Page 141 of Damaged

This is a stupid hat.

But there was a reason I compromised my style choices for it. Touch the blue fabric with your thumbs until you find it…

I squint, confused, but pick up the hat and follow his instructions. My fingers find something hard. It’s the size of a nickel. I part the fabric and look closer.

A black lens glistens. It’s a camera. A spy cam. I pick the note up again, quickly.

It was a gift from a security contractor I worked with. I didn’t throw it away. I was saving it for a good use, and I didn’t expect that purpose to end up being a wholesome one. But on that evening I took you ice skating, I couldn’t help but hope that one day, we’d wish there was a recording of that night.

And I know I may have ruined the night where we confessed our love, but it just so happens we may not have had the date right.

Check your spam, snowflake.

James

I couldn’t reach for my phone any faster. I go to my email, and sure enough, sent three hours ago is an email in my spam. Subject:stupid hat.

I open it and play the video.

It’s not one long, thirty-minute recording. James has edited it. It cuts from frame to frame. It’s all from James’s viewpoint.

It’s us walking to Central Park. Me tying my skates. Us spinning on the ice, and then… that embrace. I can feel my heart balloon all over again.

The angle of the hat emphasizes just how much taller he is than me. I’m craning my neck up to meet his eye, and I smile as the frame darkens as we go in for the kiss.

I smile. It’s sweet, but the video doesn’t end there.

The next frame is bright. Daytime. It shows me stuck in a snowbank on a ski slope. It’s from when James waited for me. I laugh-cry as I watch the snowball fight. And then the frame is us, cheek to cheek. That’s why he held his hat over his hand when he pointed at the moon.

He was filming us.

The video blurs as my eyes grow hot with tears. James kisses my cheek before looking back to the sky.

I say the words aloud at the same time I watch myself mouth them against his neck. “I love you.”

I’m smiling stupidly as I watch the video. I see myself start to ski away, but he holds the hat towards himself. He looks into the lens.

Into my eyes now.

“I love you, Sophia,” he says and shakes his head, grinning like a man who can’t believe his luck, and then the video goes dark.

We’d both said our I love yous on that ski slope. Unbeknownst to each other. Two months before the words finally left our lips in Quebec.

My heart is leaping against my ribcage like a dog that wants to go out.

I hear the boat’s horn sound, followed by some halfhearted cheers. I realize there’s been a different sensation under my feet. Movement. I rush to the window to see we’re already ten feet from shore.

We’re leaving port. I could almost scream. If I’d gotten this letter this morning, I wouldn’t be on this boat.

If I’d opened my email’s spam folder…

My heart pounds. Do I go up the captain’s bridge and tell them I have to get off? Beg? It sounds mortifying, but I’m already sprinting up the metal stairs. The bridge is on the top deck and near the bow. I can find it by that alone.

When I get there, I barge in, breathless and with my hair wild in front of my face. I’m already burning from embarrassment, but I’m past the point of no return.

“I’ve got to go back. This job isn’t for me. I’m sorry.”

Nobody here knows me but Melissa, who raises her eyebrows in an “Oh boy” and then rubs her temples like something bad is about to happen.

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