The sky is dusty when another boat appears on the electric chart. It's dark by the time we see the boat's lights on the horizon. Like tiny red and green stars.
'Do you know the rule about passing another boat?' Zach asks me. Hunter butts in, 'When red and green you see in front, full steam ahead and ram the cunt.'
I roll my eyes. 'You steer starboard,' I say. But beneath their laughter, no one hears me.
***
I feel time pass in heartbeats. Each thump against my cracked rib. Piercing purple. Tick tock.
I'm making dinner for our third night at sea. Couscous and boiled vegetables. Vlad comes down the ladder as I'm serving it onto the plates. I drop a potato, bend to pick it up. Pain fans out from my rib, courses through my torso. I wince.
'That bad, is it?' he says. Though it doesn't feel like a question. I stand straight, shudder. I want to throw up. 'I'm fine,' I say. 'Good,' he says, half smiling. He picks up two plates and takes them upstairs to the cockpit. I follow behind with another two and then return below deck for the rest.
The wind is dying around us as we eat. The sails slacken and begin to flap.
After dinner, Vlad, Cam and Zach gather around the nav station opposite the galley where I'm washing up. AJ comes down the ladder. 'Want some help?'
'Yeah, could you dry, please?'
'Of course,' he says, his dimples appearing when he smiles.
Over at the nav station, I hear Zach suggest we turn the motor on. Vlad says something about not wasting fuel unless we have to. I pass a plate to AJ, wipe my hands dry on my shorts and cross the cabin to the nav station.
'What if we sailed off course a little, like down here, and got the tail end of this storm cell?' I say, pointing south-west on the chart to the edge of a weather system that would promise stronger winds.
'That's completely in the wrong direction,' Zach objects.
'I know. But we're in dead water here.' Zach mutters, 'Better here than there.'
'What?' I snap.
'I said, better here than all the way over there,' he says, waving his hand. 'We're going to New Zealand, remember?'
'Whatever,' I say, turning and walking back to the sink full of dishes. When I pass the final plate to AJ, his hand touches mine. He holds it there a moment, his fingertips brushing my palm. He smiles. Those dimples.
'I liked your idea,' he whispers in my ear.
And I want to say, Well, maybe you should say that, and, They actually listen to you, and, I like my idea too, because it's a fucking good idea. But I don't say any of those things. Because the way his hand touches mine is a gentle glow in the shadows below deck, and I don't want that light to go out. So I just smile, pink-cheeked, and say, 'Thank you.'
Thump. Tick. Thump. Tock.
***
The boys decide not to change course. Instead they just tighten the sails and push on in three knots of breeze, despite the two knots of tide pushing against us. Three steps forward, two steps back. New Zealand is painfully far away. I feel the weight of the ocean beneath us. It's everywhere.
'I'm bored,' Hunter says, throwing his cards down on the table.
'You just can't handle losing,' says Cam.
'No, I just can't handle another round of this stupid game.' 'What else can we play?' I ask.
'How about "Never have I ever".'
'Never have I what?'
Hunter's eyes widen. 'You've never heard of "Never have I ever"?'
I shake my head.
Cam asks, 'How long did you say you'd worked on boats for?' Zach laughs.
'We all start holding up three fingers, and we go around the circle and have to say something we've never done, and if someone else at the table has done it they have to put a finger down,' explains Hunter. 'And the loser is the first person to lose all their fingers?'
'Or the winner,' Hunter says, grinning. 'Usually you'd just have to finish your drink …'
'Well, we do have rum,' says Cam.
'That we do,' Hunter says with a cheeky smile.
'I don't think Vlad would agree to that,' says Zach.
'Why don't you ask him?' Hunter says.
'You ask him.'
'Fine.' Hunter gets up from the table and climbs the ladder into the cockpit where Vlad is sitting alone on watch.
He comes back a minute later wearing a wide grin. 'One drink each.'
'Sweet,' says Cam, getting up to fetch the rum from the front cabin. I find a bottle of cola in the galley to mix with the rum and pour everyone a cup. Hunter adds the rum. Zach sniggers at Hunter's generous pours.
'What?' says Hunter. 'We're thirsty boys.'
I take a sip. The drink is so strong my eyes water. 'Hey!' Hunter says. 'We haven't started yet.'
'Okay, everyone—three fingers out,' Cam says. I put my drink down and stick out three fingers.
'Ladies first,' Hunter says. 'Say "Never have I ever …" and then the thing you've never done.'
'Okay. Never have I ever played "Never have I ever".'
'That's boring!' says Hunter.
'It's smart,' says Cam, as all three of them have to put down a finger.
'Whatevs,' Hunter says. 'Never have I ever had my period.' I roll my eyes, put a finger down, and the boys burst into laughter. The sound wakes AJ in his bunk. He rolls onto his side, props himself up on one elbow. Rubbing his eyes he asks, 'What are you playing?'
'"Never have I ever",' says Hunter.
AJ smiles. 'I love that game.'
'Join us, dude,' says Zach.
AJ wriggles out of his bunk. He's naked except for his underwear. He catches me staring.
I look down, feeling my cheeks go hot. AJ sits down beside me, his knee brushing against mine. He sticks up three fingers.
'Never have I ever had a French mum,' says Cam. AJ puts down a finger. 'What kind of turn was that?'
'Had to even the score.'
'Okay,' Zach says. 'Never have I ever fucked a chick on a boat.' All the boys, including Zach, put fingers down. 'You've never had sex on a boat, Oli?'
'I'm starting to believe you've never even worked on a boat,' teases Cam.
'I've never fucked a chick on a boat,' I say.
'A dude then?' says Zach.
'It's not your turn anymore.'
'Never have I ever run aground,' AJ says.
Hunter puts a finger down.
'Fucking hell,' I mutter.
Hunter shrugs. 'Wasn't my fault.'
I think of Mac telling me that when something goes wrong on a yacht, everyone is responsible.
'Never have I ever fallen in love with someone on a boat,' I say.
There's a long pause.
'You have to put a finger down, Oli!' says Hunter, jumping in his chair. 'What? Why?'
'Because no one has done your "Never have I ever before",' says Zach. 'Never have I ever …' Hunter begins. He grins. 'Never have I ever had sex with a guy on a boat.'
All eyes turn to me.
Green eyes. Blue eyes. Black eyes.
All wide open. Like a school of fish. Hanging in the water before me.
Poised.
Fish eyes. Wide open. Do fish have eyelids?
'Told you,' whispers Zach.
I shiver. Thinking of the first time I had sex with Adam. How before he entered me he'd said, You're not a virgin, are you? How he'd managed to make virginity something to be embarrassed about.
And I could tell them that I don't mix work with play. Or simply that the opportunity has never arisen. But I feel it again now, in a flush of red, that embarrassment.
So I put down a finger.
'Ha!' screams Hunter. 'I knew it! Drink up!'
I down my drink in one go. I've lost the game either way.
***
There was a time when I saw something I wasn't supposed to see. Two women with red lips, all glossy and puckered. Half naked, breasts bulging. And my dad, on the sofa between them. His shirt unbuttoned, his tie on the floor, coiled like a snake. My dad. His hands bridging their bodies.
The look on his face. A face like sand, shifting in the wind. Unsteady. Always changing. Sand blown into shapes. The shape of desire. Of pleasure. Sand blown into surprise. Into terror. Sand blown into Rage.
It gave me power, I thought. This seeing. Because a mother would believe her daughter. My seeing was his undoing.
But people don't always choose to believe what they see. Or to believe what they hear. Instead, they simplify reality in order to survive it.
You don't know what you saw. Your father would never. I don't believe you. Why are you doing this to me?
The stories we tell ourselves. Bending memories. Sand blown into shapes.
Vlad sticks his head down the hatch, says to Cam, 'You and Oli are up.' I find my wet-weather jacket and climb up the ladder into the cockpit.
Cam follows me to the helm. He sits down beside me, so close our legs are touching.
Below deck, the boys are getting ready for bed. They climb into their bunks. The lights go out. And then it's just us, here, in the pink glow of the nav instruments, silent.
Cam reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone and a set of earbuds.
'Want to listen?'
'Depends what you're listening to.'
'I've got heaps downloaded. What do you want to hear?'
'Have you heard of Unknown Mortal Orchestra?'
'I was thinking more like, um, hits …'
'I'll listen to whatever,' I say, picking up my earbud.
Cam puts on 'Welcome to the Jungle' by Guns N' Roses. 'I love this song.'
He smiles and nudges me, his elbow prodding my bruise.
'Argh!' I cry, cupping my hand around the swelling. 'For fuck's sake.' Thump. Tick. Thump. Tock.
'Sorry,' he says, rubbing my shoulder. 'I'll get you some more painkillers.'
'Thanks,' I mutter, and he gets up and goes down the hatch, returning minutes later with a water bottle and a handful of pills. I swallow them, pass the drink bottle back to him. He puts it in a holder beside the winch and sits back down next to me.
He wraps an arm around me gently. 'You okay?' I nod.
'I hate seeing you like this,' he whispers.
'What?' I say, turning to face him. And then it's as if I'm seeing something I'm not supposed to see. Like I'm outside myself, wishing I wasn't seeing him lean in to kiss me.
I pull back.
A face like sand. Sand blown into shapes. The shape of desire. Into surprise.
'What?' he says. Sand blown into shame. He tries to crack a joke, but it falls dead in his lap.
'Sorry,' I say.
He removes his arm.
'I just thought …' he says, squirming in his seat, unable to look me in the eye.
And so I lie. 'It's just, I just don't want to while we're on the boat. You know … with everyone else.'
Because we don't always want to believe what we see.
***
Even though Cam had said, Yeah, so fair. I feel the same, the next day he's acting like a wounded puppy dog, tail between his legs.
When I pass him his lunch, he doesn't thank me.
When I sit beside him in the cockpit, he edges away from me.
Later, at dusk, when Vlad comes on deck with the whiteboard marker and says, 'Oli and Cam, you're on three thirty to six,' Cam snaps, 'But we've already done a darkest-hour watch.'
AJ, up on the starboard deck, jumps down into the cockpit. 'I haven't done one yet,' he says. 'Why don't I swap with Cam?'
'And go with Oli?' Vlad says.
AJ shrugs. 'Yeah, why not?'
'Sorted.' Vlad rubs out Cam's name and writes AJ's instead.
Cam looks away from me, out to the horizon. I breathe a sigh of relief. AJ sits down opposite me in the cockpit. He smiles, and I imagine everyone else falling away until it's just he and I, here on deck. My body, tingling with excitement.