where the water meets the moon | e.d.

twenty-one

addy

he opened up.

he truly, fully opened up and told me about her.

hell, he even cried on my shoulder.
i felt like dr. phil.

this morning, cressida and i said goodbye to each other and avery said he would communicate with her captain to get us together for dinner sometime.

"good luck with your all guy ship," i whispered as i hugged her.

"good luck with yours," she said back.

with a smile and wave, she was settling back into her boat in the marina, farther down the dock than we were.

and now i'm sitting on the deck, helping captain avery reel up the anchor and untie the boat so we can get us back out on the open water.

i haven't seen ethan much, besides when he checked out of his room and got on the boat with evan. and he didn't say anything in those times either.

my hands tug at a particularly hard knot as i try to untie it from the wooden dock. i yank with my entire body strength and refuse to get avery's help.

"here, it's better if you don't tug," a familiar, quiet voice says from above me, and two large hands replace mine on the knot.

ethan sits down next to me and focuses intently on untying the rope. his tongue slips out of his mouth as he does so and let's out a small grunt when nothing is cooperating.

he sighs and continues to try and untangle it.

all i do is watch quietly, trying to think of something to say that doesn't bombard him with questions about last night.

i don't think he hates me anymore, and that just somehow makes the day so much better.

"i give up," he announces, dropping the rope and running a hand through his hair.

"here," i say and gently pick it up and begin to pry at it with my fingers. my rings get snagged on the rope, but i eventually start to loosen it up enough and hand it to ethan to finish untying it fully.

"you could've untied that," he remarks and frees it from the dock.

"i wanted to make you feel like you did something."

he snorts a laugh and stands to his feet, me following his actions shortly after. avery comes out and tells us that we're headed out soon, and we should get back inside if we don't want our hair ruined by the wind.

evan is sitting at the kitchen booth, writing vigorously on a piece of paper.

ethan swallows just looking at his set-up, and it reminds me that the mail ship comes tomorrow.

"i'll be in my room. let me know when we're starting research."

"it's another water day!" evan calls out as i stalk down the hall and into my room.

"not doing it!" i inform the both of them.

there's two major reasons, one being that i'm on my period, and the other being that i pretty much collapsed the last time i did a water exploration.