Always and Only You

Chapter Twenty-Nine

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Five years ago

There’s a break between charters. Most of her American crew mates have taken the rare opportunity to go home for Thanksgiving, so it’s quiet on board, which isn’t a bad thing. She’s realized she needs time and space to think – about Simon, but also about what happened this past summer.

The dreams are back. The ones where she’s running through a house, one that starts off fairly normally but spawns new rooms at an alarming rate, each with a different decor and cast of characters. A party is in full swing, bodies everywhere, and she can’t seem to push through them fast enough, or open the right door to find her friend, even though she can hear her screaming.

And then the screaming turns to whimpering, and then the whimpering stops.

That’s when she wakes up gasping, her heart a piston in her chest.

There’s a knock on her cabin door. The South African deckhand nudges it open, wanting to know if she wants to go out to a club with them, but she shakes her head, even though it’s Saturday night and she should be out there living her life, enjoying herself, seeing new towns and enjoying a different country. That’s why she started yachting in the first place, wasn’t it?

But that was before the accident. She feels as if she’s had too much life since then, even though she’s only twenty-three.

She eyes the phone on the shelf beside her bunk that serves as a nightstand. What she really wants to do is talk to Simon. Somehow, he always makes everything seem better. And she suspects he might be struggling too. It’s probably why he’s been quiet. He might not want to burden her.

She had a patch like that herself over the summer, just before she started the winter season. She felt numb. She’d cried enough, she thought. Talked enough. But now it turns out that maybe she didn’t because the nightmares just won’t stop.

She picks the phone up and pulls up Simon’s number from ‘recents’. She just wants to hear his voice, especially since they’ve been back in contact for the last couple of weeks. His messages have been short and monosyllabic, but she supposes that’s better than nothing.

However, the phone rings and rings. She sighs and sinks back down onto the mattress, then taps out a message:

Can we talk? It’s important.

Not always the best way to get Simon engaged. Sometimes he shies away from serious things, but she has a gut feeling he needs this as much as she does.

Much to her surprise, a message pings back a few moments later.

Important? How?

How does she say this …?

Can I call? It’s too complicated to type.

A minute goes by and then he replies.

Signal not great here – and it’s expensive for you. Better to stick to messages.

He has a point here, though at this moment, she is tempted to empty her bank account just to hear his voice. The boat’s Wi-Fi can be patchy out at sea, but it’s usually okay in port.

Are you okay?

It takes her by surprise. She’s been so busy checking in on him, making sure he’s doing okay without her, that being on the receiving end of the question stops her in her tracks. If it was anyone else, she’d put on a good front, bluster it out, but this is him. The very man she might be about to fall in love with.

Not really.

Why? Horrible charter guests?

She sighs. The guests are fine. The work is fine, if demanding. Truly. It’s the one thing in her life that’s going okay. But she doesn’t want to waste time and energy typing all of that in, so she gets straight to the point.

I can’t stop thinking about the night of the party.

She waits, her pulse a steady beat in her ears.

Oh.

A breath leaves her body and she deflates along with it. She knows he finds this difficult.

It was different in the early days after Megan’s accident. It seemed all they did was talk about it. Simon was a mess, maybe even more so than her and Gil, and she came to realize he was much more sensitive than she’d given him credit for. People loved Simon. He was funny and charming, seemed to have the world at his fingertips, and gave the impression that he had it all together, that he knew what life was about. Secretly, she’d thought he was a bit of a show-off, but then the accident had happened, tearing her faulty first impression of him to shreds.

And it was talking through the night, pulling together in the aftermath of what had happened, that had forged a deep friendship between them, a friendship that had slowly turned into something more. A relationship that might have become really serious if she hadn’t moved thousands of miles away at the crucial moment.

She stares at his non-committal answer on her phone screen and tries to work out whether she should push it or let him off the hook. A few months after the accident, there was a shift in Simon. It was as if the door to a place inside him that had opened started slowly closing. Pretty soon he batted the subject away if she raised it, a pained look in his eyes. We need to move on , he said. And he was right. Of course he was. No matter what happened to Megan, they still had their futures to think of. Time wouldn’t stand still, even if it felt unfair that it didn’t.

But what if moving forward is becoming more and more impossible? What if you feel you are being dragged back into the past, like seaweed wrapping itself around your legs and dragging you under? You can’t ignore it. You have to cut through it to break yourself free.

Stuff it. She decides it’s now or never. Her fingers fly over the keyboard.

I keep having dreams about her. Megan.

She dreads another monosyllabic reply but sighs with relief as, after a minute or so, his message lands.

It was a traumatic experience to lose someone like that. It’s not surprising your subconscious is trying to process it.

Thank you! That’s exactly what it feels like.

She just hasn’t been able to find the words to describe it until now. I feel so guilty she types.

She closes her eyes. It feels good to admit this rather than run from it, rather than attempting to bury it in new experiences, professional achievements and a shining, fake smile.

We all do. We ALL feel responsible.

She nods, even though he can’t see her. It feels nice to not be so alone.

But it doesn’t mean we ARE responsible he adds.

I know. But I can’t stop wondering. What if I’d done something different? What if I’d gone to search for her earlier, or turned left instead of right when I came out of the front door?

It’s not useful to think that way he counters, which is more the response she’d expected when she brought the subject up.

She knows she shouldn’t push him too hard, but she can’t seem to stop herself. There’s something inside clawing at her, desperately trying to find a way out. She’s scared it’ll tear her to shreds if she doesn’t find some way to release it.

But I can’t stop it running through my head. Even when I’m asleep.

Three dots keep appearing on his side of the message thread. She knows he’s trying to work out what to say, so before he can come up with a good and logical reason, she ploughs on.

I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but I have this feeling that if I could just pick through it all, go over what happened that night bit by bit, I might be able to let it go once and for all.

There’s no reply for a while. He stops typing or deleting. Either he’s given up and put his phone down or he’s paying really careful attention.

My memory is patchy, obviously. Two beers and way too much vodka to thank for that. If I could just fill in the gaps …

She can hear the warning tone in his voice when his reply comes.

Erin …

Please, Simon. I’m lonely and I’m homesick and I’m grieving in a strange country thousands of miles away from home. Please help me. I need to talk it through with someone who understands, someone who was THERE.

Minutes pass. One, then two. Then ten.

She curls up on her bed in the dark, too sad to cry. She has no idea why this feels so devastating, but it does.

And then, just as her mind starts to drift between consciousness and dreams, her phone buzzes and lights up one last time.

Okay. Maybe you’re right. Talk to me.