Chapter Nine
Finally an Adult
By a sudden burst of creativity, I did this entire chapter in a night! Shocking, I know, considering it usually takes me two weeks to write a chapter, hah.
Happy reading! Gingerbread with yummy frosting to all reviewers. :D
It wasn't until night when I had awoke. Even then, when I had slept for more than twelve hours, I still felt exhausted, and didn't have the energy to get up – only because I felt that I couldn't face Will.
By the rocking of the ship, I remembered that we were on our way to France. We were finally out of Port Royal, but we were going to a country to a country where neither of us spoke the language and, to make matter worse, we were going to be on rocky grounds.
I had a horrible feeling that Will had figured out something. It would have been impossible, but I was paranoid. Today, I had made no sense, and I knew that I seemed crazy to him. Hell, I was sure that I had lost my mind for a few hours.
Did Will think that I had been tortured, hence the reason for my mania? I didn't know whether I wanted him to believe that. True, it was a scapegoat, but a horrible one.
I propped my head up from my pillow and looked at the bed on my left. I saw a head with curly hair and sharp cheekbones that could only belong to Will. It had literally hurt me to see him, even when he was sleeping. Simply imagining all the pain that I would – or had – caused him made my heart ache.
I crawled under the covers, since I had fallen asleep just by landing on my bed. I went onto my other side, facing my right side, seeing a sleeping woman with hair as curly as Will's.
I closed my eyes and felt the ship rock me to sleep. The throbbing inside my chest matched with the rocking of the ship. Throb... throb... throb...
I woke up the next morning, just as the sun was breaking on the horizon. I had been asleep for more than twenty-four hours, but still couldn't bring myself to get out of bed. I wasn't tired, per se – I simply felt depressed. I didn't want to do anything except stay I bed, curled up, and torturing myself by reliving what I had done.
I hadn't switched positions in my sleep. I was still facing the woman with curly hair, which only now I could see was brown, just like Will's.
Frustrated, I got out of bed. It was the only way I ever could leave it. I wanted to walk around the ship by myself. All I wanted was to be alone and converse with no one. Small talk with a crew members would make me scream.
I heard a man whisper "Christine" from my left, and knew that it could be only one person – he had brown, curly hair, too, damn him.
I turned to look at a tired Will. My heart ached by looking at him. I thought about walking away from him, just to end my misery, but I felt like I had to keep eye contact with him.
"What are you doing up so early?" he whispered.
What the hell? I blinked at him, utterly confused. Did he not know how long I had slept?
"I've been asleep since we boarded the ship yesterday," I said.
At that, Will got out of the bed. I knew he wasn't fully rested, but he was going to keep me company, anyway. A lump gathered in my throat, even though I wanted to be alone more than anything.
"Are you going on deck?" he asked.
I swallowed. "Yeah, just to get some fresh air."
He walked towards me. "Let me come with you."
Together, we walked up on deck. We were the only ones on deck, save for a few crew members. It had a vast deck, and, in my opinion, it was a well-kept ship.
We walked together in silence. I sensed something between us. Will was thinking of something, and it made me uneasy. Automatically, I thought of the worst, and prayed that I was wrong.
We stopped at a railing, and I leaned against it, looking at the dark waters by the ship, and seeing the water get more light towards the horizon, and then, a bulb of yellow and a sky of pink and blue. Were my mind not so preoccupied with things, I could enjoy it's beauty.
I sighed and kept my eyes on the water, not being able to bring myself to look at Will.
"What have we gotten ourselves into?" I asked him.
There was a silence. I could hear his thoughts: What have we gotten ourselves into?
"We're going to a country where we don't speak the language, we -- I – made an impulsive move by going to France..." I suppressed a sigh. "You know, you could have told me to wait until tomorrow, when a voyage to England came. We could have spent a night at an inn, like you suggested."
Why hadn't I let Will talk me into it? It seemed like such a good idea now.
"Why didn't you insist on it?" I asked him.
I still didn't look at him, but I imagined him shrugging his shoulders. "You seemed quite set on it, and I didn't want to try and tell you otherwise."
"It wouldn't have killed you to try and be more forceful," I said.
"I think it would have."
It took me a few moments for me to realize that it was a joke, and even then I laughed with with some shame. I probably would have killed Will if he had tried to insist that we stay another day. I wanted out of Port Royal.
I sobered quickly when I, again, thought about the matter at hand. Worry filled me, and I couldn't help but sigh again.
"What are we going to do?" I asked. "We're practically broke, we're going to France, and --"
I stopped myself, realizing what I had almost said: And I'm pretty sure we're on shaky grounds.
"We're going to do it," Will said.
He took my hand, and, without realizing it, I looked into his eyes.
"I swear everything will be alright," he said softly, looking me in the eye. His gaze was passionate, and, for a moment, I almost believed him.
"It's going to work out. It may not eventually. It's going to take some time to get used to living together in France. But I promise you this, Christine: everything will be alright."
I gave a dejected smile. I broke his gaze and looked out to the sea. Would everything turn out as well as he promised? Living together (good God, he had talked about marriage two days after I had slept with someone else) in France wasn't going to be easy, I wasn't a starry-eyed romantic.
Will put his hand on my cheek, turning my face towards his. He kissed me and, sadly, I wondered if this was the last kiss we would have together.
My worries seemed to only build. It seemed overwhelming to be going somewhere foreign and living with a man I had lied to. Living without him seemed harder than living a lie. I had no idea what to do, and it would only become a mess.
Will seemed to not suspect anything more. If he did, he said nothing. I wondered if I would be able to not mention what happened in Port Royal.
We had spent four days on the ship, which I learned was named the Immortel, French for immortal. It wasn't until that evening, when I had done the math, that I realized that I was finally eighteen-years-old. I was an adult, and I felt no different.
I thought of my parents and my older sister, Irene. How much had they thought of me, their presumably deceased daughter, today?
I would have loved to be spending my eighteenth birthday with them, but, instead, I was with Will, waiting for disaster to strike.
We were on deck the evening of my birthday, with only a few other people. They were walking around, while we were at the railing of the ship, talking.
"You're finally an adult," Will said. "How does it feel?"
I shrugged. "No different than when I was seventeen."
He smiled. "I remember that feeling. You expect some sort of drastic change, and you want one... but there isn't one."
I nodded. Silence filled an invisible gap between us, and remained that way for several minutes.
"It's also our forth day on the ship," Will said, trying to make conversation.
I nodded. So many more torturous days on the ship...
"Yeah," I replied.
More silence filled us. It was awkward, and I wanted to know if Will was thinking anything out of the ordinary.
"May I ask you something, Christine?" he asked.
I knew it.
"Of course," I said, trying to remain nonchalant.
"It's about the moring we were released," he said hesitantly. "Do you still want me to ask? Because I would fully respect you if you said no."
He was going to ask what happened to me that evening, why I hadn't returned. I felt eerily calm, yet my stomach tingled with nausea, and my heart pounded. Besides what was happening physically, I felt ready to finally tell him. Maybe it was because I was finally an adult.
"Ask me," I said.
He looked like he was preparing himself to ask me it, and I thought he was going to back out, but he didn't. He was ten times more nervous than I was.
"I want to know what happened to you that night," he said. "You haven't been yourself, and I'm terrified as to what happened to you. That look on your face when you returned the next morning... you looked so scared, shaken, pale..."
The truth was finally coming out. I was almost relieved that this was going to come out. I was sick of keeping it from him. He needed to know.
"The day that we were both arrested, I went into questioning," I began. "I was accused of treason by Mrs. Ashford, and an accessory-after-the-fact to your crime of piracy. Lord Beckett was questioning me, and when the treason charge came up..."
I was dancing around the topic. Suddenly, my mouth felt dry, and I didn't know whether I could tell him or not. This would break him. I wasn't ready to break a man.
"In exchange for my innocence and your's, he said that I would have to sleep with him."
Will only blinked, the raw fact not registering with him yet.
"And I agreed," I continued. "As you remember, a guard came to get me later in the day for my questioning." I paused. "It wasn't for questioning."
My heart pounded in my chest. I wanted so badly for Will to see my side of the story right away, but I knew that wasn't the case.
"You slept with Lord Beckett," Will said, stunned, his eyes looking blankly out at the sea. "The man who wanted us dead, our sworn enemy, the reason that we left Port Royal in the first place."
What was I supposed to say now? Whoops, sorry, guess I should have killed the bastard instead?
"I was terrified to tell you because I didn't want to hurt you," I said. "Don't think for one second I'm sorry about doing it. Sex is not a big deal. It saved our lives. The only thing I'm sorry about is you finally finding out."
I wondered if that was too harsh for the moment. I didn't care. Will, silent and stunned, slowly walked away from me, towards the bow of the ship. I caught up to him, but didn't say anything.
"You slept with him," was all he said.
"Because I didn't want the feeling of my skin and organs burning being my last memory, nor did I want you being strangled by a rope to be your final one!" I said. "It's not as if I cheated on you and did it for shits and giggles, Will! I did it because --"
Unexpectedly, a lump caught in my throat, and my vision became blurry. Good God, I was going to cry in front of him over this!
"I really... really care about you. You were not in the deal at first. I begged him to include you!"
Will said nothing and continued to walk forward only. I knew it without him saying anything: we were over.
"Will --"
"If it's alright, I would like to be alone, Christine," he said apathetically.
I blinked, dejected. I expected it, but I could never have imagined how heartbreaking it actually was to hear him say that.
I nodded. "Fine."
I turned around and went below decks, to the cots. I said it all in five seconds' time, and that was how long it took for us to be over.
I had never had my heart break over a guy. It felt like something was pressing against my heart, something heavy and hard, and I suddenly felt more alone than I could ever have imagined.
I figured that this was love. This gut-wrenching pain you when the only person you smile over now denied you, the yearning to do anything to have them back, and the physical pain when you try to picture a future without them.
I had finally experienced heartbreak, betrayed the only person in my life, and realized that I might have been in love. If that wasn't turning into an adult, I didn't know what was.
