Chapter Seven

Rejection

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The next morning, Mrs. Ashford said nothing to me about me storming out the day before. For once, I was grateful for her bitterness. I didn't feel like talking to her anymore than I ever did.

In fact, as the days went by, Mrs. Ashford hardly talked with me. She would tell me what I needed to do in the kitchen, but, outside of work, we never spoke. I thought that my prayers had been answered.

Or had I taken fate into my own hands? If I could make Mrs. Ashford ignore me, anything was possible.

Naively, I wondered if it was possible to return home. It had been nearly two weeks since I came to Port Royal. My family would be back in Brooklyn now, and I was sure Adam was in jail,waiting a trial for something that I did.

I tried not to think of Adam, but when I did, it felt like the weight of the world was on my back. I felt so guilty at the thought of him sitting in a jail cell for a stupid, drunken decision I made. I couldn't help but wonder how long he would be in jail for me.

The only time that I thought about that was in the bakery. It distracted me from the hell that was Mrs. Ashford's Bakery – the heat, Mrs. Ashford in my ear, the customers...

Ironically, only one daily customer could divert me from those thoughts.

Seeing Will began to mae my breath run short and sent butterflies fluttering in my stomach. I hated it. I didn't know why I had developed a crush for him. I had talked to him once and seen him every day for five minutes! Besides, he was hardly my type.

I knew I couldn't develop feelings for him. I was going to find a way to return home. I had to act like the defensive girl I was when I first arrived in Port Royal. It sounded easy enough, but forcing yourself to be someone else around the person that made you get butterflies in your stomach was no easy task.

Each day, I would act like the old Christine. I tried to look bored whenever he came into the bakery, then ask him what he wanted, and casually talk with him at the table by the window while he ate lunch.

It was getting harder each day. I wondered how I had developed this stupid crush for Will Turner – he was everything I wasn't. He was polite, caring, and a complete gentleman in every sense of the word.

This was no longer Mrs. Ashford's cause of why I needed to get out of Port Royal: this was Will's.


In my eleventh night in Port Royal, I lay awake in my bed, only the thinnest sheet of my bedding on me. Sweat gathered on my forehead. I was exhausted in every sense of the word, but I had to stay awake. I need to get out of Port Royal tonight.

I heard Mrs. Ashford's tired footsteps going toward the back of the bakery, past the parlor. She was getting ready for bed. I had twenty minutes before she fell asleep.

I had been thinking for two weeks of how to get back to Kingston, and the answer was simple. I had to put my red dress on, along with my heels and clutch, and go in the water. I figured that reversing the order of how I came here made as much sense as anything.

I wanted to get up and dress, but I knew Mrs. Ashford was still awake. My heart thudded in my chest out of excitement and anxiety. What if this didn't work? What if this couldn't be reversed, and I couldn't go back to my family?

It's going to work! I made myself think. If you think it, it'll happen!

I wanted it to work. I imagined it working, this being the last time I was above Mrs. Ashford's Bakery.

After the twenty minutes was up, I tiptoed to the dresser, pulled out my dress, and changed out of my nightgown. I left the nightgown on the bed, a final "catch me if you can" sort of game. With smug satisfaction, I pictured her seeing that in the morning, speechless and puzzled.

Again, that was my imaginative side thinking that. I knew that she couldn't care less if I left. Even if she was still awake, she probably wouldn't try to stop me.

My red sling back shoes dangled from my fingers, and clutch was gripped in my hand. I left the room for the final time. I felt a sense of pride and liberation as I looked at it one last time. I hated this room.

I closed the door and tiptoed down the stairs, went through the parlor, bakery, then out the front door, closing the front door as quietly as I could.

Once I was out of the bakery, though, I felt giddy. I was out! Even as I looked at Brown's Blacksmith, my smile couldn't be wiped off. I was doing this partly because of him. If I was going to try and go back to modern-day Kingston, I had to do it before he found out my feelings for him.

I smiled and started running barefoot down the street to the beach. I was smiling and laughing as I ran past the shops. I hadn't felt this happy or free since I arrived here. I was running – happily, smiling! -- in my dress that defied every moral in this town.

I reached the beach quicker than expected. It was different in the dark. I had seen it once in the daytime, and that was a passing glance on the day I stormed out of Mrs. Ashford's Bakery. I hadn't thought that this would be the place that I left Port Royal until tonight.

The water lapped against the sand, seeping into it. The ocean seemed dark and endless, as I looked onto the horizon. I realized I couldn't find one. The water and sky were, as always, the same color; now ebony, instead of topaz.

I dropped my shoes onto the sand and put them on. Wet grains of sand made it's way into my shoes and between my toes.

I took a deep breath in. Even in my confidence with my plan, there were so many things going through my head: How would I explain my two week disappearance to my parents? What would I say to Adam?

What if this didn't work?

I swallowed, tightening my grip on my clutch as I walked down the sands of the beach and taking my first few steps into the water.

What did I have to do now? I was ankle deep in the water. Did I just think of home? Did I need to say "There's no place like home!" over and over, clicking my heels together? Did I just have to be in the water?

I walked in a few more steps until I was knee-deep. Nothing yet.

I began to panic. Why wasn't this working?!

I felt like an idiot, standing in a dress in the ocean, alone. I wondered how much of one I looked.

"What are you doing?"

I knew that voice behind me. I didn't dare turn around to face it. I felt stupid enough. It was hopeless. I was going to be stuck in 1754 for the rest of my life.

It was the most awful feeling that I could ever imagine, being literally doomed to your worst nightmare.

"Miss Werden, that is you, isn't it?" the voice repeated.

I closed my eyes. I wanted to disappear. This was the stupidest idea I ever had.

Why did I listen to myself?

"Yep," I said, my back to Will Turner. "It's me."

"May I ask what you're doing?" Will asked.

Now came my idiotic answer.

"I'm standing in the water," I replied, feeling stupid even as I said it.

"You're standing in the water?" he asked.

"I'm standing in the water," I confirmed.

There was a pause. I was so embarrassed, that I was sure I was turning as red as my dress.

"May I ask why you're standing in the water?" he asked.

He probably thought I was insane.

"I... thought it would be a good idea," I replied, cringing as I said it.

"Would... would you like to go back home?" he asked gently, as if he was seriously questioning my mental stability.

I would love to, I thought, knowing full well that our definitions of home were completely different.

My plan was ruined. I was stuck here – and, of course, I had to be embarrassed.

I turned around and trudged out of the water in my heels. I looked down, not daring to meet his eyes. Once on the beach, I took my shoes off, hooking them around two of my fingers.

"You probably think I'm crazy," I said, making my way back to the bakery with Will.

"I think there's something very peculiar about yourself," he admitted.

"Like I said, you probably think I'm crazy."

"Not necessarily," he said. "Just... unique."

Unique?

"I go around in a knee-length dress, standing in the ocean in the middle of the night, and you think it's unique?" I asked.

"That's because it is," he said. "I can't think of many other people that would do that."

I managed to smile. I wondered why I was even smiling now. I had just been embarrassed and realized that I was stuck here.

Maybe I was going crazy.

"Are you following me?" I asked Will.

I looked up at him when I asked that question, just because I was curious to see his reaction. He was flustered. In a weird, sick way, I was satisfied to see that he was.

"No, I'm not following you," Will said.

"I'll just assume it was coincidence, then, that we were at the same beach at the same time in the middle of the night."

He swallowed. I could swear he was turning red.

My heart started pounding in my chest. Seeing him flustered over me made me flustered. I tightened my grip on the clutch.

Well, are you following me? I mentally questioned.

"I live in the second level of Brown's Blacksmith," he began. "I couldn't sleep, I was thinking about things. My bed is by the window. I sat up and I looked out of it, just to distract myself, and saw you."

I couldn't help but wonder if I was what was keeping him up.

"You looked so happy," Will finished.

The high felt so long ago. Will was delaying the rejection I was responsible for.

"And you wanted to see what was making me happy?" I guessed.

"I did," he said. "I dressed, then I followed you."

Honesty was good. At least he hadn't admitted to following me or obsessing over some beauty he thought I retained.

"I wanted to make sure that you weren't running away, either," Will added.

"And you're probably wondering why I decided to go in the water in a dress," I said.

"I'm curious," Will admitted.

I smiled. I decided that was best as a rhetorical statement. I knew he was hiding something with the pirate story he told me, now it was my turn to hide something.

We arrived at Mrs. Ashford's Bakery, both of us standing at the door. This was becoming a habit: me racing out of the bakery, and him finding me at night.

"I'd like this habit to stop," he said. "I don't like having to keep finding you."

"You voluntarily looked for me this time," I teased.

As he smiled, I felt the overwhelming urge to kiss him. I wasn't sure why, either. I could barely see the smile in the dark, but it was damn attractive!

I wasn't sure why I had even fallen for him in the first place. Will was hardly my type. I preferred the edgy, rougher ones, not the pretty-boys who walked the straight and narrow.

Love finds you, I told myself.

"Besides, I sort of like it," I said softly, looking into his eyes.

I wondered if he wanted to kiss me as much as I wanted to kiss him. He was doing a good job at hiding it, if he did want to.

"Mr. Brown might wake up and wonder where I am," Will said. He was obviously being flustered by my flirtations with him. Will placed his hands on my shoulder. "Please, Miss Werden, stay in the bakery, for once."

I looked at where his hands were placed, then back at him. In his eyes, I saw that he probably thought this was wrong thing to do – an "Oh, my God" expression swept over him.

"Fine," I said.

He nodded once, his face still tense. He let go of my shoulders.

"Goodnight, Miss Werden," was all he said before leaving.

I stood outside the bakery for a few moments, watching him go inside. I felt completely rejected. I was still stranded in Port Royal, and the one romantic moment that I had with Will had been ruined by his cowardice.

I hated rejection.