Chapter Sixteen CASEY
Chapter Sixteen
CASEY
I feel sedated by the calm blue water surrounding us. There’s not a wave as far as I can see. Just deep ocean and sky that stretches on forever. It’s late afternoon, and Sienna and I are lounging by the pool on board Aurelia . I’m lying on my stomach with my chin in my hands, staring at nothing, really.
“Are you thinking about it again?” Sienna asks me.
I’ve gone quiet on her, but I can’t help it.
This morning, after a long discussion in my suite where I filled her in as best as I could on my job and why I’ve hit a wall, she convinced me to join her and a few others for a tour of Saint Thomas, culminating in a cocktail tasting on the beach. Apparently, the Virgin Islands are known for four cocktails in particular: the painkiller, the bushwhacker, the banana daiquiri, and the rum punch. The painkiller was my favorite and not just because the name was so fitting for my horrible day. It was a delicious blend of pineapple juice, orange juice, coconut cream, and dark rum that immediately slipped me right back into vacation mode. Well ... at least for the length of time it took me to finish the fruity drink.
Then my pit of despair returned in full force.
It’s helpful to have Sienna by my side, though, acting like a Band-Aid. I feel like I have to keep it together for her sake. I don’t want to break down again here, poolside, while everyone else is having the time of their lives. There’s a DJ playing fun dance music and waiters passing around drinks and complimentary snacks, trying to ensure everyone is well taken care of. The atmosphere is really fun, but I can’t help but feel wholly apart from it all.
“I hate that you’re not enjoying yourself,” Sienna adds when I don’t answer her.
“I am,” I insist, rolling over to face her.
She sees right through my canned response.
With a shake of her head, she pushes up her sunglasses so they perch atop her blonde hair. I always think Sienna is stunning, but right now beside the pool, sun kissed in a bikini, she’s something else. Javier had better be somewhere nearby, eating his heart out, I think.
“What did you think of the tour this morning?” she asks, smartly steering us back toward a safer topic than my impending doom. Talk of our tour won’t bring tears to my eyes.
“It was really fun. I’m glad we’ll be in Saint Thomas for another day. I want to go out and explore a bit more. I feel like we only got a taste of things this morning. And they mentioned that snorkeling excursion. That sounded really fun.”
“Oh, I’ll definitely join you for that. Swear you’ll do it with me.”
I nod in confirmation. “We can go off on our own afterward. I did that while we were in Puerto Plata.”
She groans. “I’m jealous. I got talked into this walking tour, and it was okay —don’t get me wrong—but the guide was just such a snooze! Sometimes they think they’re really going to bowl us over with facts about bricks and mortar. Sir, unless Brad Pitt laid those bricks, I could give two shites.”
I laugh. “Here, let me show you what I did. I actually made it to the top of the mountain there.”
“ Stop ! You did ? Oh, now I feel even worse. Let me see.”
She sits up as I dig in my bag for my phone. I’ve been avoiding it all day—not wanting to stumble across another work email that would send me spiraling again. I haven’t even begun to look at those assignments Gwen gave me. They can damn well wait. I worked my butt off getting her that story yesterday. I’m not going to hole up inside my suite for another day, toiling away at my computer.
“Here.” I pass Sienna my phone and watch her scroll through the few photos I took when I was inside the cable car on the way up the mountain. As gorgeous as it looks, truly, the images hardly do the view justice.
I spent a few hours writing about my day in Puerto Plata as well. It’s nothing to brag about, though, just a short piece highlighting my favorite parts of the city, with the most convenient route to get to and from the cable cars. It was a writing exercise more than anything, a pretend assignment, and I’m too shy to tell her about it.
“These are good , Casey.” She looks up at me, eyes wide with excitement. “You should post them.”
I laugh. “No social media, remember?”
She groans again as she hands me back my phone. “Right, ugh, how could I forget you’re living in the Stone Age?”
“I will admit, being around you has slightly made me regret my social media stance, actually. You’re so good about snapping photos and videos, posting, and then putting your phone away. It’s not like you’re on it twenty-four seven, even if it is your job.”
She gets a strange look on her face as she starts to sit up. “Well, funny you should say that—”
“Sienna! Casey!”
Javier’s voice surprises us both, but I’m the first to recover.
“Javier, hey!” I say with a welcoming wave. I peek at Sienna out of the corner of my eye to see she’s ever so casually adjusting her position on her lounge chair, creating better angles, subtly arching her back to draw Javier’s attention to her red bikini top. I can’t help but smile to myself.
“How’ve you been? Did you recover from that jellyfish sting?”
God, my jellyfish sting? That feels like it was ages ago. I’m telling you, cruise ships are funny. I swear we’re in a time warp, so an hour on board is like a week on land.
“All good,” I say with a reassuring smile. “What have you been up to? Busy day?”
He looks even tanner than when I last saw him, like he’s part of the sun now, so handsome with that thick dark hair and brilliant white smile. Sienna knows how to pick them, I’ll just say that.
“Yeah, I went off on a hike that lasted much longer than I thought it would. I looked for you guys in the dining room when I got back, but lunch was pretty much over by then.” He rocks back on his heels, stealing a glance at Sienna, who’s yet to say a word to him, not even a greeting.
She doesn’t look bitchy, per se, just aloof. Cool in a way I’ve never been able to affect. It’s probably not in my DNA. You see, Sienna has these beautiful green eyes that seem to be ever so slightly hooded, giving the effect that she’s perpetually bored with everything she’s looking at. Now, for instance, she could be watching paint dry, for all the enthusiasm written across her face.
Poor Javier! He’s really done himself no favors by waiting this long to approach her. She’s been wanting this for days ! Sure, she put up a good front with me today, trying hard to support me through my tears and self-indulgent wallowing. I’m sure she didn’t want to seem selfish, shifting the focus back onto her and her dating problems, but she still slipped up and mentioned Javier a time or two. The first time, I remember, she asked out of the blue when I’d last seen him around the ship. The second time, a few hours later, she said—wholly unprompted, mind you—that she was perfectly fine with where things stood with Javier and she didn’t really mind that he hadn’t made a move or anything. “I prefer being single” were her exact words, which everyone knows is universally translated to Please, god, send that man to my bed tonight!
“Oh, a hike? That sounds fun! Sienna and I did a hike two days ago, and I’m still sore. What about you, Sienna?”
She hums and shrugs. “Not really anymore. I think I might go for a swim.”
Her British accent seems more standoffish, prim, and proper than ever.
She stands, about to step around Javier and really take things up a notch, but he cuts in front of her.
Yes! Go Javier! I mostly resist the urge to throw my fist into the air, but it still lifts off my towel and hovers awkwardly near my shoulder.
“I was hoping you’d be free tonight? To go and have dinner off the ship? I made a reservation at this restaurant all the locals recommended.”
Sienna thinks it over for an excruciatingly long time before replying casually, “A little late in the day for a dinner invite, don’t you think?”
Sienna!
Javier’s eyes narrow at the same time his smile widens. He likes this. He likes her . “I came to your suite. I knocked and knocked, trying to find you.”
“We’ve been off the ship most of the day,” I tell him since Sienna won’t. “Then when we got back, we came straight here.”
“See?” His brow rises. “I couldn’t find you all day.”
Sienna inspects her nails, really putting on a good show here. Even I’m starting to sweat, and I’m not even Javier!
“She’ll go,” I blurt out.
“Casey.” Sienna levels me with an admonishing glare. “I will not. I can’t leave you. Not with everything ...” She shakes her head. “Not tonight.”
While it’s thoughtful of her to consider my feelings in all this, there is no way I’m letting her skip out on this dinner date with Javier. She helped me when I was at a low point earlier (never mind that I’m still very much there), and so now I’m going to help her.
“Javier, you have to take her. Poor Sienna has had such a rough day with me. She needs loads of wine, lots of good food, and maybe some dancing?”
Javier grins.
“Definitely dancing!” I amend.
“Case—”
I hold up my hand to stop her and push up from my lounger, already starting to wrap my towel around myself. “I’ve already made up my mind what I’ll be doing tonight.” I get my bag and stuff my paperback and phone inside. “I’m exhausted, and I’m going to shower and hit the hay early. So ... there you have it. No choice. Enjoy dinner, you two!”
I walk away, feeling lighter than air, a maniacal cupid with too much power. The thrill of thrusting those two together carries me all the way to the bank of elevators and right back to my suite, but as that door opens, I realize reality has waited for me.
It’s the quiet of the place that hits me where it hurts.
For so long after my grandmother passed away, I couldn’t take the silence in her house. On days I didn’t commute into the office, I’d take my laptop to a coffee shop (or more often, because it was free, the library) and only begrudgingly return to the house when it was close to dinnertime. Immediately upon my arrival, I’d walk around like a woman possessed, turning on the downstairs TV to the channel my grandmother always watched, the one with the news and Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! and a bunch of dumb game shows I never paid attention to but enjoyed hearing in the background of my life. Then I’d crank on the radio in the back hallway. I’d get the laundry going, and I’d open the windows to let the noise from the neighborhood trickle in, and all this together nearly worked. It almost made me feel as if my grandmother were still with me.
I never did get used to living there after she was gone. Her room stayed her room even though it was bigger and she had a queen bed, while I still resigned myself to a lumpy twin we never got around to replacing. I didn’t touch her things, didn’t pack anything until two weeks ago when her items were either going with me or getting sent to a landfill.
It made me sick to do it. Her smell was so pervasive in her room that I could barely stand to go in there, but once I did, I never wanted to leave. I thrust my face into the clothes in her closet, and I wept for the woman who raised me, the one I’d give anything to see again, even for one day.
I miss her more now than ever. I wish I had her here with me, telling me what to do.
Though that’s laughable because I absolutely know what she’d tell me. She told me the same thing for years.
“Casey, you’re wasting away in that job. That Genny—” Sidenote, she never could get Gwen’s name right, or maybe she could, but it felt too good to say it wrong that she never wanted to correct herself. “She doesn’t understand what she’s got with an employee like you. You’re doing them a service in that damn position. You hate it! And don’t get it twisted. They need you; you don’t need them. You’re smart as a whip, and you’ve got looks to back it up. Don’t roll your eyes at me. I’m telling you, you’re more beautiful than any of the girls that come through working the beauty counter with me, and believe it when I say, I’ve seen some real lookers in my day. So I just don’t get it, Sunshine. Why bother sticking it out? Why not chase that adventure you’ve always wanted?”
Our arguments played on a loop, never changing. I thought she was shortsighted and didn’t understand the benefits of me slowly working my way up at a publication like Bon Voyage . Hello! No one makes editor in chief right off the bat! It felt like she was from a bygone era and couldn’t comprehend the pressures I was dealing with. I couldn’t just go and do something grand. I had college loans to pay for! A retirement account to contribute to! More importantly ... a family member—my one and only family member—who needed me.
Now, standing in the doorway of my suite, regret pools inside me. I wonder if maybe I had things twisted, if I was so stubbornly rooted in my ways that I wasn’t willing to see things from her perspective. She just wanted me to look over my options, to feel like I really had a say in my own future.
I know one thing for certain: she’d be spitting mad if she read the emails Gwen sent me this morning. When I recall them, though, the anger doesn’t burn afresh. I’m just a mass of anxiety—overwhelmed and sad.
Suddenly, I don’t want to go in. I step back and let the door slam closed.
I leave that quiet suite behind, not bothering to change out of my bathing suit or cover-up before I turn and head back down the hall. I move like a zombie, not fully aware of where I’m heading until I find myself outside Phillip’s door.
I reach up and knock.
Nothing.
I knock again, slightly louder this time. My fist pounding more aggressively than I intend. I wince, but still, the door doesn’t open. Phillip’s not here.
God, I hate the fresh wave of sadness his absence brings.
It feels more telling than it is.
It’s around dinnertime. It doesn’t make sense that he would be here in his suite already. What did I expect?
I don’t know exactly, but the tears come again. God, they just won’t quit today. I’ve been a mess—taking this work thing harder than I should. Pull yourself together, I reprimand myself before sweeping my hands beneath my eyes, forcefully wiping away tears before they can really start to fall. I turn away from Phillip’s door, once again wholly unsure of my destination as I start to slowly walk back down the hall. Even with all my internal protests, tears still gather, clouding my vision as I keep my head down, nervous that someone will walk out of their suite and see me like this. I don’t want to deal with some stranger’s questions.
Are you okay, dear?
Do you want to talk?
Is there someone you want me to call?
I hate every tear that falls, beating myself up for not staying strong. I’ve lived through harder days than today. Plenty of them.
Up ahead, I hear approaching footsteps and cringe.
Intentionally, I look down at the ground, moving to one side of the hallway so the person can sweep past me. Hopefully without getting too close of a look at my disheveled state.
“Casey.”
Phillip’s voice makes me freeze. My eyes pinch closed. My head stays down.
I clear my throat, trying to push past the tightness there as I speak, well, more like ramble. “Phillip, oh. Hi. I ... um—” I look behind me as if wanting to check something down the hall.
“Were you trying to see me?” he asks, his voice gentle as if he already knows something isn’t right.
The question makes my skin prickle. “ Oh .” I shake my head adamantly, trying to sound surprised like the thought hadn’t even occurred to me. Never once do I look at him, using my hair as a curtain to shield my splotchy cheeks. “No. No. I got turned around. Thought I was on a higher deck, but ...”
I let the sentence dangle as I start to walk, intending to scurry past him, but his hand shoots out to stop me. He grips me right above my elbow, tightly enough that I can’t slip away. My gut instinct is to wiggle free, but his grip doesn’t waver.
Please don’t. Please let go of me. I plead the words in my head while tears gather faster now than ever, as if my body realizes that here, with him, it’s okay to finally let go.
“Sorry if you knocked. I was up with the captain. Just came down to change for dinner, actually.”
His thumb rubs my arm soothingly as he speaks, and the gesture only makes things harder. My stomach is squeezed so tight, like it’s twisted itself into a tangled knot.
“Okay. Yeah. Don’t let me keep you.”
I stare at the carpet—at a one-inch silver square in the pattern—willing him to leave.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, edging closer.
I still haven’t even looked at him. I really don’t want him to see me like this. I’m not sure why I thought it was a good idea to come here. It just happened. My body made the decision before I could really think it through.
“What’s wrong?” he asks again.
I shake my head, not wanting to confide in him. It’s dangerous how much I already feel for him opening up to him the way I have—giving him more of myself is just too tempting.
“ Casey ,” he pleads, his tone low as he reaches up to cup my face.
I look away, unwilling to meet his eyes as the tears fall down my cheeks until they reach his hand, pooling there.
I’m desperate for his comfort, I realize. I want to feel like there’s someone in my corner. Sienna’s been such a good friend today, keeping me distracted, tugging me along with her so I wouldn’t have to wallow alone in my suite. Phillip is different, though. I want him to take away this pain, sweep me up in the feelings he’s been so good at producing in the last few days.
“Could we go to your suite? Just one more time?”
He doesn’t even hesitate. He lets go of my face, takes my hand—his grip warm and tight and assuring—and he pulls me down the hall to his suite. He’s eager to get me behind the closed door, and I expect him to push me up against it and kiss me senseless like we’ve done the last two times we’ve been alone here. Instead, he brings me over to the couch, sitting me down before taking a chair opposite me.
“Tell me what’s wrong. Is it us? Have I—?”
“ No !” I say, rushing out the word so he knows I mean it. “Just, please. Could we ... once more. That’s all.” It’s easier if I talk without looking at him. It’s partly cowardice, I realize, but there’s nothing to be done. Phillip intimidates me on a good day when I have my full defenses up. Today, he’d simply undo me. “It feels silly to put myself in your path and then tell you that I’d rather not discuss why I’m obviously upset. It’s ... complicated, and it has nothing to do with you. Furthermore, you can’t fix it, so in a way, there’s no reason to discuss it at all. So let’s do something else .”
I’m hoping I’m making myself clear enough without having to actually spell it out.
“While I might not be able to fix the issue, I’d still like to know, Casey. You shouldn’t have to carry—”
“I won’t talk about it.”
He doesn’t understand. It’s not an issue ; it’s my entire life in shambles here. There’s no easy way to delve into it or I would! Well ... maybe, I would.
“So you came here to use me, then? For comfort or a distraction or—”
I lift my chin, finally, finally , looking at him. My tone is bold and clear. “Yes. Both of those things, and I won’t deny it. If that doesn’t sit right with you, well, it doesn’t really matter. I won’t change my mind. I’ll just leave.”
His brow furrows as he looks me over. His voice sounds pained when he replies, “It doesn’t have to be like this.”
I laugh, and it rings out caustic and bitter. “It does, actually.”
What would he know of my situation, anyway? He has a multitude of friends, family— Vivienne , even, would likely come running if only he asked it of her. Even without all of that, his money is his biggest safety net of all. There’s no sense in trying to share with him how I’m feeling. He wouldn’t understand. And more importantly, that’s not what we are to each other. There are walls to keep up, lines we shouldn’t cross.
I’m aware that I’m technically the one who first infringed upon them by showing up on his doorstep clearly distraught. I’ve put him in this difficult position and, well—
I stand up abruptly, deciding that now would be a good time to leave. Thoroughly embarrassed, I now have tons of material to torture myself with later in the confines of my quiet bedroom. I’ll recall the fact that I damn near threw myself at him—while crying —and I’ll cringe all over again.
Just as I take a step, Phillip speaks loudly and commandingly. “Sit.”
I go still.
“ Sit down .”
God, he almost sounds angry.
“You aren’t going to show up here like this and then leave. Jesus, Casey. Do you think that little of me? That I would just let you wander out of here right now?”
“You have dinner,” I say lamely.
Phillip sighs like I’ve pushed him to his limit, and maybe I have.
What an epic fail of a one-night stand. I’ve really managed to suck all the fun out of it. This is the sort of thing you have to deal with in long-term relationships and, even then, only because you have to .
Phillip stands and comes to me, his intensity radiating off him.
By the time he’s in front of me, I’ve lost the willpower to meet his eyes. I stare at his chest as he holds his hands out to capture mine. Slowly, he weaves our fingers together, tightening his hold. What a simple, intimate act. Just our palms pressed together, nothing more, and it feels like he’s reached inside my chest and stolen my heart.