Page 38 of A Perfect Disaster

Helen’s silhouette keeps popping into my head, uninvited. Her look of sheer terror. That almost pathological need to put up a concrete wall between us the moment we get too close. Her contempt has hurt me; I won’t deny it. But behind her armor—that of a straight-laced officer—I’ve seen the same girl from three years ago again: the one drowning in the fear of failure, the one who fears that someone else’s mistake will rob her of the opportunity of a lifetime. Helen doesn’t want those stripes out of ego; she needs them to prove to herself that she’s worthy in a world that doesn’t forgive a single mistake. She wants a safe place at sea where no one can question her worth. It’s a goal she’s been fighting tooth and nail for ever since I’ve known her. And, even though her contempt hurts me, I understand her perfectly.

And I’m not going to be the rock against which her career is wrecked. Not like it happened in the past.

I’m walking back to my cabin. As I pass the mirror in the crew quarters, I glance at myself out of the corner of my eye. The collar of my uniform hides the marks Helen’s hands left on my skin last night, but that’s not what I’m looking for in my reflection. It’s the shadow of disappointment that furrows my brow. It’s not going to change. No matter how many seasons I spend at sea, to her I’ll always be the irresponsible one, the unpredictable one, the “unprofessional” one. Even if I give it my all at every event on the ship to prove otherwise.

I enter my cabin, lock the door, and sit on the bunk, glancing sideways at the Rome excursion brochures scattered across the desk. The stop in Genoa will be short, but these hours in port will do me good to go over what I need to do.

I lie on my back, staring at the panels on the cabin ceiling, and close my eyes. I let the dull vibration of the engines and the hum of the exhaust fans lull me. To anyone else, it would seem like claustrophobic torture, but to me, after so many contracts, it makes me feel like I’m at home.

I open my eyes and burst out laughing.

“What a shipwreck, Maika…” I whisper to the walls.

Because it is. Because what’s between Helen and me isn’t some new game in this contract. She’s still the same rigid woman I left behind in that room, the same one whose stability I shattered when I decided to screw everything up and just walk out.

And me…

“I’m still the same idiot I’ve always been.”

I sit up suddenly in bed, running my hands roughly over my face. I can’t afford to be her curse twice. Not with the auditors about to arrive and Helen convinced that I’m a public danger to her service record. If life on board teaches you anything, it’s that gossip travels faster than the ship itself. I’m not going to be the reason Transmarine denies her a promotion, even if that means this is the last contract we share with the same company.

I pull my phone out of my pocket. Our chat screen is still there, stuck on text messages from another era that I never had the courage to delete.

My thumb hovers over the keyboard.

I could type something. A brief, mature message. But I give up and lock the screen. I know her too well. I know that right now, the only thing she needs from me is some distance, not well-meaning words. Pressuring her will only make her raise the wall a few inches higher.

So I get up, organize the folders on my desk, and spend the next forty minutes going over the VIP passenger lists, the Civitavecchia drivers’ phone numbers, and the medical insurance coverage for the third time until my mind anchors itself to real, cold, manageable data.

There’s no way to organize love into an Excel spreadsheet. Rome, fortunately, is another story.

A few quick knocks on the door pull me away from the papers.

“Yes?”

The door opens just a few centimeters, and Lara’s head peeks in with that typical smile of someone bearing bad news.

“I don’t want to rush you or scare you,” she begins—which, in the language of cheerfulness, means exactly the opposite—“but Helen is in the tour office asking for you.”

I stare at her, not blinking.

“Wonderful. Does she have that angry dog look on her face?”

Lara widens her smile.

“I’d say the vein in her neck is practically bulging.”

I jump to my feet, smoothing out the wrinkles in my uniform.

“Well, with that ‘almost,’ we still have time to stop her from passing out on the office deck.”

Lara laughs, making room for me in the hallway.

Before crossing the threshold, I take one last look inside the cabin.

If Helen has asked for distance, she’s going to have an entire ocean between us. If the auditors want perfection, they’re going to witness the best performance of my career. And if Rome intends to trip us up tomorrow, it’s going to have to try a lot harder.

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