Girl at Sea (28 page)

“Whatever,” he said. “Just, whatever.”

And then he was gone.

Clio let out a long breath and put her hands over her face. She tried to make her mind be quiet, to block it all out.

“You do not exist,” she said weakly.

Except that he did. A minute later, he returned, shut the door, and continued pacing. Clio looked up in total surprise.

“First of all,” he said in a low voice, “
you
broke into Julia’s room, and what did you find? An old letter? That’s your smoking gun? Look, Julia is a little intense. She’s not a lot of fun to work for. But she’s smart, and she’s a professor, and your dad
found her
, not the other way around. And I’ve told you why this trip is legitimate and important. Are they going about this a 240

little strangely? Yes, they are. Why? I don’t know. But don’t blame me for it.”

His agitation was totally unhidden. Clio had never seen Aidan like this before—completely raw, not entirely in command of himself.

“Second,” he said. “Why Elsa likes me, I
seriously
have no idea. It’s probably because I’m the only guy around. I don’t know.

This is really a first for me. My track record is really, really bad, believe it or not. I should be pissing myself with excitement, but I’m not. She’s beautiful, and she’s nice, but I don’t like her that way, even though my brain is telling me I’m insane. I’m a guy.

I’m not supposed to be complex. If a hot girl likes me, I’m supposed to like her. It’s that simple. But I don’t.”

He started to pace in the few feet of space he had.

“The reason I don’t is right in front of me,” he said. “I like the girl who is on my bed, right now, and who has appeared to hate me from the minute she first saw me. I disgust her so much that she makes up boyfriends to guard against me. She
physically runs
away
when I’m supposed to dance with her.”

There were almost-audible clicking noises in Clio’s head as pieces snapped into place.

“You kissed her,” Clio managed.

“I know. I kissed her because . . . because I did. Because I am a guy. Because she was there, and she’s gorgeous, and she wanted to.

And you really didn’t seem to want to be around me. When you got hurt, I don’t know . . . it was so weird. It felt like something was happening with us. But then you just shut me down again. So what do I do? Do I accept the invitation, which I am still really confused about? Or do I say no? Do I . . . stay here?”

241

No,
Clio’s brain screamed.
He’s Elsa’s. Remember? Remember
Elsa? The girl who thinks she’s going on a date with this guy RIGHT

NOW?

Clio opened her mouth, but no words came out. The image of Ollie came into her head, but it was rapidly replaced by what was right in front of her. The guy with the tousled hair and the slightly too-big clothes. Snarky, smart, annoying, handsome . . . He suddenly sat down on the bed next to her and put his hand into her hair. His fingers were just tickling her scalp, making every hair on her body stand on end. Without even knowing what she was doing, she reached out and put her hand against his neck. It was stronger than she’d realized it would be. Immediately, the feeling rushed over Clio that despite everything, this was
right
.

“Stay here,” she whispered.

He was quiet for a moment. His finger made a little circle under her chin.

“I was hoping you’d say that,” he said. And then he leaned in.

He was at her mouth now, and she could feel his breath on her lips.

There was a knock at the door. He jerked a bit. They stared at each other.

“Who is it?” he asked, not moving his face away from Clio’s.

The person didn’t answer.

“One sec,” he called, moving back and standing up.

There was a moment of confusion—bad comedy confusion.

There was nowhere for Clio to hide, so she just slid farther under the blanket. He tossed some clothes on top of her. Whoever that was had probably heard them, so this was a complete joke. She peered out from the sleeve of a shirt.

242

Elsa stood there, looking down at the floor.

“You could have just said no,” she said to Aidan. “And
you
could have just told me the truth.”

That was to Clio. Or the mass of clothes that was Clio. Then Elsa walked away.

Aidan paused for a second, then carefully slid the door closed and leaned against it, staring at the ceiling. Clio shook herself out of the pile. Her heart was going way too fast to be healthy.

“I do everything wrong,” he said.

“I have to go talk to her,” she said. “I’ll . . . we’ll . . .”

“Yeah. Go.”

“Do you . . .” She didn’t even know what she was asking. She was almost afraid to know. She hurried out into the hall and up the stairs.

243

Do Not Push the Shiny

Orange Button

Elsa had locked their door. Clio stood in the vestibule in the dark with her hand flat against the bedroom door. Locked out of her home, out of Elsa’s life.

She turned and looked out the vestibule window. Her father had come out on deck. He was staring at the dark purple sky and the last remnants of the sunlight—the long golden line sinking into the water. He was wearing his ridiculous little cap again, but it was strangely endearing now.

After all she had just said, after what had just happened, her insides were so tossed around that her dad was the only thing that made sense.

As unthinkable as this idea would have been a few weeks, a few days . . . maybe even a few hours ago, Clio had the overwhelming urge to go out to him and ask him what to do.

That was her
dad
. He could help her figure her way out of this.

She needed him.

244

She hurried down the steps past Martin, who glanced up at her as he sat at the dining room table.

“Clio,” he said. “You should—”

“I’ll be back, Martin,” she said. “Hold on.”

She went through the glass doors and out to her father. She was ready—she wanted him to know everything.

“You know,” he said as she approached, “it’s always dis-appointing to know that your daughter—the girl you love—

thinks you’re an idiot.”

Clio stopped dead.

“W-what?” she stammered. “I didn’t say that.”

“You never used to lie to me either,” he said, turning around.

“A bad judge of character?”

Clio’s mind reeled. How did he know that? Even if he’d been somewhere on the deck, there was no way he’d been close enough to hear her say that. How . . . ?

There was only one way, and it hit her immediately. The com on Aidan’s bedside stand. Pushing the books at it . . . She must have depressed the side button. It had been on. It had broadcast everything.

“Oh my God,” she said. Her stomach felt almost exactly like it did when she drank all of that warm margarita mix two years ago.

“So now I know what you think,” he said. “I guess I’ve always known it. I’ve just never heard it before.”

“Dad . . .” She stepped closer to him, but he held up his hand.

“Hold on,” he said. “Let’s just be clear about this. Let’s get it all out in the open. So you think I’m being conned? You think I’m foolish? I know we lost a lot of money, but we did get some.

We got more money than a lot of people see in a lifetime. We 245

had a good run, Clio. And you can’t tell me you didn’t enjoy those things we did. Half of them were your ideas.”

“I was
twelve
,” Clio managed to say. “They were a twelve-year-old’s ideas.”

“They were
our
ideas. Were they that bad?”

“Maybe not bad, but—”

“But what?” he asked.

“Mom wasn’t happy,” Clio said. “Our life was weird. Then I got hurt—”

“Which I guess you think is my fault. And that’s fair. I was in charge. I should never have taken you out there.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” she said. “It was the guy in the boat.”

“It was my fault,” he said. “I knew it. Your mom certainly knew it. And you knew it too. Do you know how sick I was about that?

If anything had happened to you . . . anything more . . . I would have died. You got better, but you always hated the scar. I could see how much you hated it. So I let you get that tattoo. Not just any tattoo, but one drawn by a famous artist. I thought if we covered it up with something really wonderful . . . but I screwed that up too.”

Guilt isn’t always a rational thing,
Clio realized.
Guilt is a
weight that will crush you whether you deserve it or not.

“If you don’t trust me, you don’t trust me,” he said. “I don’t want you to be stuck somewhere you don’t want to be.”

“I want to be here,” she said. “I
want
to stay.”

“You went into Julia’s room. You went through her
things.
”

“Dad,” Clio said. “I was worried. You’re the one who wouldn’t trust me. You wouldn’t tell me what was going on. I care. It’s really my boat too.”

246

“This is
not
your boat,” he said, his voice rising. “You don’t understand what this means. You don’t understand anything.

You think I just left? Your mother told me to go, Clio. You think I wanted to?”

She could hear her father’s voice cracking.

“So why didn’t you say no?” Clio said. She could feel the tears running down her face now.

“Because she didn’t give me any choice. She told me to go.

She told me I was ruining everything for you, for us. And she was kind of right, like you said. It’s my fault we lost all the money. It’s my fault you got hurt. I didn’t want to do that anymore.”

He seemed resigned now, and he wouldn’t look at her. It was obvious and absolutely clear that everyone on the boat could hear them or knew this was happening. Everything had blown apart.

“It’s not working,” he went on. “I shouldn’t have brought you here. I went too far, and so did you.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’ll go back to land tomorrow. We have to go anyway. I’ll see you off the boat there and make sure you get safely to the airport. You’ll get on a plane and head straight to Topeka. You can go back to your mom. You’ll be away from me.

Congratulations. You got your wish.”

There was no hug. No grand reunion. He just walked away, leaving her alone. More alone than she had ever felt before.

247

Mistaken Identity

There was nowhere to go. The bedroom was locked. The bottom two floors had people floating around in them. So Clio went to the dark wheelhouse. She rested across the leather seats and stared out of the darkened windows at even more darkness.

She cried for a while by herself, her face sticking to the leather. Then her body got tired, and there was nothing left to cry. Nobody was coming for her. So she just rested there and let herself adhere. Maybe her face would become glued to the seat.

Nobody could make her leave then.

Because that was the kicker. Now she wanted to stay on this miserable boat more than anything. She wanted to make it right with Elsa and with her dad. She wanted Aidan. She wanted Aidan so much. She had no idea when this had happened to her—this want for Aidan. It was nothing like her silly fantasies about Ollie. But who even knew where Aidan was now? Maybe in his room. Maybe in
her
room.

248

After a while, the ambient lights on the controls came back to life, giving the room a soft techno-glow. Clio felt a sudden affection for the panels, these expensive trinkets that her father had purchased. Only her father would do something like this, on this grand scale. And the truth was, she
had
missed this kind of thing. Yes, it was dumb, and yes, it might ruin or kill him—but no one could fault his style.

It could have been like a fairy tale. But fairy tales aren’t real.

Things don’t work like that. There’s a price for everything.

And now she was paying another one. Just as she had found something that she had wanted for so long, it was being taken away. And her own words had done it. What she’d said wasn’t wrong or unfair. It was just too hard to hear out loud.

Aside from nodding off once or twice, she didn’t sleep during the night. By five, she just gave up. The dawn spread over the ocean, wide and pink, more beautiful than anything had a right to be.