camera, or you don’t dive at all.’
Derek looks angrier than I’ve ever seen him, but he keeps his mouth shut.
Vanessa turns her attention back to the rest of us. We’re all seated at the rear of the boat, buzzing with nervous energy. ‘Never turn the flashlights off,’ she repeats, over and over again ‘not until we are back on the boat.’
I nod vigorously. Turning my flashlight off is the last thing I plan on doing. Miguel steps around Natalie, who is consoling Derek, to get closer to me.
‘Hey,’ he says, kneeling down with the bench so we are eye level. ‘You ready?’
I gulp. ‘Yep.’
Miguel smiles at me like we’re sharing a secret. ‘Everyone is always nervous for these, but you’ll be great down there. I’ve got your back.’
I let out a deep breath. ‘Thanks, Miguel. That makes me feel better.’
It’s colder with the sun down, and I start to shiver when I strap on my BCD. Hugh sits down next to me, and I crave his heat but he looks preoccupied and I don’t want to disturb him, so I resist the urge to scoot closer. When we do the buddy checks, he avoids looking in my eyes. I purposefully take longer than necessary to pressure test the straps and check his air pressure, trying to meet his gaze to reassure him that everything will be fine, but his eyes are glued to the floor of the boat. It’s only when I start to visibly shiver that he breaks his silence.
‘You’re cold,’ he says, placing a hand on top of mine. The gesture is jarringly intimate. The warmth from his hand feels divine. I feel myself relax towards him, like I’m slowly melting in his direction.
‘And you’re nervous?’ I whisper, venturing a guess as to why he seems so withdrawn into a shell.
Almost imperceptibly, Hugh nods.
I squeeze his hands. ‘It’ll be great,’ I say, both to myself and to him.
He squeezes mine back and attempts to smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.
Miguel and Vanessa hustle us into the water.
We descend into pitch-black. It’s hard to believe this is where we were diving just two hours ago. In the darkness, it’s impossible to see anything. The water feels warmer than the cool night air. I remember learning that water gains and loses heat much more slowly than land. The resurgence of knowledge I thought was lost momentarily lifts my confidence, and I descend lower, finding my buoyancy, hovering three feet off the ground, waiting for Vanessa to give direction.
With flashlights, we can see pretty well. We’re hovered over white sand, and I spot a sea cucumber in my peripherals. We’re momentarily stalled waiting for Andrew to equalise and find his buoyancy. I look at Hugh to see if he’s laughing, but I can’t see his face in the darkness. I try to remember what Hugh explained about our flashlights, how Aaron and Pippa will be looking after us from the boat, but the pitch-dark is all-consuming. I sift through facts in my brain, seeing if I can remember anything from Principles of Oceanography, my favourite class freshman year, the one that set me up to get a degree in marine biology. If I can focus on facts, maybe I’ll be less spooked by how much of my surroundings I can’t see.
We had a whole unit on pelagic communities, the bodies of fish that live in the open ocean and not near the shore or the sea floor. I found their migratory patterns spellbinding. Some tuna complete migratory journeys that are 5,000 miles long, and they do it when they’re only one year old. For a moment, I let myself wonder what my life would be like if I had decided to follow in Millie’s footsteps. Instead of tweaking slide decks in a cubicle, I could be thinking about marine life. Maybe, I think, maybe I would have met Hugh on my own, not through the lens of Millie’s disdain, or through a veil of pretending to be her. Maybe I would have gotten myself published in The Marinist .
Vanessa’s roving flashlight interrupts my thoughts. Andrew has gained his buoyancy. It’s time to move.
We follow Vanessa blindly, kicking towards her flashlight, dutifully pointing our army of beams at the ground. One of the hardest things about diving at night is that it’s shockingly easy to blind your fellow divers. A flashlight to the face compromises your vision instantly. But, because you can’t see hand signals, flashlights are the only way to communicate. You have to use your flashlight to signal to others, to ask how much air they have in their tank, and to tell them you’re OK. You’re supposed to point your flashlight at your own hand to make it visible, but sometimes the ocean’s currents move the flashlight and point the beam in a different direction. It’s a tricky business.
Miguel turns on a special flashlight that lights up the bioluminescence of the reef. I am struck to find that once again, a fact resurfaces from the depths of my brain. Corals absorb harmful rays from the sun and turn them back into pink, purple and green bioluminescence. All of us are still as we watch the reef light up under Miguel’s blacklight. It’s as if we’re at an underwater rave – every coral is lighting up a different colour. There’s blue, and green, purple, yellow, pink. Like someone passed out different coloured glowsticks.
We start moving again, slowly. My gaze strays from Vanessa’s beam and into the black abyss beyond. Past the light of my flashlight, I imagine an army of sharks, sitting and waiting for me to get separated from the group. Sometimes I cast the beam of my flashlight out into the distance to make sure nothing is lurking there, but I have yet to see anything in the pitch-black open ocean.
I see Vanessa’s flashlight moving in a fast circle, which means ‘PAY ATTENTION’. Then, she pivots the beam into the dark, dark blue. A pair of pale eyes reflects back – a shark.
I tense and grab for Hugh’s hand. Even more so than usual, he has remained the ever-present buddy, not straying from my side. We swam the entire dive up to this point almost perfectly in sync, which is hard to do in the dark.
When we move forward, we each keep one arm outstretched, flashlights pointing at the ground, our other hands tightly intertwined with each other. Everyone has stopped moving except Andrew, who has started floating towards the surface. Miguel shoots up a hand and grabs him, pulling him down towards the rest of us. We watch as Vanessa’s flashlight traces the shark’s movements. It’s large and grey, a lot bigger than the one Hugh and I saw before. Its mouth is open menacingly. It swims towards us slowly and then veers in the opposite direction, disappearing into the darkness. Even though I can’t hear it, it feels as though everyone has sighed a collective sigh of relief.
Hugh and I keep our fingers interlocked as we continue in a slow circle around the reef. Suddenly Vanessa’s flashlight is zigzagging again, this time over a rocky crevice. Our fingers unravel when we see what Vanessa has spotted – an octopus. We all jockey for space to watch it swim over the coral. It dances over the rocks, perfectly blending in. Its tentacles reach and pull more gracefully than I’ve ever seen anything move. It’s pulsing a dusty brown, with soft edges and hooded eyes. It’s the same octopus I had told Andrew about. I glance in his direction, knowing how badly he was hoping to see one. He has covered his mouth with both hands in excitement. I feel a swell of happiness that his dream has come true. The octopus is mesmerising, and we all watch it slowly melt away in between two rocks, its body perfectly pliable.
I yearn to grab Hugh’s hand as soon as we start swimming again, but I force myself to keep my hands locked in front of me, one arm folded over the other. Our hand hold meant nothing , I tell myself. Hugh knows I’m scared and is just being nice. Hugh is scared himself. Even Miguel and Andrew grabbed for each other’s hands when we saw the shark . A thought ripples through me with such clarity it sends a chill down my spine despite the warmth trapped in my stinger suit. I told Pippa I can’t afford any distraction, and I meant it. But the truth is, if I keep letting Hugh distract me, if I keep falling for his eyes, and his accent, and his pockets of pure vulnerability . . . if I keep letting him know me, then in three days my heart will be seriously messed up. I cannot let my rebound be a man in Australia who only likes me because he thinks I’m my sister. It will destroy any ounce of self-esteem I have left.
‘We saw an octopus!’ Andrew hollers as soon as we surface. Pippa is waiting for us at the railing. ‘And a shark!’
‘Bloody hell,’ she says, her face paling in the moonlight. ‘Terrifying.’
‘It was brILLIANT!!’ Andrew excitedly yanks off his fins and scales the ladder.
Hugh and I are both treading water. He’s grinning from ear to ear, which I’m betting looks like excitement, but I suspect is secretly relief. ‘Right, you go,’ he says in that gravelly accent.
‘Are you sure you don’t want to be out of this water already?’ I tease.
Hugh narrows his eyes at me, but I see a hint of a smile play across his lips. Stubbornly, he waves a hand towards the ladder. I climb up, more aware with every rung that he is watching my backside as I scale my way onto the boat.
I turn to help Hugh up the ladder, and he clasps his fingertips around mine.
‘Thanks, wrassie,’ he says, as he hauls himself all the way onto the deck. Our faces are close enough that I can count the beads of water lingering on his eyelashes. My breath catches in my chest.
‘You can’t call me that, remember?’
‘I guess I’ll have to think of something better, then.’ Hugh winks at me before turning to unzip his BCD and offload his scuba gear.
I sink onto the bench slowly, shirking off my fins and handing Miguel my vest and my air tank.
‘What did you think?’ he asks excitedly.
‘It was amazing,’ I breathe. ‘Thank you, you know, for the pep talk before. I needed it.’
‘Everyone’s nervous for that one,’ he says. ‘Andrew is lucky, that’s the first time I’ve seen an octopus on one of these dives.’
I bob my head in agreement. ‘We’re all lucky.’
‘We sure are,’ Miguel says, as he stows my equipment away. ‘Go get warm,’ he adds warmly, shooing me to the front of the cabin with a good-natured grin. I haven’t given him enough credit for balancing his flirtation with his job, I think, as I meander towards the front of the boat.
Pippa comes up to me with a dry towel in hand.
‘Thanks.’ I wrap myself up and catch a glimpse of Hugh out of the corner of my eye. He’s wrapped in a towel as well, sitting next to Aaron.
‘So, how was your dive together?’ she asks, nodding towards Hugh. ‘You looked pretty cosy coming out of the water.’
I shrug my shoulders and she raises an eyebrow at me. ‘Come on, Millie. We’re on a boat in the middle of nowhere without Wi-Fi, for God’s sake. Nothing is as interesting as this budding romance. And stop staying you don’t want to be distracted!’ She playfully punches me in the arm.
‘Ugh,’ I groan. ‘Pippa, I’m not purposefully trying to be coy. I just . . .’
‘It’s soooo obvious you guys like each other.’
‘Yeah, but . . . that’s the thing. I, like, can’t like him. I mean I shouldn’t . . . I mean . . .’ I can’t fall for someone who thinks I’m my sister. How would I ever explain to Millie that I destroyed her professional reputation for a fling?
Pippa’s eyes widen. ‘Why shouldn’t you? Are you . . .’ Now it’s her turn to trail off. I can practically see the wheels in her brain turning. ‘You’re not already bloody with someone?’
‘That would be less complicated than my current situation . . . And no, actually. I broke up with my boyfriend a couple of months ago.’ My shoulders slump, it might have been a few months but it feels like a lifetime. It’s also incredibly confusing to blur my own life with Millie’s, I’m starting to feel like Andi doesn’t even exist.
‘And you don’t want to rush into things,’ Pippa supplies.
It’s easier for me to let her believe that’s the reason, even though not even the half of it. ‘Exactly,’ I agree with Pippa.
‘That’s understandable,’ she says warmly, not catching on that I’m not telling the full story. ‘But it would be a shame to miss the perfect rebound opportunity.’
‘Right,’ I say half-heartedly.
I excuse myself to rinse off. On the way, I almost thwack my head into the door frame because I’m so distracted by my conversation with Pippa. I duck around the dining table on autopilot, steadying my hand on the vinyl bench as the boat rocks with the waves. Would it be crazy to tell Pippa about the whole pretending to be Millie thing? I’m thinking, as I ease into our tiny cabin.
I notice that, for once, Hugh’s stuff is spilling out of his duffel, and I’m relieved he isn’t as neat as I thought he was. My belongings have been dumped entirely across the twin mattress.
I shimmy out of my bikini and grab for my towel, mentally preparing to have to crouch under lukewarm water and not feel like I’ve washed all the conditioner out of my hair. I’m moving slowly, still running a pros and cons list for whether or not I should tell Pippa. Pros: I won’t be in this alone and she gives good advice. Cons: I don’t actually know if I can trust her, and if I blow this, Millie will kill me.
Lost in thought, I’m still wrapping my towel around my body when I open the door to head to the shower.
The boat lurches just as I step out of my room and I fall directly on top of Hugh, somehow managing to dislodge my half-wrapped towel in the process.
Before I even process that I’m completely losing my balance, my brain only focuses on how strong Hugh is. Like some primal instinct in me is thinking, This man could save me from a mountain lion . His skin is smooth and pulled taut across his abs, which ripple up his body. My face lands right in the crook of his neck and he smells so clean , like cedar and grass and the ocean. My hands grab for the skin on his back, clutching around his broad shoulders involuntarily, pulling my body towards his. I forget that I’m dirty. I forget I need to shower. Instead, I think, Why are we not in our bedroom? I hear Hugh’s sharp intake of breath and all I can think is that I want to keep making him breathe that way.
Hugh loses his footing as the boat sways, pulling me out of my thoughts and into the present moment. He grabs for the nearest railing, saving us both from a tumble to the floor. As we hang in the balance, precariously supported by the strength of Hugh’s dazzling forearm, my brain is thinking oh no, oh no , and my body is thinking oh yes. Our bodies melt together – Hugh is damp and I’m sticky with seawater. I want to be touching every part of his body, but there’s a towel around his waist. My arms are wrapped around him, my towel flailing in one hand like a flag of surrender.
His hips shift beneath me, and I feel a bulge between his thighs. My nipples tighten against his chest. His breath hitches again and so does mine. For a moment we are both breathless. I wonder how I can manoeuvre off his towel and simultaneously get us closer to the privacy of our bedroom. I want to bite the inside of his neck, right above his shoulder. I want to taste him so badly that I feel a tug in between my legs, right in the heat of my belly, that pulls me towards him.
The boat lurches again, and Hugh grunts as he hoists us to a standing position. The momentum pulls my face from the crook of his neck, and our eyes meet. His eyes are narrowed and piercingly blue, his mouth open in a perfect ‘o’, the muscles in his cheek twitch.
‘Millie,’ he breathes.
Alarm bells sound off in my brain. My heart pounds in my chest. Millie. Hugh is staring at me, eyes full of desire. Millie.
I stumble backwards, my sister’s name crashing through my consciousness. Millie is what’s at stake, Millie is what’s important here. What am I thinking?
The hallway is so narrow that I’ve backed myself fully up against it. We’re still only inches from each other. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I stammer breathlessly, turning away from his torso as fast as I can, quickly wrapping myself in my towel. I gulp in air, trying to slow my racing heart. When I glance back up at Hugh, he’s eyeing me cautiously.
He opens his mouth to say something, but before he can, I speak: ‘I didn’t mean to.’ The words tumble out of my mouth. ‘I’ve gotta, um, go shower.’
Hugh’s cheeks colour red. ‘Oh . . . OK . . . I didn’t mean to . . .’
I shake my head dumbly. ‘You didn’t do anything. It was an – it was an accident.’
‘Yeah.’ Hugh nods, he isn’t meeting my gaze anymore.
‘We’re fine,’ I say, more to myself than to him.
Hugh meets my eyes this time. ‘Yep,’ he agrees, but his voice has lost any trace of emotion.
He retreats towards our room, and I want so badly to touch him again. My hands twitch, pulled by an invisible string to reach up and place a thumb on Hugh’s bottom lip, to run my fingers through his damp hair. My hips want to find his.
My brain cuts through my body’s noise. You can’t do this to Millie! it screams. I feel like I’ve been lit on fire.
I stumble to the shower, staying under the water as long as I can before it feels impolite to the rest of the people who need to use the miniscule bathroom. I still don’t feel like I’ve scrubbed the Hugh off my skin.
The way his chest felt, so firm and strong, the way our hips locked together immediately. I feel like I just drank three cups of coffee, and yet my throat still feels dry.
I’m nervous to climb above deck. After our collision I feel vulnerable and terrified, and the shower did nothing to still my beating heart. I throw on an oversized T-shirt over a pair of baggy jean shorts, hoping to cover myself up as much as possible. I pile my hair up. When I step out onto the cabin and onto the deck Hugh looks up. For a moment, our eyes lock.
It’s going to be a long night , I think, as I gingerly make my way over to my usual spot. There is not enough room in that crowded cabin for the tension between us.