It’s Bohdan, stepping out of the parting crowd, like he’s some sort of hero, coming to rescue everyone and bring them to safety.
Except it’s just me here, and I’m not safe.
Not with him.
Not when he looks like that.
Hair almost bronze under the sun, a bit longer than usual, casually windswept in this way he knows I love, and I wish I didn’t but I know exactly what it would feel like under my fingertips. Striped linen shorts cuffed and sitting a few inches above his knees, ridges of muscle popping in his thighs, moredefined than they have any right to be, glowing with a new tan settling against his skin.
Eyes that used to be warm but cooled off significantly as the years went on, hidden behind tortoiseshell Ray-Bans.
A white linen shirt rolled up on his forearms, revealing valleys of muscle I could navigate with my eyes closed. And I see it there—stark against his newly tanned skin. The loopingS, in my handwriting, tattooed at the precipice of his left elbow.
I slap my hand over the tinyBinked on the front of my shoulder, like I can pretend it’s not still there and not on display for everyone to see.
“No,” I whisper, taking a tumbling step backward. “No. No. No.” I whirl on Tia, a shaking finger pointing towards her. “You said he wasn’t coming.”
I’d like to try and sound strong, menacing even.
But I don’t. My voice is this tiny, infinitesimally small thing, drowning in the tears already running down my cheeks.
It’s just like me.
Not enough. Not enough. Not enough.
Tia frowns with a tiny shake of her head, curls immobilized under a giant sun hat but doing their best to escape, before she flicks a manicured finger towards her brother. “I never said he wasn’t coming. Why wouldn’t he be coming? It’s his cruise! I was, however, under the impression this was a river cruise. Talon, have you hit your head one too many times? This is not a boat. It’s a ship. Seeboat: a vessel built for navigation of rivers or inland bodies of water. And seeship: a large, ocean-faring vessel propelled by multiple sails or engines.”
Talon throws his hands up, one raking through freshly styled curls, but I don’t give him the chance to speak.
“Not him.” I enunciate each word before wiping at my cheeks and pointing towards the crowd. I’m not looking anymore—I can’t—but I know exactly where he’s standing in the way you’reaware of your own heart, the way it sits in your chest, suspended and beating and keeping you alive.
The way a magnet knows just where to pull.
“Him,” I say, pointing but not looking, my finger quivering in midair and my voice shaking with a sob that’s going to make itself known sooner than I’d like.
Tia turns, slowly, like it’s a horror movie and she’s just realized there’s something in the room with her.
There’s something in the room with me, and there has been since he left. He’s always there, right under my skin, festering and living there in me, stealing all my oxygen and all my air, and I can’t dig him out no matter how hard I try.
“Talon.” Tia takes a measured pause, and she blinks slowly, her nostrils flaring before her mouth pulls into a firm line. “You said he didn’t answer. You said he wasn’t coming.”
I think Talon’s hands are still in the air, something more like surrender now, but I’m shrinking, arms wrapped around my chest, trying to hold together the open wound Bohdan carved there before what’s left of me spills out onto the dock and everyone sees exactly how not enough I am.
“He hadn’t. He wasn’t. He”—Talon hikes a thumb over his shoulder before swinging it back around to his sister—“was a surprise for you! You’ve barely seen him in like three years! No one has!”
“Don’t you think there’s a reason for that?” Tia jabs her finger towards Bohdan, and I feel a bit like sitting down with my head between my knees because I know exactly what he looks like, head angled to the side, grey eyes impassive, steadfast—and somehow it hurts even more to know he’s somehow exactly the same, even though he’s a stranger now.
Tia waves a hand between the two of them, voice rising to a shocking octave. “I have no interest in seeing him. And as a matter of fact, I have no interest in seeing you.” She turns on herheel, smiling tightly at Jay, who stands there looking decidedly uncomfortable. “Jay, I’m not talking about you. Why don’t you come and spend the week with me and Sloan? Away from these two—one can’t tell the difference between a ship and a boat, and the other one—” Her hand waves in the air again, but it’s missing some of its former grandeur, and I think she means to sound cruel, harsh even, but she just sounds sad. “Might as well be a ghost.”
He is a ghost, I think.
I don’t think there’s been a single day since he left that I haven’t been haunted by Bohdan Novotnak.
I dig the heels of my palms into my eyes, and I try counting to three over and over again. I try all the things my therapist suggests to interrupt the cycle and the spiral, but I hear the words anyway.
Not enough, not enough, not enough.
I don’t want him to see it all over me, the way he marked an already rotten body, a rotten heart, and an even more rotten brain. I don’t want him to hear me. He always knew when I was counting, even when it was quiet, so I do what I do best, and I try to pretend I hate him.
