Bad Cruz

“No,” he whispered, his minty breath fanning my three-tiered cake beehive. I squeezed my eyes shut. Maybe if I didn’t look at him, he’d disappear. “Nice Cruz is dead to you, Turner. Jesus. I can’t believe you’re actually so…fucking…stupid!”

Out of all the offensive things people had said about me along the years, I genuinely thought this was the most cutting.

First of all, because it came from Cruz, a man who was notoriously incapable of hurting a fly, even if the darned thing was me, and who’d specifically dedicated his life and work to making people feel better.

Secondly, because this time, I believed him.

I was stupid.

I looked away, trying hard not to cry, aware we were gathering a small and curious audience. My ability to burst into tears at a moment’s notice was legendary and was becoming a huge liability at the age of twenty-nine.

I tried to keep my voice calm. “I suggest we both go to our rooms to regroup and talk about it when you cool down a little.”

“You do?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Look at me now, Tennessee.”

I dragged my gaze up from the floorboards of the deck, using every ounce of courage in me to do so. He held up our boarding passes in front of my face.

“Does something about this look weird to you?”

I blinked. I couldn’t register anything, the adrenaline was so thick in my bloodstream.

Naturally, I felt even stupider.

I could practically hear his thoughts.

She can’t read. Unbelievable. My brother is marrying a woman whose sister is illiterate.

“What’s the matter?” I huffed, frustrated.

“How many rooms do you see here?”

“One.”

“And how many of us are here?”

“Two.”

“Good girl. Now let those numbers sink in.”

I hung my head in shame. How drunk, exactly, was I when I’d booked those tickets?

Very much, by the looks of it.

I could no longer hold back the tears, and I didn’t want him to see me cry, so I pushed at his chest, turned around, and made a run for it, leaving him right there, surrounded by women in bikinis and wet t-shirts and men who catcalled them to get off the stage and give them some sugar.

My feet still burned, but I was too numb to feel the pain anymore as I wandered aimlessly around the ship. Bear tried to call me back, but I stuffed my phone into my pocket after switching it to silent mode.

I couldn’t face my son with hot tears streaming down my cheeks after screwing up yet another simple task. To be honest, I couldn’t even look him in the eye after the mistake I’d made.

Mom, Dad, and Trinity called, too, but I didn’t want to talk to anyone right now.

Instead, I kept hiking round and round in circles.

This helplessness, this smallness of my being, felt like a symptom of something bigger.