Page 92 of If All Else Sails
She’s grinning at me, and though I don’t smile back, warmth spreads through me like warm honey. I feel it reach the tips of my fingers, the ones linked with Josie’s.
Holding my hand—that’s a good sign, right? Telling me she likes when I talk—despite the things that keep coming out of my mouth—is also a good sign.
Or a sign that I’m grasping at the tiniest of paper straws.
“Can you believe Wanda and Greg are sailing to the Virgin Islands?” Josie asks, shaking her head.
I hadn’t given one thought to the couple we met last night. I’m pretty sure Josie picked them up to be a buffer at dinner. I didn’t mind. Having Wanda and Greg carry the conversation eased the tension between Josie and me, giving me time to regroup and try a different approach before bed.
Maybe standing outside the head in a cramped hallway wasn’t the most romantic setting, but Josie didn’t seem to mind. She fisted my shirt like she was torn between yanking me closer and pushing me away. Which is an improvement from before— when she would haveonlywanted to push me away.
If she ever got near enough to push me at all.
I didn’t make a confession, didn’t press her for one of her own. Instead, I opened an already cracked door wide and invited her to enter. And hoped...what—she’d come running through, running to me already?
That didn’t happen. She doesn’t seem ready for any next steps, but she also didn’t run away from me.
Progress, I keep telling myself. But the waiting, the tiny steps, the incredible restraint is perhaps the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
“They’ll be out at sea—open sea—fordays. I looked at our charts.” Josie shivers, like the idea is horrifying.
She is obsessive about looking at the charts, maps, and her book on the Intracoastal, as if she feels like this knowledge will make up for her lack of experience. I did the same when I started sailing with Tom. Her excitement refreshes my own. It helps dull the ache of missing my uncle, new experiences with Josie smoothing over years’ worth of memories.
“People do it all the time,” I tell her. “Tom once sailed to Bermuda.”
“No way!” She shakes her head, and coffee spills over the rim of her mug, a single drop traveling down her hand to her wrist. “I couldn’t do it. I need to see land.”
“You took a cruise with Jacob. Weren’t you on the open sea then?”
“Norovirus, remember? I spent five days looking not at the ocean but at the inside of the toilet.” She makes a face. “Or at the inside of a trash can. Anyway, it’s different. A cruise ship is like...well, it’s basically like a whole city. You can’t capsize those things.”
“You can, actually. It doesn’t happen often, but it happens.”
Based on her horrified expression, I really should have kept my mouth shut—the theme of the morning.
“Don’t tell me that,” she says. “Now, I’m going to obsess. Actually, I’m going to google it.”
“Don’t,” I tell her. “You don’t want to see it.”
“There’s a video?”
“Videos. Plural.”
Shut up, Wyatt. Any old time now.
“And you’ve seen them?” Her expression is shocked, like the idea of me watching ships sinking online is so outrageous.
I don’t know why I did it, honestly. Probably the same weird drive that makes me watch shark attack videos and footage of sports injuries happening in the middle of games. All are things I have no business watching—no one does, really—but somehow, it feels like if I desensitize myself to them, I won’t worry as much.
But I know it would be the opposite for Josie. If she watched any of the videos showing cruise ships sinking or capsizing, she’d probably climb off the boat now with Jib and swim to shore.
Something she also might do if she knew I don’t actually need her to sail.
At the follow-up appointment just before we left, my doctor— not to be confused with “Dr.” Parminder, the PT—cleared me for normal activity. Running. Exercise. Sailing. Hockey.
He didn’t seem to understand why I wasn’t elated.
All I could think about was telling Josie I didn’t need her after all. I worried she might pack her bags, tuck Jib under her arm, and drive back to Fredericksburg. She only agreed to come on the trip because she thought she was needed. And she’s only here in the first place because Jacob is paying her.
