Page 44 of You Can Trust Me

This might turn out to be the greatest mistake of my life.

I’ve agreed to give Blake the day. One day to prove he had nothing to do with Mae’s disappearance. A day to make me sure of it. Against my better judgment, against every cliché trope I know, I don’t believe my best friend’s husband did this.

I believe he loves her. I believe he wants to find her as desperately as I do.

Which is why, today, while everyone is leaving the ship to explore Costa Maya, we’re going to try to seek out Zach and stop him from leaving. Try to find answers we haven’t gotten yet. Answers we deserve.

Telling him about the dress is much less risky for Blake than telling Diego. But if, by the end of the day, we haven’t gotten any answers or discovered anything that will help us find her, I’m going to tell Diego about the dress, with or without Blake.

Before we reach the shore and everyone begins to disembark, Patton and I eat breakfast on the deck. I mostly pick over my food while watching the woman at the table next to us slather sunscreen on her four children as they wriggle out of her grasp. Next to her, the man I assume is her husband sips a coffee, occasionally looking up to offer her a sympathetic smile but not much else.

It’s scorching out today, the sun beating down on me even through my sun hat and caftan. I wave my hand in front of my face, fanning my skin.

“You really should eat,” Patton says gently, drawing me back to reality.

“I know.” I take a bite of my omelet pointedly. “You slept soundly last night.”

He seems to take it as the insult it’s meant to be. “I knew you needed your sleep, and I worried if I didn’t sleep, I’d end up keeping you awake with my phone calls and emails. I know how the light from my phone bothers you, so I took a sleeping pill and put on my headphones. Are you mad?”

A sleeping pill. Well, that certainly explains how he was able to sleep through so much.

I shake my head, taking another bite. “Nope. Not mad.” I guess he meant to be sweet, but in all reality, I can’t find the energy to care. As much as I hate to say it, I wish Patton hadn’t come on this trip at all. Honestly, I think he feels the same way, though he’s too polite to come right out and admit it.

When I look up and see the woman still struggling to put sunscreen on her youngest child while the husband appears completely unaware of her rising stress levels, I drop my fork onto my plate, the metal clattering loudly on the ceramic.

“I don’t think this is working.”

He pauses, his own fork half lifted to his mouth. “What?”

“This. Whatever this is. I’m sorry. I think you probably agree. Whatever this is…it’s not working for me.” I wave a hand in the air. “I’m sorry. I know we’re sort of stuck together until the end of the cruise, but I’m just going to move my stuff out of the room. You don’t have to pretend to care about any of this anymore. You’re off the hook.”

“I’m not pretending,” he says in a defiant whisper. “I care about you, Florence. And it’s terrible what’s happened to your friend. But I don’t know how to be around you right now. I don’t know what to say or do. I feel like I’m in the way or saying the wrong thingone hundred percentof the time. I’m doing too much or not enough. It’s not your problem, and I’ve tried hard not to make it your problem, but I’m not sure what you want from me. I’m sorry I wasn’t better prepared for this.” He sighs. “I don’t want to break up, for the record, but this timing made sure we didn’t stand a chance.”

I stare at my hands, twisting the napkin in my fingers. “I just think I need to focus on finding Mae right now and you need to focus on work, and it’s not helping either of us to pretend any differently.” I swear I see the tension leave his body. I’m doing the right thing, even if it’s hard. I didn’t expect it to besohard though. I do care about him. Maybe more than I realized.

I stand up, needing to get away from him.

“Where will you go?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe I’ll see if I can crash with Blake.”

“In the same bed?”

I don’t miss the flare of jealousy in his eyes.

“Oh, Jesus. We are so far past that at this point. Neither of us is sleeping anyway.”

“What if Mae comes back?” he asks.

I twist my lips, unable to answer, because I think the truth is that none of us expect her to. The realization hurts more than anything else.

“We only have two more nights. I’ll figure it out. I can sleep on the floor if I have to. You don’t need to worry about it.”

He stands, reaching for my arm, but stops himself before he grabs it. “No, wait. That’s ridiculous. Just sleep in the room with me. We can be broken up, fine, but you don’t need to sleep on the floor when there’s a perfectly good bed that we split the cost of.”

“I just can’t.” I turn away, moving across the deck quickly. “Please respect that. I’m sorry.”

He doesn’t chase after me or make a scene, which I’m grateful for if not a little let down, as I enter through the door and into the dining room. I come to a stop when I nearly run into a familiar face.

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