Lifeboat Lighthouse

Chapter 12

Cruise day 11 - Heraklion - Crete, Greece

Over the next few days it became apparent that finding a way to secretly meet up with Freen was more difficult than we'd both expected. Between her working hours and my overbearing parents, it seemed practically impossible.

As much as I wanted to try and enjoy myself regardless, as we explored our first stop in Greece all I could think about was how amazing it would be to experience these places with Freen. All it took was seeing a couple holding hands, or even something cool that I knew she would get overexcited to take a photo of, and my mind was once again totally consumed by her. She was like a drug to me and I constantly craved the buzz I felt whenever I was around her. I was addicted to the way she could paralyze parts of my brain whilst simultaneously intensifing all of my senses, allowing me to feel everything yet nothing at the same time. I felt like nothing could hurt me when I was with her; nothing could bring me down from the high.

By the time I was back on the ship that evening, it was almost 48 hours since we'd last been together and I was definitely having Freen withdrawal symptoms. Although I'd never actually experienced real drugs, I assumed this was the comedown.

As soon as I entered the dining hall for dinner that evening, I scanned the room and spotted Freen almost immediately. I don't know if this made things better or worse. The saying 'so close, yet so far' suddenly made a whole lot of sense to me. It was hard being this near to her whilst knowing we couldn't speak, we couldn't touch, we couldn't even look at each other for long.

While I was eating my dinner, I started to mentally play a game with myself to see how many times I could catch her eye, and it became apparent pretty quickly that she was playing exactly the same game. As she passed my table with another order, our eyes met again briefly for the 8th time and I decided to swiftly shift this game up a notch. I held her gaze and subtly but seductively bit my lower lip. I could see the immediate effect it had on her as the playful look in her eyes suddenly clouded with lust. Something about it made me feel powerful.

Freen had only been distracted for a second, but that was all it took for her to absentmindely walk into a chair of the table beside us, banging her hip bone in the process and only just managing to keep the food she was carrying on her tray. I stifled a laugh as I watched her face flush crimson as she apologised profusely to the elderly man occupying the chair.

"Becky, are you even listening to a word I'm saying?" The sound of my father's aggravated voice snapped me right back to reality.

"Umm, uh sorry. What was that?" I stuttered.

My father let out an irritated sigh. "I said that your mother and I were discussing the fact you could be using some of your free time on the ship a lot more productively. Maybe pick up a new instrument or a language?"

I died a little inside. That's all I needed, something else to stop me from seeing Freen.

"There's only 13 more days on the ship. There's no way I'll pick up a language in that time!" I sighed in disbelief. Why couldn't they just let me enjoy my summer like a normal teenager?

"Well, maybe a few music lessons? Learn the basics and then it's something you can continue once you're back home." my mother pressed.

"I don't..." I started to say before I was interrupted by my dad.

"What about piano?"

"I have no interest in learning piano at all." I said as I let out a groan of exasperation.

My mum took the reins again. "Then how about guitar? You were always bugging us to learn guitar when you were younger." I could tell by her tone of voice they weren't going to let this go. Once they got something in their heads there was no reasoning with them.