Page 18 of Everything You Hate
The boat drops. My stomach goes with it.
“…burned down in 1938. The Merrick family claimed a Haven burned it down, but…”
I lose the rest. There’s a roaring in my ears that has nothing to do with the engine, and his words come to me in pieces— something about shoddy wiring and an electrification act, another year I don’t catch— while the other passengers lean in with their phones raised like he’s telling a ghost story instead of reciting local history.
He sounds like he loves this. He’s warm. Approachable. Knowledgeable. Completely unfazed by the boat’s movement. A man born on water.
He hasn’t looked at me once.
My knuckles are white on the rail. The cold sweat has migrated from my hairline to the back of my neck, tracing icy fingers down my spine beneath my blazer. The salt spray stingsmy eyes every time I lift my head, which is less and less often because lifting my head makes the horizon do that thing again, that tilting, sliding thing that turns my stomach inside out.
A woman in a yellow rain jacket offers me a sympathetic smile. “First time on the water?”
“I’m from Los Angeles,” I say, which is not an answer but feels like one.
She pats my arm. “Try looking at the horizon. Fixed point.”
I try. The horizon bobs and weaves like it’s drunk. My fixed point is currently doing the cha-cha.
Dean’s voice continues, unhurried, painting pictures of the coastline. He points out an eagle’s nest in a dead snag. He tells a story about a sea lion that used to beg for fish from tourists until the Department of Fish and Wildlife made people stop feeding it. The passengers laugh. I grip the rail and breathe through my nose.
The worst swell hits without warning. The boat drops hard, rises harder, and my stomach slams against my diaphragm. For one horrifying second, I think I’m going to lose it right here at the stern rail, in front of six strangers and one infuriatingly competent ferry captain.
I close my eyes. Breathe. Count backward from ten.
When I open them, Dean is still talking. Still hasn’t looked at me. Still hasn’t told me to sit down below where it’s stable, where people who can’t handle a little chop belong.
And something in me snaps.
I am not giving Dean Kinsella the satisfaction. I am not the woman in the viral clip, losing it over nothing. I am a professional journalist who has survived worse than a boat ride, and I will be damned if I let this man watch me fail at something this basic.
I straighten up. My legs feel like overcooked pasta, but I lock my knees and make them work. I open my notebook to afresh page. My handwriting is terrible—shaking, slanted, barely legible—but I don’t care. I write the date. I write “Haven Tour - Dean Kinsella” and underline it twice with a line that wobbles like a seismograph during an earthquake.
Then I join the group at the rail. Not gripping it. Just standing there, notebook open, pen ready, like I’ve been fine this whole time.
Dean is describing the tidal currents around No Name Island when it happens. He doesn’t break stride. Doesn’t slow down. Doesn’t even look my way. But his hand reaches into a compartment beside the wheel, pulls out a sealed bottle of water and a small, foil-wrapped packet, and he sets both on the bench directly beside where I’m standing.
Then he walks away, back to the console, still talking about rip currents.
I stare at the ginger chew. The foil crinkles when I pick it up. I unwrap it slowly, pop it into my mouth, and the sharp, clean burn of ginger cuts through the nausea.
I don’t say thank you. He didn’t actually offer it to me. He set it down like he was leaving it for the next passenger, or for no one at all.
The water is cold. I drink half the bottle in one go, and my stomach settles another fraction.
Dean is pointing out something on the starboard side now, his back to me, his voice carrying that same easy warmth. For everyone else.
Not for me.
I take another sip of water and press the cool bottle against my forehead. The ginger works its magic, and the horizon, mercifully, stops dancing.
My stomach settles into something approximating normal function, and I spend the next twenty minutes watching Dean Kinsella do his job.
It’s infuriating how good he is at it.
A little girl in a pink raincoat tugs at his sleeve and asks why the water is green near the shore and blue farther out. Dean crouches down to her eye level, his knees popping audibly, and explains phytoplankton and light refraction in terms a seven-year-old can understand. He doesn’t condescend. He doesn’t rush. He just talks to her like she’s an adult.
I wait for a lull in the questions.
