Page 28 of Swept Away

“Don’t say that,” I tell her, tipping my cheek to rest against the soft fuzz of her bun. “That’s exactly what people say when they’re about to die.”

That makes her laugh. I smile. Not many people would have laughed at that, given the circumstances.

“Do you know what I really want to do right now?” she asks, voice still muffled in my T-shirt.

“What do you want to do?”

She pulls away from me with a sniff, wiping her face with her arm. “I want to get drunk,” she says.

Lexi

We’re floating inthe thick heat of the afternoon. There’s a very particular kind of sunshine out here, whiter than the sunshine on land; it’s mirrored back on itself in the water, and there’s nothing to block its path, so it’s just relentless.

I have a glass of red wine in my hand and I’m dancing barefoot on the roof, between the comedically shit sail we finished attaching to the flagpole with our second glass of wine, and the bicycle with its cute fake flowers woven around the handles. Zeke still has a little phone charge left—he’s kept his on airplane mode ever since we realized we were lost out here—and we’ve decided to use it listening to one of his downloaded playlists on Spotify. I just wanted some noise, something that wasn’t wind or lapping waves or a stressed-out seagull, something that wasn’t my own thoughts.

Right now we’re on “How Far I’ll Go” fromMoana—to my delight, one of Zeke’s downloaded playlists isDisney’s Greatest Hits, something I find completely incongruous with his cool-guy vibe. He just smiled when I asked him about it and said,They’re iconic. It’s great songwriting. Don’t shame me. Who doesn’t want to be a Disney princess?

It’s hard to get to this spot, the flat roof on top of the bedroom, kitchen and living area, especially if you’re short like me and can’t hitch up from the deck. I have to inch my way around a narrow ledge on the side of the boat and hop up from there, but it suddenly, drunkenly struck me as strange that there’s a part of this boat where I’ve not stepped foot, so I had to try.

The song switches to “We Know the Way.” Down in the kitchen, Zeke sings along—he butchers the Samoan section, laughing at himself, but his voice is good. It’s low and gritty, soulful. I spin to his song and lift my face to the open sky. It’s the bottomless blue of true summertime.

Since that ship sailed off, I’ve been sliding deeper and deeper into apathy, and right now it feels great.

“Are you on the roof?” Zeke calls, throwing the kitchen window open.

It swings, smacking into the side of the houseboat.

“It kind of sounds like someone is tap-dancing up there.”

“Yeah, that’s me,” I shout back, louder than I need to. There’s nobody nearby to think about, no reason to quiet down. Why not shout?

“Can you dance?” Zeke asks after a moment, voice drifting up from the kitchen. “I feel like you can.”

I twirl. “Oh yeah. I’m bloody brilliant. It’s likeStrictly Come Dancingup here,” I say, attempting a few cha-cha steps. Penny and Mae love the show; I always watch it with one eye while scrolling through my phone. Mae likes to sit with her feet in Penny’s lap and her head in mine. The thought of her little, precious, engrossed face makes the apathy a lot harder, so I try to focus on the movements of my feet and the blank heat of the sun.

“Are you actually? Can you teach me?”

“To dance?”

“Why not?”

“I mean, I haven’t danced properly since I did classes when I was, like, thirteen. And that was alongtime ago,” I say, taking another slug of red wine.

“Did you love it?”

“Yeah,” I say, then pause midstep, surprised at myself.

“Then I bet you remember how. Come on. Come down.”

His voice still holds the throaty warmth of his singing. I feel weightless, just the right amount of drunk as I hop down and inch my way back along the edge of the boat. The ledge is a foot wide; there’s a low railing along the flat roof that I can hold on to as I go, but the sea is one misstep away to my right.

I can swim, and the sea is perfectly still, so falling in would be fine. It might even be nice. It tugs at me, the temptation just to leap off into the water and swim, even though I know I wouldn’t get anywhere. The sea is absolutely everything the boat isn’t: it’s enormous, edgeless, with nothing to duck under or bump your hip on.

And that ship just left.

I’ve never felt so trapped in all my life. The water pulls at me, glimmering, wide.

“Please don’t jump?” Zeke says mildly from the deck, stretching out a hand to help me.

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