Page 11 of A Perfect Disaster

“Damn it.”

“This doesn’t change anything,” I tell myself firmly. “The fact that she’s good at her job doesn’t erase what she did. It doesn’t erase that meeting, or my name singled out in a report I didn’t deserve, or the weeks I spent wondering if my career would be ruined by someone else’s silence. It doesn’t change anything.”

I look back at the screen. Maika is good. No, she’s excellent. And I already knew that. I knew it before I got angry, before the disaster, before her absence and lack of support hurt me so much.

And suddenly, the memories open up like a door. A night at a club on another ship. Violet lights on the deck, the black sea around us speckled with moonlight, the music vibrating beneath my shoes. Maika in the middle of the dance floor, surrounded by passengers, dancing effortlessly. She laughed, spun, raised her hands, and led an entire group with such fluidity that no one noticed she was working. She made people move exactly where she wanted them to, as if it were spontaneous choreography.

I watched her from a corner, radio in hand. I should have been checking the entrances. I was, sort of. But she shone. Not in an exaggerated way, but because she felt comfortable in the chaos; she understood people’s joy, and that allowed her to get what she wanted. Where I saw risk, she saw rhythm—and passion, too.

At one point, Maika turned toward me, looked at me, and smiled. All the noise in the world seemed to turn down a notch. I remember thinking, “Watch out, Helen, you’re going to fall.”

And boy, did I fall.

I shake my head, let out a sigh, and return to the present. I rest my elbows on the table and run a hand over my face. This is ridiculous. I’m on the Marine IV to prove I deserve stability, not to dig up a past that should remain alongside Tutankhamun’s sarcophagus. Maika is a coworker.

But my heart, which seems to live in a world of its own, beats for her.

I close the report. The next step is to work together on a common plan. “One plan.” The captain is right. The ship needs order. And, as much as it pains me, it also needs Maika.

“I won’t let her distract me and throw me off balance again.”

But when my memory insists on showing me Maika dancing under violet lights, her skin golden and her eyes shining brighter than the moon, I know the problem isn’t that I can’t stand her. The problem is that a part of me—absurd and stubborn—has never stopped missing her.

“I’d better take a shower and get to work.”

4

Maika

Helen leaves the room with her back straight, the folder clutched tightly against her chest, and a firm stride that leaves no room for doubt. She doesn’t look back once. But I do follow her until she disappears through the door.

“Boss,” someone calls out to me.

I blink and return to Technical Room Two, where my team watches me with a mix of curiosity, nervousness, and that very particular fear that arises when you’ve just witnessed a professional argument between two women capable of setting a deck on fire just by looking at each other.

“Yes?” I reply, regaining my smile with ease.

Nico, one of the new entertainers, raises his hand as if we were in class.

“Are we going to have a safety training session?”

“Yes.”

Three faces fall instantly.

“Like… a professional evaluation?” Lara asks, clutching her notebook to her chest.

“Not exactly,” I clarify.

“That means it is,” Nico mutters under his breath.

I lean on the edge of the table and cross my arms, watching them calmly.

“Look, no one’s going to throw you into the sea if you mistake an emergency exit for a service door. Relax.”

“Well, I’d say Helen would,” Iván interjects with a half-smile.

I can’t help but burst out laughing.