Chapter 7
Steven
Junie is a natural in the water. She’s relaxed, confident, and aware of her surroundings. She’ll make a great diver.
Falling into her on the boat this morning was almost the death of me. Thank god for the wetsuit hiding just how excited I got at the feeling of her body pressed up against mine.
But it can’t happen. I overheard her and Eva talking and I know that this is their last night on the island. Some might see that as the ideal situation, but I have no interest in spending time with yet another person who is just going to disappear.
I care about preserving the reefs and the turtles because I care about the future.
I want to live in the now, I want to appreciate what I have, but when everything looks so bleak, when the trash won’t stop riding in on the waves, when we find an animal we can’t save, when another person gives up and leaves…
it’s not enough. I’m tired of saying goodbye.
Diving is the only time I’m really living in the moment. Time stretches and bends in new ways down here. The rhythmic sound of my breathing, the slow rock of the ocean.
Below the surface, I pay attention to things I’d never notice on land.
I feel tuned into the space around me. Guests are always stunned when I point out the moray eels blending into the rocks or a stunning but deadly blue-ringed octopus, but it’s just a lucky guess based on hours and hours of observation.
Sea creatures fall into habits and routines just like us.
At night, it’s even more surreal. The colors at depth come alive under the beam of a torch. Fish hover in place as they sleep. I’d love to see Junie on a night dive. The joy on her face is one I recognize in myself, but that I haven’t acknowledged in a long time.
Maybe I should teach more beginner classes.
Maybe I’ve let the fights against pollution, climate change, and waste disposal turn me jaded.
Every breath under the ocean is a privilege, an insight into another world.
A better world. One where you don’t have to listen to people’s stupidity. I never want to take that for granted.
On their final certification dive, I swim alongside Junie and Eva, Nick and Nancy, and joy unfurls in my belly when I spot a friend.
I get everyone’s attention and make the signal for turtle, one hand flat on top of the other, thumbs circling, and point toward a small hawksbill poking his head into some sea grass.
I catch Junie’s face when she spots him and it makes my chest tighten. I turn away and watch the turtle for a moment before checking my air gauge and prompting all four of my students to do the same.
Smooth and easy. I’ll be signing off on four new scuba divers today.
I bring them around the reef, back to our starting point, and initiate a safety stop.
It isn’t necessary at this depth, but it’s good practice, and it allows me to get a last look at how well everyone regulates their buoyancy.
It also buys me another few minutes of quiet.
Nick starts floating away and I tug his fin down gently as we count down. I have to look away from Junie’s wide brown eyes. She’s leaving tomorrow, and that’s for the best.
Juliette is waiting on deck to help everyone aboard.
I relegated her to grunt work when I took over her class, a decision I can’t quite explain to myself.
I hang back until the end, taking a few deep breaths before climbing up.
I’m at my best in the quiet depths, but everyone is waiting on me to celebrate.
Nothing takes it out of me like the salt, the sea, and the wind. Under the ocean, everything is weightless, but on land, just having a body feels exhausting.
My team of new divers all changed into their clothes before swarming on a massive platter of mie goreng and fruit. I dry off and join them, popping open a crisp stubbie.
The way Junie digs into the fried noodle dish is almost pornographic. Her eyes light up with joy as she shovels food into her mouth. It’s hard to focus on my own meal. Her pleasure is electric. I’ve never met anyone so enthusiastically cheerful about everything.
“Holy shit, I think this is the best mango I’ve ever eaten in my life,” she gasps as she bites into a soft piece of orange flesh. I watch the liquid dribble down her chin and have to tuck my tongue back in my mouth.
Keep it together, she’s a student, I remind myself and take a deep sip of my beer.
“We should cheers to our new diving certifications!” Nick insists, pushing his drink to the middle. They all clink glasses and stare at me, waiting. I shrug and knock the neck of my bottle onto theirs before turning away.
Junie’s shrieks of mirth have me whipping back around. Her bottle has foamed over, drenching her white top in frothy beer. Heat spreads throughout my body and I have to wrench my gaze away from how the fabric clings to her bare breasts.
I tear off my singlet and throw it at her with a grunt. It comes out part-Caveman but I feel like one. I’m no better than my basest instincts—begging me to drink in the sight of her, wet and nearly nude.
Fuck, why is this woman never wearing proper clothes?
“Thank you,” she whispers, and I feel my pulse stabilize as she scampers away to change.
Eva eyes me over the neck of her bottle, but doesn’t say a word. I move further away from the mayhem, looking out at the horizon.
When Junie returns from the washroom, I’m wrecked. I almost jump off the boat then and there. One glance at her in my shirt and my heart nearly gives out. It swallows her up, kissing the bottom curve of her sun-kissed bum and revealing the most gorgeous sideboob I’ve ever encountered.
It takes everything in me not to groan out loud. I punch one of the wooden support beams in frustration, earning me an admonishing look from the captain, and stomp off for some privacy on the bow of the ship.
Wind whips through my hair and calms the hot blood pulsing in my veins. I push down on my straining cock, willing it to behave, to stop acting like we’ve never seen a woman in my clothes before.
Fuck’s sake, what’s wrong with me? The sight of her makes me ache. My chest is tight with a truth I don’t want to acknowledge: Junie has gotten under my skin.
But her course is over; she’ll be flying home tomorrow, and I’ll be released from this hell. I just need to keep my distance until then. Easier said than done on an island the size of a postage stamp, but there are places I can go when I want to be alone.
Apparently the sanctuary isn’t one of them. As the boat pulls into the dock, we all jump into action, and Mike appears, slapping me cheekily on the back.
“You look troubled,” he says, helping to tie off a mooring line. “You haven’t taught a class of newbies in a long time, why now?”
“Juliette was sick,” I say, the lie tasting bitter as I unload gear from the boat.
I love Mike because he never pries. He never pushed for details about my past in Aus, and he never commented on my questionable history with women.
When he suddenly stopped finding me passed out drunk in the volunteer dorm beds, he didn’t ask about that either.
As long as I get my shit done, he doesn’t seem to mind.
He’s my closest friend. Maybe the only one I have left.
“Aye, on Monday.” He nods then glances toward the dive shop where Juliette has led the new divers to wash up. “Junie’s nice. She cares about our work.”
“Who?” I ask.
Mike raises one eyebrow at me then shrugs, looking out over the water as if the answer to why I’m so difficult to be friends with will be written in the sea foam somewhere.
“They’ll be celebrating at The Local tonight. We should go too.” He puffs out his chest. “Some women still find divers attractive. The ones who don’t know we always smell like fish.”
I can’t help the laugh that tears from my throat. “Planning to meet up with Victoria?” I smirk.
“Maybe. We could do some dancing.” He demonstrates with a little shake of his shoulders. I like him too much to call it a shimmy.
“Okay,” I concede, hoping he’ll leave me in peace if I agree. “No dancing for me. But we’ll go.” Mike doesn’t ask for much and I don’t want to be the reason he doesn’t have fun. So what if she’ll be there? In a few more hours she’ll be gone.
He grins and slaps me on the shoulder. “Cheers. Good man, Steven. Cheer up, it’s almost the weekend!”
It’s Wednesday, but what difference does it make?
“Weekends don’t matter when you love what you do,” I say, but he’s already rising, moving toward the party.
The sound of their laughter floats toward me on the wind.
I see Junie, still swallowed by my t-shirt, all bronze skin and bright, salt-kissed hair.
It’s her last night. I’ll feel better when she’s gone.
*****
I spend an embarrassing amount of time getting ready.
Mike’s joke about smelling like fish really got in my head.
I scrub under my nails for nearly 20 minutes, convinced there’s a reek I can no longer detect.
I try to wrestle my hair into submission for the first time in years, but the salt and the wind has made it so thick, it refuses to cooperate.
I feel naked, exposed, as I walk into The Local, as if everyone will be able to smell the desperation on me.
When was the last time I’d given a thought to my appearance?
Probably not since Naomi and I were together.
The thought of her nearly sends me into an anxiety spiral.
I think about just turning around before anyone notices me, but then Mike shouts my name and the whole group turns and stares.
There she is, looking effortlessly beautiful. Her dark eyes sparkling with mirth at something Eva said, her hand wrapped around a beer bottle so tightly, I wish it were me. I want her hands on me, her hair in my face, her tongue in my mouth.
Fuck.