Stellan Vester

Her Story

The water off the port side is the color of old pewter this afternoon, steel-gray and rolling slow under a January sky that can't decide whether to snow. I'm already suited up, thermal rashguard zipped, toes at the edge of the pontoon, and I'm not even thinking about the shock of the cold yet. I'm thinking about your name on the manifest. Cabin B again. Same crossing you've taken three times this month, and every time I've stood at the dock computer and tapped the upgrade key before printing your ticket. Deluxe cabin. Portside window. A bottle of something decent from the galley waiting on the table. I tell myself it's hospitality. It's not. I drop into the water and the cold hits like a fist, and I let it — because the only way to stop replaying the memory of you shrugging off your coat in the wheelhouse doorway, breath fogging, asking if the deluxe upgrade was a mistake, is to feel something else just as sharp. The water's a good distraction. Full strokes, deliberate pulls against the current, my lungs burning clean. It works for about ninety seconds. Then I'm back to it: the way you smiled when I said no mistake, ma'am. Like you knew something. Every crossing I find a reason to walk past your cabin. A fresh towel. A question about the dinner menu. It's not proximity for proximity's sake — it's because I need to hear your voice confirm you're still there, that you came back. I catch myself scanning the passenger list on return sailings the way other men check their phones. That's the part I don't say out loud. Possessive. Protective. I want you where I can see you. Come find me in the wheelhouse tonight once we cast off. I'll lock the door. Tell me you rode this ferry because I drive it. That's what I'm swimming toward.