It’s not real. It’s just biology.
And Abram’s a big boy—I’m sure he can handle the fact that he’s been stood up. He’s probably not even worried about it. He’s probably already moved on. I picture him standing there by the hostess stand, waiting for me, and then when it becomes obvious that I’m not coming, walking down the beach, stopping to talk to whatever sorority girls or vacationers in bikinis happen to be around. His parents are probably still out of town. Maybe he’ll take one of those girls back to his house tonight, the same way he did with me.
“Quinn!” Paige calls. “Are you almost ready?”
“Yeah,” I say, pushing the thoughts of Abram out of my head once again. “Just a second.”
“I’m going to hook up with someone tonight,” Celia says. The sunset cruise takes off from a different part of the key than the one we’re staying on—it’s only about a mile or so away from the hotel, but there was no way Celia was going to make it there in the shoes she’s wearing. Paige, either, really. She still has blisters from last night.
Plus, even though it’s six o’clock, the humidity is killer. We would have been sweating by the time we got to the dock, and I don’t think that would have been good for Celia’s hair extensions. She’s very worried about them. She keeps reaching up and touching them nervously, like she’s afraid they’re going to come out at any moment. I hope whoever she hooks up with doesn’t end up running his fingers through her hair. He might end up with a surprise.
Anyway, the three of us are smushed into the back of a pedicab on our way to the other side of Siesta Key. It’s kind of awkward, sitting here while some guy works his ass off to haul us to a sunset cruise, but Celia and Paige thought it would be so fun riding in a pedicab! Which it so totally isn’t. Every time we go over a bump, it feels like we’re going to tip over.
“Who?” Paige asks. “Who will you hook up with?”
“Someone on the party cruise,” Celia says.
“What party cruise?” I ask.
Celia pats her hair. “The party cruise we’re going on. Right now. Hello?”
Paige shakes her head at me. “You’re still being kind of weird.”
“I thought you said this was a sunset cruise,” I say.
“It is,” Celia says. “A sunset party cruise.”
I sigh. A sunset party cruise is a lot different from a sunset cruise. A sunset cruise means dinner and standing on the deck (bow? stern?), watching the sun go down. A sunset party cruise means drinking and boys and standing in a corner while Celia and Paige grind on random guys. I’m so not in the mood for any of that.
You’re only in the mood to be with Abram right now.
The pedicab goes over another bump. I decide to take it as a sign that I shouldn’t be thinking about Abram. Kind of like one of those negative reinforcements where you snap a rubber band against your wrist every time you think of something you don’t want to think about, and then eventually, you stop thinking about whatever it is because you start associating it with pain.
“Sir, can you please be careful!” Celia screeches to the driver, an older man with sunburn on the bald part of his head. “We really need to get there in one piece.”
I’m not sure if he can hear Celia, but if he does, he doesn’t acknowledge her. Not that I blame him. I mean, the man is hauling three entitled girls down to a sunset party cruise during their senior trip. If I were him, I wouldn’t give a shit about jostling us around, either.
When we finally get to the harbor and climb out of the pedicab, Celia pays the guy, shaking her head the whole time. When she’s not looking, I make sure to give him an extra ten dollars for a tip and thank him profusely. Not that he did that great of a job—we almost got hit by cars a few times, and after Celia yelled at him, he made sure to go over every single bump full force. But still.
We walk up the boardwalk to the boat, where we’re once again ID’d before being let on. But this time Celia doesn’t even try to convince the person working the door that she should get a stamp saying she can drink. One, because the person taking our money is a girl, and Celia knows her charms work better on men, and two, because she’s obviously learned it doesn’t matter if she has a stamp or not. She’ll be able to find some pathetic guy to get her whatever she wants.
The actual boat is nothing like I pictured it. I thought it would be one of those high-end yacht-type boats, with round tables covered with white tablecloths and a nice buffet and beverage station in the corner. Of course, that was before I knew it was a party cruise. I wonder what it says about me that I’d rather be on a cruise set up for forty-year-olds instead of one that’s for people my age. Probably that I’m boring.
The boat is filled with people already, crowded onto the deck, dressed in various stages of nothingness. Seriously, there are girls here wearing nothing but bikinis. Why would you come on a cruise wearing a bathing suit? It’s not like we’re going to be swimming.
There’s a DJ pumping electronica on one of the upper decks, and I can feel the beat of the music vibrating through my body. The actual inside, main part of the boat is a little less congested. There’s a buffet table filled with appetizers against one wall and a small bar in the corner, where two female bartenders wearing yellow crop tops and tight denim shorts are mixing up drinks.
“Let’s get virgin daiquiris,” Celia says. “That way guys will think we already have alcohol and they’ll be more willing to buy us some.”
“Since when have you had any problems getting guys to buy you drinks?” I ask. Guys don’t care that she’s underage. They like buying her alcohol—it makes them feel like they’re big and important.
“I don’t,” Celia says, an edge in her voice. I see her eyes flick out to the deck of the boat, and I know she’s sizing up the competition. There are a lot of pretty girls out there, and a lot of good-looking guys. Not the kind of scene she’s used to. I bite back a smile at the fact that she’s kind of worried about it. I know it’s not that nice, but I kind of like seeing Celia insecure.
I order my daiquiri first, and sip it as I wait for Celia and Paige to get theirs.
And that’s when I see him.
Abram.
He’s out on the deck, sitting on the long bench that wraps around the perimeter of the boat, his face obscured by a guy in a khaki shorts who’s standing in front of him. In fact, it’s so obscured that at first I’m not sure if it’s even him. But then the guy in khaki shifts just a little bit, and I get a perfect view.
Abram.
It’s definitely him. I watch, my stomach turning inside out, as a girl wearing a strapless maxi-dress sits down next to him and starts to flirt. I look away before I can see if he smiles back at her. I feel like a dagger has been pushed into my heart.
What is he doing here? He’s supposed to be with me, taking me out to dinner, walking on the beach with me. And instead he’s on this party cruise, talking to some girl. A day after he had sex with me! Wow. Just wow.
“This tastes good without alcohol,” Paige says, sipping her daiquiri.
Celia rolls her eyes, like she can’t believe how stupid Paige is for thinking that.
But I’m barely even listening. The guy in the khakis has moved back in front of Abram and the girl, and it’s making me anxious. Suddenly, I want to see what’s going on.
“I’ll be right back,” I say to Paige and Celia before I can stop myself. They don’t answer, mostly because I’m pretty sure they don’t hear me. Instead, they’ve started talking to some guys at the bar—Celia’s giggling and patting at her extensions.
I turn and start making my way through the crowd. I just want to get a better look at him, to see what he’s doing, but there are so many people that it’s almost impossible to move. When I’m finally able to get a clear view of where he was sitting, he’s gone. The girl in the maxi-dress is also nowhere to be found—instead, there are a couple of girls in white bikinis sitting there, taking selfies.
I wonder if Abram went somewhere wi
th that girl, if they’re making out in a dark corner, if he’s going to bring her home tonight and take her out to breakfast tomorrow. I know I was thinking that could be a possibility when I stood him up, that I even used those thoughts to make myself feel better, but now, being faced with him flirting with another girl right in front of me, it’s too much to bear.
I need to get off this boat.
I start pushing through bodies, not even bothering to say excuse me or find the best route. I just plow through, stepping on feet, shoving at hips and arms, until finally, I’m almost at the exit. But just when it’s in sight, the girl working the door puts one of those hook ropes across the dock, blocking it. A second later, the boat starts to move away from the shore.
“Wait,” I say. “Please, wait, I need to get off the boat.” But no one can hear me, because at that moment, a huge cheer goes up from the crowd. The music rises in volume, and the ship starts to move faster.
I lean over the railing, taking deep breaths, in and out, in and out, until finally, my heart rate starts to slow.
Okay, I tell myself, this is not the end of the world. I can certainly survive a few hours on a boat with Abram. Three hours. That’s all it is. Three hours until I can go back to the hotel and never have to see him again. I can certainly get through three hours. And if I can’t, well, then I really had no business sleeping with him in the first place. If you’re mature enough to have sex, you should be mature enough to handle the consequences of that sex, i.e., seeing the guy you had sex with flirting with someone else.
And honestly, how hard is it going to be to avoid him? There are a ton of people here. I’ll just hang out in a corner somewhere and make sure I don’t run into him. Maybe I’ll even tell Celia and Paige what’s going on. They’d love to get all self-righteous and protect me from Abram. Especially Celia. One time at Hattie Gardner’s sweet sixteen, Celia spent the whole time bringing hors d’oeuvres over to Paige’s table after Cody Carlisle invited Paige to be his date and then showed up with Regan Lewis. You know Celia thought it was a big deal if she was actually waiting on someone.
Feeling better, I decide to go back to the bar and find my friends.
But as soon as I turn around, there he is.
Again.
Abram.
Standing in front of me, his hands in his pockets, looking at me with that intense gaze of his, the same one he was giving me last night when we were together.
I freeze.
And then, after a long moment, he starts walking toward me.
“I’m glad to see you’re okay,” he says, pretending to look me up and down. “No bruises, no bumps, no illnesses.”
“What?” I ask, confused. I’m thrown by his presence, by his closeness, and I’m having a hard time focusing on what he’s saying.
“Just glad you’re okay,” Abram repeats, shrugging. “When you didn’t show up at the restaurant I thought, you know, Quinn must have had an emergency, she’s not the type of girl to just stand me up. And it’s not like she could have called me, because she doesn’t have my number.” He pauses, waiting for me to say something, but I don’t. “Of course, then I remembered I gave my number to your friend, and so if you had really wanted to get in touch with me, you could have.”
“Abram . . . ,” I start.
“No, it’s okay.” He shakes his head. “I get it. You were just using me.”
“Using you?” I repeat, shocked. “No, I wasn’t!”
“Please, Quinn,” he says. “You came out last night looking for trouble. You thought you’d have a night of fun, sleep with a local boy, and then head back home and not have to worry about any of the fallout, right?”
“No.” I shake my head. “That’s not how it was at all.”
“Then how was it?”
“It was . . .” I think about it. Is he right? Was I just using him? I’d gone out to that club on a mission—I wanted to have an adventure, to do something out of my comfort zone. And I zeroed in on him and made him part of that plan without even consulting him. I never stopped to think that maybe he wouldn’t be too excited to just have sex with me and then never talk to me again. I thought he wouldn’t care. But why? Because he’s a guy? Because it seemed like that kind of thing happened to him all the time?
“Wait a minute,” I say now. “What are you doing here?”
“I waited for you for a half hour,” he says, and shrugs. “And then one of my friends invited me to go on the cruise, so I decided to come.”
“And what about the girl in the hot-pink dress?” I ask, desperate to somehow turn this back around on him.
“What girl?” he asks, confused.
“The girl I just saw you flirting with! Did she invite you here, too?”
“I wasn’t flirting with anyone,” he says. “That girl sat down next to me, and then I saw you, and I came to find you and figure out why you stood me up.” Even though he doesn’t come right out and ask, I can tell he’s waiting for some kind of explanation. He’s hoping something really did come up, that I didn’t just blow him off to go on some party cruise with my friends—friends he knows I don’t even like that much.
“Abram . . . ,” I start. “It’s just . . . it’s complicated.” My eyes fill with tears again, and I don’t trust myself to say anything more.
He takes a step closer to me, his arms encircling my waist and pulling me toward him. “It’s okay,” he says. “Whatever it is, Quinn, it’s okay. You can tell me, we can figure it out.”
I lean my head against his chest, feeling his arms around me, remembering what it felt like last night, lying close to him, waking up with him this morning, how gentle he was with me, how amazing it felt being with him. But then the other part of my brain reminds me that I don’t even know him, that I let him get so in my head that I had a fight with Celia and Paige, that I almost lost my chance at an internship. My internship! The interview is tomorrow. And then what? I’m going to be going back home the next morning, and he’s still going to be here.
It just . . . it isn’t going to work out. He made me lose my focus. And I can’t let that happen again.
But he didn’t make you lose your focus. He made you feel free.
“I can’t,” I say. “I’m sorry, I just can’t.”
Abram pulls away and looks at me, studying my face for a long moment.
Fight for me. Convince me, and I’ll change my mind.
But he doesn’t. Instead, he takes his arms from around my waist and kisses me softly on the lips. Then he turns and disappears into the crowd, leaving me there to burst into tears.
Crying and being brokenhearted on a party cruise while your friends get drunk and dance with boys is definitely not my idea of a good time. In fact, it’s kind of my idea of the worst time ever.
So I do the only thing I can do—I head for the bathroom and lock myself in a stall. There’s a line of people waiting and a constant stream of girls coming in and out, but I don’t care. There are enough stalls and enough turnover that I’m pretty sure I can stay in here for a while before anyone says anything.
At least, that’s what I thought.
Until there’s a quiet little knock on the door.
“Someone’s in here,” I snap. Don’t they know that you’re supposed to check for feet?
“Quinn?” a familiar voice asks.
I don’t say anything.
“Quinn, it’s Aven,” the voice says. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I reply firmly.
“Okay.”
I can see her feet—she’s wearing gladiator sandals, and her toes are painted a pretty peach color. They stay planted in place even though I just told her I was fine.
A second later, she tries again. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” I say, realizing she’s not going to give up without some kind of explanation. “I’m just a little seasick.”
“Quinn,” she says, sighing, “I saw you crying.”
“I’m not crying!” Lie.
&nb
sp; “You were when you came in here,” she says, sounding confident. “I saw you.”
“No, you didn’t, because I wasn’t crying.” Lie, lie, lie. I have that weird feeling you get when you cry where your head is all heavy and your nose is all stuffed up. I give a sniff, because I can’t help it.
“You’re still crying!” Aven says. She starts pounding on the door. “I heard you sniff! Let me in!”
“No!” I say. “I’m going to the bathroom.”
Her feet move away from the stall, and I let out a sigh of relief. But then her face appears underneath the door, peering up at me. “You are not going to the bathroom,” she says. “And you don’t seem seasick.”
“Oh, for the love of god,” I say, reaching out and unlocking the door.
Aven comes shuffling in.
If she thinks we’re going to have some big bonding moment in here, she’s definitely mistaken. “If you think we’re going to have some big bonding moment in here, then I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not in the mood.”
She ignores my comment and looks at me. “Oh, Quinn,” she says softly. She reaches over and grabs some toilet paper off the roll and hands it to me. “Blow your nose,” she commands.
I do as I’m told, not because I want to, but because I kind of just want her to go away. Hopefully if I do what she says and I can convince her I’m okay, she’ll leave me alone.
“Here,” she says, reaching into her bag and pulling out one of those mini cans of Sprite. She pops the top and hands it to me. “Drink.”
“I’m not drinking in a bathroom stall.”
Aven rolls her eyes. “Knock it off, Quinn, it’s not contaminated.”
Something about her insistence and the way she’s holding the soda out to me is actually kind of comforting, so I do what she says and have a drink. The soda is warm, and yet somehow still refreshing.
“Thanks,” I say.
“Feel better?”
“Actually, I kind of do.”
Aven nods in satisfaction, like she knew all it would take was some warm Sprite. She reaches for the can and takes a sip.