Page 16 of Ship Happens

“Yeah, where Kevin got sunstroke and every meal we ate was from the Taco Bell Cantina,” Ravi reminds her.

“Do you think the cruise ship will supply Baja Blast? Or do I have to bring my own?” Kevin asks.

“Anyway.” Abigail breezes past her brother. “We really wanted to do something special, celebrate this moment with most of you.” She shoots a quick look at Ravi and Hailey.

“You’ll understand soon enough,” Hailey reminds her. “Say goodbye to your social life.”

Kaitlyn continues, “We just thought it’d be a fun time. And we wanted to share this sort of last hurrah with everyone.”

“‘Last hurrah’ sounds like we’re dying,” Jacob says.

“Well, no. But Hailey and Ravi are busy with Pari, and I’m going to be working as much as I can before maternity leave. So will Abby. Kev’s got school and Jacob’s overseas. And Owen’s got the shop.” Owen hates how he feels like the afterthought. “We just thought it’d be nice, and we’ve never all traveled anywhere before.”

For a beat, Owen’s eyes meet Jacob’s. Owen looks away first.

It’s fine.

Cruise ships are big, and there are plenty of things on board that’ll keep Owen occupied. Sure, Owen might have to see Jacob in the morning and at night as they’re winding down, but there’s no reason to think that he’ll be expected to spend any more time than necessary with his ex. He should probably be more concerned with being away from home for that long. A whole week.

“Shouldn’t you guys be saving money?” Owen starts to ask. “We can’t ask to go on this trip, it’s not— Ow!” Owen winces from where Kevin smacks his arm.

“You’re seriously going to have them refund our free cruise?” Kevin hisses, his whispering doing nothing to mask his words.

“It’s a lot of money!” Owen adds defensively.

“Money we planned to spend on you all for months, and have budgeted accordingly,” Abigail promises. “Listen, I’m not going to hear another word about the price or how we shouldn’t do this trip. We want to take a nice family vacation. So you’re all going to be fine with it and that’s that!”

Thankfully, that is the end of that. The night comes to an end shortly after, as dishes are gathered and everyone sits down to watch some awful Lifetime movie about a stalker surgeon. And Owen does his best to convince himself that everything will be okay.

Because it has to be.

Because he needs to be.

Chapter Four

Something Wrong? Call Anh Phoong!

Hours later, once the leftovers have been packed away, Ravi and Hailey say their goodbyes first since they still have to get home to set up Christmas for Pari in the morning. Kevin doesn’t last much longer, heading over to a friend’s house with the promise that they’ll see one another bright and early on cruise day.

Just like that, it’s the four of them again.

There’s an awkward beat where Owen is brushing his teeth, and Jacob stumbles into the bathroom. He murmurs a soft “Sorry” before ducking back down the hallway and awkwardly busying himself on the couch. Kaitlyn and Abigail say their good nights, and Owen slips into the guest room and under the sheets.

And he doesn’t sleep a wink.

There, in the darkness—surrounded by moving boxes full of constant reminders that the relationship didn’t work out—Owen sits with his iPad, face lit by the blue glow of the screen, scrolling through the listings that Ravi forwarded to him before switching over to Zillow and Craigslist to look at apartments for himself.

Might as well start searching for a new place to live now. In a few months, Kaitlyn and Abigail will want to start painting and decorating for the baby, and he won’t want to get in the way.

It’s for the best. He’d never imagined that sleeping on the pull-out couch in Kaitlyn and Abigail’s guest room would last a year. It was supposed to just be a temporary solution after the breakup; he’d always meant to move out, have his own place again. But he can’t lie and say moving now doesn’t throw a wrench in his plans.

Owen would never let either of his friends get away with giving him the space for free, but he’s certainly been paying a reduced rent. Staring at the prices of some of these places, even the ones with roommates, Owen feels his stomach sinking. And when that gets too depressing, he switches back to looking at studio spaces. Maybe he could just lie, rent a commercial space and sleep there on a couch. He’ll want a kitchenette in the studio anyway, and he’s taken sink showers before.

Then, when even that gets to be too much, Owen turns off the iPad screen.

Every voice in his brain that wants him to be happy for his friends is quieter than the voices that tell Owen he’s being left in the dust, that his friends are moving on with their lives, actually becoming adults.

No matter how often Owen tells himself that none of that’s true, that his friends do like having him around, that they appreciate him, he can’t quiet that ache in his heart that tells him he’s not good enough to stick around for. Never has been.