The following day, when I arrive at breakfast, I have a moment that catches everyone’s attention. While Cookie, the chef, and her girlfriend, Hamako the Harpy, sleep in, breakfast is served a la carte style. Which, in theory, is amazing because it means actually picking what I want to eat instead of accepting a plate of hot somethings. My plate’s loaded up with fruits, granola, and Greek yoghurt that is the perfect kind of thick.
But after two days without my regular coconut matcha latte, I’m more on edge than I have ever been in my life. Exhaustion is taking its toll on me. I’ve been downing the coffee on board, but it’s having the opposite effect on my body. Rather than helping keep my energy up, the extra caffeine makes me twitchy, and I’m no less tired.
My hands shake as I reach for the pot of fresh coffee and everything is going fine until it’s going horribly wrong.
“Fuck!” I shout, coffee splashing across my hand and down my front.
The skin on my already sore fingers feels like it’s going to bubble up and burst in the most grotesque way possible. Tears sting my eyes, but I grit my teeth to keep them in. Do not show weakness in front of everyone. If I start crying now, I am not sure I could stop. Every scary feeling I have been ignoring as wild and free Delphini rushes in as I stare at my hand. I breathe heavily through my nose and I hear my father’s voice in my head demanding more from me, telling me I’m not doing enough for the family.Prove to them you are stronger than some weak sorority-level hazing.
My food is safe, so I take my plate and return to my room to eat. I can’t sit in front of everyone when I feel myself fraying around the edges. I just need a moment alone to collect my thoughts. Nobody laughs, and nobody says anything because I’m invisible per the captain’s orders. Every step towards my room increases the trembling in my bottom lip and my burning hand. I’m so close to the privacy of my room, where I can cry to my breakfast before Aoife puts me to work again.
“Delphini.” The harsh crack of my name has me stopping in my tracks. The captain is walking down the hall from her quarters. “Where you going with that?”
There is no facade I can keep up in this state. There aren’t nice greetings spilling from my mouth when I speak to her.
“To eat,” I hiss. “Or does feeding the prisoner go against your orders too?”
“No, what would starving you do? Then you couldn’t work.” The captain’s remark is blunt and straightforward. “Are you crying?”
That question stings worse than the burn on my hand. Something about the way she asks it makes the tears dangerously close to spilling dry up. My plate of food threatens to overturn from my shaking fingers and I know that I’m not going to be able to open my door without serious pain, but I am not weak. She should never be able to ask me that question.
“I’m fine.”
She crosses her arms over her chest and I realise she isn’t dressed so heavily as she has been. There is no overcoat, knife belt, or boots on her feet. In fact the captain is wearing a pair of busted overalls and skin tight athletic top. I can see the narrow muscles in her arms bulge as she waits for me to do something more.
“You are a prisoner on my ship, I am the captain.”
“And?” I ask. She’s captain of a tourist ship, that’s not exactly a real rank.
“And-” Her voice cuts, and for a moment a freaky milky white coats her eyes, before she blinks it away to look down at my hand. “What happened?”
“Nothing to concern yourself with,Captain. I am fully capable of taking care of it.”
“For Love’s sake,” she grumbles, before taking my plate and walking back to her room.
“That’s mine!” I shout.
“Then come get it!” She returns, as loud and more annoyed.
The captain leaves the door to her room open and I stand there deliberating whether breakfast is actually worth it. My shirt is still wet and Aoife will come looking for me sooner rather than later.
“Go, sweet one, seize your moment.”
A shiver runs down my spine as Love’s whisper heats my skin.
I’ve already died, technically, so whatever argument I was about to have with myself is null and void. Plus, ignoring the captain goes completely against my personal mission of getting her to admit she is my soulmate. I shove all the nurtured instincts I have down and march through the door of the room like it’s my own.
The captain’s room is all wood. There isn’t much of it I remember except the ornate fireplace. It’s the only thing in this room that isn’t brown. The marble is white with swirls of grey, and is carved to form more tentacle shapes.
Now, I take in the four poster bed with tidy, dark blue bedding, a large privacy screen that doesn’t have any sort of design on it, and a wide desk with an old computer that is covered in papers and has my plate sitting on it. Behind the desk there is a huge glass frame with newspaper clippings of all shapes inside.
This room is utterly masculine and impersonal. It might as well be a hotel.
“Sit.”
The captain calls from behind the screen, and I follow orders, taking the closest seat possible. Her bed. It’s deceptively soft. I sink into the foam and have to force myself to remain upright. The bed I have been sleeping on works, but it definitely is not the quality I am accustomed to. The captain turns the corner around the screen and stops. She stares at me, eyes travelling from my head to boots.
I want her to like what she sees. She has seen me at my literal worst, and what I now consider to be my worst– stained clothes and exhausted body. If she can’t stop looking at me like this, it means when I eventually get to look like my usual self, her jaw will hit the floor. I want her eyes on me at all times. I don’t want her to look away. The captain has my full attention any chance I can be near, I just want the same.
