a moment. Rinsing off the boat, we head back to port.
About ten miles before we make it into the docks, Bear tips his head my direction. “What’s going on with you and the girl?”
“The girl?” I stare ahead, a washed-out state of mind and numb to the word girl. That’s all Journey is. A girl. One I had no business messing around with. And then it dawns on me why he’s questioning it. “What are you doing?”
Bear shrugs, still scrubbing on his shorts. “Two nights in a row. Some would call that seeing someone.”
“Jesus.” I throw my head back and laugh. Bear slides his eyes over my face.
With the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up over his head, a sly grin forms. “Does she know who you are?”
My blood pumps harder to the point where I can feel my pulse in my neck. I’m not surprised he’s figured it out. I’m surprised she hasn’t. “No, and I’d like to keep it that way,” I warn, my eyebrows collapsing into a frown. I just want the conversation to be over with. I swallow over the tightness in my throat and straighten my spine, forcing myself to think of something else. “Mind your own business on this one.”
He sucks air in through his teeth, his attention drifting to Nivio and Din outside the cabin. “I’m not about to say anything, but I don’t see this ending well for you. You’ve had your fun, now move on.”
I roll my eyes and stare out at the ocean. I don’t take advice from Bear, but he’s right; it’s not going to end well.
He regards me again, smacking my calf with his foot. “You’re not bitching out on me, are you?”
He’s referring to us heading back up to Dutch Harbor for the king crab season. Earlier in the year, I told him I was out this year. I didn’t want to do it again. King crab fishing is far more dangerous than tuna fishing. Not only are you out further, but with winter, comes the unpredictable storms that follow. You never know what kind of weather you’re going to be met with, and two, I didn’t want to leave Atlas again. That’s three months I wouldn’t see him. Three months of someone else raising him.
My last words to Athena?
I’ll take care of him.
Funny how even now, I remember the words. How I said them, meant them. Atlas is number one. No matter what, but I also have an obligation to support him, and with the unpredictable fish counts this year, I have to do everything I can to create a cushion for us to live on. All I know how to do is fish.
I nod to Bear. “I’m not.”
He stares at me, chewing on the inside of his bottom lip. Running a hand through his dark hair that falls in his eyes, he leans back against the couch. Same place I had Journey last night. The memory hits my chest like a punch. “You bailing?”
“No. I said I’d do it with you, and I will.”
I wouldn’t bail on him. That’s not me. Unfortunately, not bailing on him means breaking my promise to Athena. How can I keep it if I can’t provide for Atlas?
Seaworthy - The ability to handle rough seas.
“Avie better be here soon,” I mumble to myself, my stomach grumbling. Don’t I look extra pissed staring out the window of Grays Harbor Community Hospital? Uh, that’s because I am. I’ve always been a grumpy hospital guest.
Probably because hospital food is awful. The worst. Which is why every time I’m in this joint, I demand “real” food be delivered to me. Extra of me, huh? You haven’t seen anything yet. I also request reading material, my phone, headphones, and if I’m lucky, a hot chocolate or two by the kind nurses on the pediatric floor who took a liking to a scared thirteen-year-old who’d just lost her parents.
Did you catch the mention of them? I haven’t talked much about my parents. You’re probably wondering what happened to them and why I’m in the hospital again. I’ll start with the easier of the two. Why I’m in the hospital again. That cough and fever resulted in pneumonia. Sadly, this is nothing new for me. I’ve had pneumonia five times in my life, six now.
My parents? Fishing accident. They were out on a charter a friend of theirs ran that never returned. They and the twelve others on the boat drowned when the boat capsized not far