(I ACTUALLY POSTED SOMETHING! HOORAY!)
(Ghost Story Island freeform one-shot thing… what am I doing with my time, anyways? I should be writing my fantasy book. I guess this is more of a practice or an exercise if anything… vignettes, whatever they're about, are kind of good to write to help you with subplots and descriptive details and such. This is kind of just a Valiant character study, mainly. It kind of sucks, IMO… Oh well, at least I actually did something for once.)
He really should have seen this coming, should have seen the signs- he was sure, thinking about it, that they must have been everywhere. She must have been dropping him hints left and right, trying to let him know how she felt. If only he'd known.
It made sense in retrospect, he mused dryly to himself as he looked out upon the lovely if somewhat choppy waters of the sea and the thickening dark clouds from his place by the railing at the edge of the ship's deck. He'd worried about this happening before, a million times. Why had he not been more careful? Why hadn't he changed?
When he'd grown up and went to sea, making a living as a deckhand on cargo ships as his father before him had done, there would always be a couple of seamen on every ship who weren't quite as interested in socializing and the excitement of reaching the ship's destination as he. They were the stereotypical gruff cranks that you could find just about everywhere; interested only in sniping at people or hiding from them, always grumbling about something or other. Often he learned which men these were merely by talking to one of them out of spontaneity and being lashed out at, usually with some derisive dig at his age (he was only about sixteen when he'd begun his work) accompanying the snappish words. Valiant hadn't really bore them any ill will, but he had, however, tried to stay out of their way afterwards.
But among the sailors it was common knowledge that when the ships returned to the port and they came home, many of these men had no one to come home to; the ones who did resided with only their bitter, distant wives who, as nearly any onlooker could have guessed, were always knee-deep in affairs when their men were away.
That was the way it had always been- young men, men who ventured to sea and left their loves behind them in the place where they lived, ran the risk of losing them in their agony or impatience, be it one or both, to the comforting allure of a man who was home all the time, rather than away across the ocean. It was a feeling that no one wanted to experience, arriving home and receiving the talk or the note or the telephone call or whatever else their lover would use to tell them of their change of heart.
Somewhere, subconsciously, Valiant had always deeply feared this. He knew himself well; he'd never needed anyone to tell him that he was an adventurer, a voyager at heart, and that to try and trap him in the domestic world with no outlet, to send him to a tame job working at some office and never leaving his town except on occasion, would be like catching a wild bird by its tail and locking it in a cage. So when Fiona came into his life, he had resolved to be careful. He tried his hardest to make her feel loved by him, keep her content with him, make sure that she always knew that his wanderlust was not caused by her. And it had seemed to him that she understood him and his urges, his attachment to the sea, so well. She'd always been so supportive, so reassuring. This bothered him now, pained him to no end. Had he burned her out?
He didn't feel betrayed, not one bit. He felt like the betrayer.
He pulled the locket out of the fold of his jacket. It felt heavy as stone. He undid the clasp slowly, numbly, not with the happy fervor he had opening it earlier in the day when he'd seen the corners of the paper poking out of the locket and expected it to be something good. Unfolding the paper, he cast a searching glance over the writing, reading it again. Nothing had changed. All of the words were the same.
The note had asked him when he read it for the first time to leave Hemlock Harbor. He hadn't needed telling twice. He'd much rather escape than stay and bear the pain of seeing the man she'd chosen instead of him, anyway. Maybe that meant he was a coward. He didn't know. He didn't know much of anything anymore.
He had hoped the sea would help to erase this memory, the way it always helped him when he was troubled. But when his troubles came from the sea, it was of no help whatsoever. Now he was on a ship and the sea that had enraptured him beyond escape, pulled him towards it in the monotone of domesticity when he tried so hard to ignore its calls, was surrounding him on all sides, taunting him. He hadn't loved the sea more than he had loved Fiona. He knew that full well, knew it with such a certainty that now, contemplating it, it hurt. But now here he was, steeped in sorrow and regret and drifting away from his home, away from his love. It had happened, for all his trying, and now there was nothing he could do but obey her wishes and leave.
He glanced down at the note again. Taking it with him had been a grave mistake, for he'd developed a sort of melancholy attachment to it now and read it over every now and then. Perhaps he should have sought out a position on this ship as a deckhand like he usually did, and not as a passenger. He wouldn't have all this time to just mope about and make himself feel worse than he already did. He was flicking a languorous gaze over the note when he noticed something rather odd. The handwriting sat evenly placed on the paper, in line with some invisible margin. He'd received plenty of notes from Fiona before. Didn't she have a sort of negligence for margins, a way of cramming all her words to one side?
He blinked. No, he must be imagining things. He just wanted so much for this to be untrue, to be some kind of joke. He couldn't pretend.
Sighing and putting the cursed thing away, he looked down at the cursed sea instead. Its waters had grown more forceful now, slapping against the side of the boat with wild passion. The wind had picked up, and it had grown darker. He straightened up with alarm. How had he not noticed? It seemed as if the sea had more hatred to give than he'd known.
Troubled, he stepped away from the edge of the rail for fear of being pitched off, knowing that at least if they lost their way the beam from the lighthouse would be a guide. He'd seen worse storms than this, more dangerous routes. But with the same dim suspicion of a gullible man that he'd been left with for these things, he could have sworn that the howling of the wind and the noise of the waves was as sinister as some kind of smug laughter.