Page 69 of Never Forever
Annie: We’re doing okay. No worries.
But I could feel her worry.
I boarded the ferry with a few other people. Some park staff who were checking trails and picking up garbage.
Matt had an intern this summer named Carlos. He checked my ticket and smiled as I said hello. His cheeks flushed. I made him nervous.
“Hey, Carlos, don’t forget the Labor Day party coming up.”
“That’s nice of you to invite me, but I think Matt is planning on going, so I have to drive the ferry.”
“Funny, I don’t think he’s going to make it.”
Matt came out of the cockpit, just as I walked past the door.
We were a breath away from a collision. The thought of accidentally touching him was so upsetting, I over-compensated and tripped backwards. He grabbed me by the elbow. His hot calloused hand burning through the gauze of my shirt down to my skin.
Just that contact was enough to send me some place hot and internal. It was like I was a ship and he was the fog rolling in off the ocean. He just made everything really fucking confusing and hard.
He dropped my arm.
“Carrie,” he said, stepping back.
“Matt,” I said tightly, moving around him, careful not to touch him again.
It was a nearly empty ferry today. The tourist season winding down. I alone stood at the bow of the ferry, my face lifted towardthe afternoon sun, no longer worried about protecting my skin for the cameras.
I stared out at the water and the green blur of the island that slowly came into focus as we made our way out into open water.
“Carrie,” Matt barked at me.
I turned, surprised to see him out of his captain’s chair.
“Look, just give me a straight answer this time, when is this all going to be over?” he asked, his face all stoic and serious.
He was upset. Matt Sullivan’s deeply still waters were turbulent. Somehow it made me feel better after he’d rattled me last night.
“I already told you, the movie is wrapping.”
“And you’re leaving,” he said, like he needed me to say the words. “When are you leaving?”
“Why do you care?” I snapped back.
He stepped closer. Closer again. “Because I can’t…I can’t fucking think. I can’t fucking breathe when you’re around.”
I tried to take a step back, but the railing of the boat was there and so I was trapped. Against the hard expanse of his chest and the bar at my back. It was him or throw myself in the ocean.
“This is what you wanted, right?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper. “You came back here to torture me, didn’t you?”
“Are you tortured, Matt?”
He grunted.
It was hisyesgrunt. It was hisfucking yesgrunt.
In this moment, I expected to feel pure unadulterated triumph. Confessing he wasn’t indifferent to me? That I was pushing his buttons even though I would have told myself that was never my motivation.
This was my victory and it should be delicious.