After dinner, everyone makes their way up the stairs to the upper deck. The open-air space is designed for dancing, with a polished oak floor, standing speakers, and string lights crisscrossing the air.
The hired DJ is already blasting music — a throbbing electronica song that’s been dominating the pop charts for weeks. Everyone on the dance floor is screaming the words at the top of their lungs, writhing to the rhythm with abandon.
Ophelia and Odette each grab one of my hands and tug me into the center of the mob. Our dates trail close on our heels. At the chorus, the twins twirl me round and round between them like a spinning top, until I’m dizzy.
I’m not sure if it’s the champagne or the vodka or simply the infectious energy of tonight, but I’m definitely tipsy. My bloodstream feels made of stars. For the first time since that night, when Archer yanked me into his arms and kissed me breathless, he does not consume my every waking thought.
After a few upbeat songs, the DJ downshifts into a slow song. I allow Charlie to pull me against him, his hands sliding down to brush the small of my back through the whisper-thin silk. I loop my arms around his neck and rest my head on his chest, wishing they’d play something faster. Anything but this heartbreaking Adele ballad about a girl trying to move on from a boy who couldn’t love her back.
Nevermind, I’ll find someone like you.
“Are you having a good time?” Charlie whispers into my hair.
I press my eyes closed. My eyes are stinging with tears. “Yes,” I lie. “I’m having a wonderful time.”
* * *
I makemy excuses after Adele croons her final notes, beelining for the bathroom. The one on the upper deck has a line out the door, so I walk down the steps to the ballroom. It’s practically abandoned — only a few stragglers partaking in the chocolate fountain, and some chaperones taking goofy pictures in the photo booth.
The bathroom on this level is empty. I take my time — fixing a pin that’s falling loose from my hair, wiping the smeared mascara from beneath my lash line. The girl staring back at me in the mirror may look beautiful on the outside, but inside she’s broken. There’s a sadness in her eyes no amount of makeup can conceal.
It seems like I’ve been on this ship for an eternity. My buzz is wearing off and my feet are beginning to ache in my high heels. When I step outside, into the night air, I turn away from the stairs that lead back to the dance floor and start the opposite direction. The deck wraps all the way around the ship. I head for the stern, away from the lights and the music and the crowd, seeking out a bit of solace.
The back of the ship is technically off limits. I step over the velvet rope barricade anyway and make my way carefully down a spiral staircase, taking extra care not to trip in my high heels. At the bottom, the aft deck juts out over the dark water, separated only by a thin railing. The name ODYSSEY CRUISES is embossed across the back in letters as tall as my waist.
It’s a calm night. The moon shines down, dancing across the rolling swells. We’re not far off shore — a couple hundred yards, maybe less. In his quarters at the bow, the captain steers us past a small island I recognize as Egg Rock, making a slow loop around it before we turn back north.
I lean against the railing, looking down at the froth churning from beneath the boat. The engine is a low, humming vibration — soothing in comparison to the thumping beat on the upper deck.
I have little desire to return to the prom.
Archer’s always teased me about my antisocial tendencies. But he’s never tried to change them. When he’d find me at a house party, loading up a stranger’s dishwasher or watering their flower boxes with the outdoor spigot, he’d merely shake his head at me in amusement, those caramel eyes crinkling up at the corners.
Let’s get you home, he’d say, holding out his hand.Before you start scrubbing toilets.
I brush a tear from my cheek, telling myself it’s only from the wind.
It’s so bizarre that tomorrow is graduation. At noon, I’ll be standing on a stage, delivering the speech I scribed onto small index cards yesterday. It’s a mess of clichés; a sappy monologue of trite memories to make my classmates laugh and pandering metaphors to make the parents nostalgic, with a core message about the value of hard work and the responsibility of an exceptional education.
My parents are going to love it.
In the distance, I watch the persistent flash of Graves Lighthouse, warning ships away from the rocks. I wonder how many unlucky vessels sank to the bottom of the ocean before its construction — an underwater cemetery of wooden skeletons, their names lost to time.
The sound of an engine interrupts my melancholy musings. I glance up, my eyes locking on a light bobbing across the surface of the ocean. An approaching vessel. It’s barreling toward us at top speed, a plume of water shooting up behind it in a massive wake.
At first, I think it’s just someone out for a joyride, playing chicken with the prom cruise. But when it pulls up alongside us, slowing to a crawl, I straighten from the railing to get a better look.
Are we being boarded by pirates?
It’s hard to make out the shape in the dark, but there’s something familiar about the silhouette of the small vessel. When a crew member turns a spotlight on it, bathing the navy picnic boat in a brilliant beam, I realize why.
It’s my father’s Hinckley.
And, standing at the wheel dressed in a suit... hair blowing in the wind… face twisted into a devil-may-care smirk… is none other than Archer Reyes.
I just about fall overboard.
“THIS IS A PRIVATE VESSEL,” a crew member shouts into a loudspeaker. “YOU ARE NOT PERMITTED TO BOARD!”