Chapter 24 #2
Nobody’s there to stop me as I storm through the galley and down the stairs to the crew cabins.
Maybe Patricia’s called an anti-mutiny drill: return to your cabins and await further instruction.
I pound on Caleb’s door with no regard for who might be listening.
Am I too late? Has Caleb already left the ship?
The door creaks open just enough for me to see the wreckage inside. Caleb blocks the doorway: his eyelids red, his face drawn and uncharacteristically pale.
“Jesus, Stella,” he half-whispers and pulls me inside before anyone can see me. On his bed, a half-packed suitcase hemorrhages clothes and charging cords.
The lock clicks behind me.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“I know,” the breath has all but left my body, and I have to power my speech off pure stress. “But I want to fix this. Tell me how to fix it, and I will.”
I reach for Caleb, my fingers aching to find his, but he turns away from me before I can get close. The sting of it burns deep in my chest.
“It’s too late,” he growls as he begins clearing out the drawer next to his bed. “You need to leave before someone sees you and makes this worse.”
“But none of it’s true!” I protest. “Did you tell them? Did you at least stand up for yourself?”
“Did you?”
The serrated edge on his voice catches and pulls at me like a ring on a knit sweater.
The man I’m staring at isn’t the Caleb who showed me how to navigate by starlight.
This is hard Caleb. Sergeant Caleb. The Caleb who snapped at me for so much as walking too close to the railing. But this time, it isn’t an act.
“I—“
“Of course you didn’t. Because it wouldn’t make a difference!
It doesn’t matter that I didn’t sleep with Steven, or whatever they’re accusing me of.
I was with you. I brought a guest to my cabin; I missed a dragging anchor that could have run the ship aground.
I lied to the Warrens about the tides at Narara.
Those were my mistakes, and now I have to face the consequences. ”
“Mistake?” I say aloud, but I’m not sure if it’s a question or an accusation. All that talk about taking risks and following his heart, and he thinks I was a mistake?
You know those moments when you watch your own stupidity in slow motion?
When you know you’ll regret what you’re saying as soon as it pops into your head, but you just can’t seem to stop yourself?
This is one of those moments: a car I can’t stop steering off of the bridge.
I have no right to be angry with Caleb—not while he’s losing his entire life.
But I can feel the armor rising around my heart like hackles. And this time, it’s barbed.
“You were the one who kissed me,” I hiss at him. “You convinced me this was ok.”
“Right. So everything’s my fault,” he spits. “Funny, I don’t remember you protesting in the engine room.”
“Caleb, I told you this was a bad idea. I told you I didn’t want to risk your job!”
“You’re right,” he says sharply. “And I should have bloody listened.”
I stand there, frozen, waiting for him to take it back. To open his mouth and say something—anything—to tell me my Caleb is still somewhere in there. But he doesn’t. He just puts his hand on the door handle and pulls it open.
“You need to go,” he says, his eyes devoid of emotion. “If anyone sees you down here it’ll only make things worse.”
My chest constricts as if I’ve been punched. I’m practically hysterical, but Caleb is dead calm: the eye in the center of the storm. He doesn’t want me here. Whatever magnetic force rippled between us, that cord I’ve felt since that first day in Denarau, has been broken.
“I’m so sorry,” I say quickly, at least—I think I say it.
Whatever comes out is more like a snot-bubbly sob than an actual apology.
But before I can make a greater fool of myself, I rush out of the room, my breath coming in short, asphyxiated spurts.
How could I be such an idiot? How could I let myself fall again—when I knew how much pain was at stake?
I sprint towards my cabin so quickly that I practically knock over a vase as I barrel out into the salon.
“Stella?” I hear Harry’s voice. “Is everything alright?”
I turn towards the voice and see that Harry and his father are seated at the bar, their bodies bent over some kind of paperwork.
For a second, I don’t care if they see me.
I want to scream. I want to rage like a squall that takes down everyone and everything in its path: the whole damned yacht, if I have to.
But there’s one person aboard who doesn’t deserve to go down with this ship. The person who brought me here. Who doesn’t have a cruel or manipulative bone in her body. The person who I promised my dad I would protect at all costs when he couldn’t anymore.
My sister.
Matthew, as much as I want to strangle him, is right. If I tell the Warren’s the truth, the next life I’ll be ruining is hers.
“Fine,” I squeak out as convincingly as possible, which isn’t very.
There are a million questions I want to ask him, the most important being why Caleb is getting punished while Matthew and Steven walk scott-free.
But the Warren’s don’t talk about anything real.
Their lives are tucked neatly into the golden boxes they’ve built.
Never mind that Arthur is a functional alcoholic.
Never mind that Matthew is terrified to tell them about the man he’s loved since college.
With the Warrens, everything comes down to reputation.
Everything comes down to keeping up appearances.
And now I’m complicit in it, too.
Someone calls to me as I rush down the stairs, but I know that if I turn around, any remaining pretense of calm I’ve managed to maintain will be obliterated. Unstoppable tears stream over my cheeks as I throw myself into my cabin and lock the door behind me.
My body finds the side of the bed without my mind to guide it, grasping at the silky duvet as I fling myself downwards. But for as much as I’m sucking in ragged gulps of air, I can’t seem to catch a breath.
So this is what I get for letting my guard down.
For compromising the rules I’ve taken so long to build for myself.
Will told me to be careful with yacht boys.
Hell—Caleb told me to be careful. But I ignored everything I knew to be true and let my feelings get the better of me, again.
How could I be stupid enough to let myself believe this time would be any different?
A knock sounds at my door.
“Stella?” my sister calls to me, her voice concerned. “Are you ok?”
I let out a few silent sobs into my pillow before I can manage to respond.
“I’m sick.”
What’s one more lie in a stack of many? I can hear Jules lean up against the door.
“Oh no, what’s wrong? Can I get you anything?”
“I think it’s—” (pause for sobs)—“food poisoning. I just want to sleep.”
I hope the guttural drag in my voice is mistaken for a post-vomit affectation instead of a poorly disguised sob. But Jules seems to buy it, because she says, “Ok babe. Text me if you want me to bring you any coconut water.”
I hear her footsteps in the hall as she retreats, leaving me to my tear-stained pillow. As much as I want to blame Matthew and Steven, they’re not at fault here. This happened because of me. I am a hurricane, and Caleb is the wreckage I’ve left behind.
I was an idiot to think I could really live this fairytale. Because in a few moments, Caleb will be gone. And instead of being the girl worth taking a risk on, he’ll remember me as the mistake that ruined his life.