Page 25 of No One Aboard

“How’s he got you like that?” MJ asked.

“What? What do you mean?”Keep breathing. Keep calm.

She came and sat on the ground with him, picking up Nemo by the face and tossing him aside. “All quiet and jumpy. What’d he do to get you all worked up?”

“He’s... my dad.”

“My old man used to smack my bottom till I howled, but he never spooked me so bad as that.”

Rylan tried but failed to imagine a young MJ getting spanked. “I’m not spooked.”

MJ clicked her tongue and leaned forward, hands steepled in front of her. “Look. I figure you’ve been denying whatever’s going on for so long that you don’t know how not to deny it. Hard to break a habit like that. But the body doesn’t lie, and you’re spooked as hell. Tense and nervous, and it’s got something to do with him.”

Rylan’s lower jaw trembled against his will. He had his arms wrapped around his knees, his eyes locked with MJ’s. He opened his mouth to inhale, and it morphed into a dry sob.

MJ lingered within arm’s reach, her gaze pinning him to the carpet. “Well?”

“I... I...”

She reached over, took him by the shoulder, and gave him a hearty shake. Rylan’s teeth rattled, and his mind went slack.

“Tell me,” she ordered.

So he did.

Rylan felt detached as he spoke, like he wasn’t inside his body to make the call of what words to use, of when to breathe or where to look. He watched it from outside himself, the world on mute, and even though he knew what he must be saying, he couldn’t hear it himself.

All he could concentrate on was MJ’s fingers digging into his bones.

MJ absorbed what he was saying like the beach would the tide. She let it wash over her, rinse through her, rattle pebbles and erode footprints and change her coloring to a darker shade. When Rylan was done, it was her turn to speak, but she didn’t. Or maybe she did and Rylan still couldn’t hear.

The tinny buzz inside his ears faded just as Francis walked back into the room. MJ removed her hand and stood so fast that she looked like a wall that had risen from the carpet between Rylan and his father.

“Go up top,” she ordered.

Rylan stood, unsteady on his feet, and headed to the companionway, shutting the hatch to contain the tempest he’d left behind.

He clung to the cap rail, sucked in the fresh air, swallowed and blinked and tried to reset himself, but he couldn’t.

Why had he told MJ? What happened at home with his father this last year was not something meant to be shared or dislodged. It was part of him, the space between his bones, the thing that trapped his breath. It wasn’t meant to be seen by anyone unless they sliced his belly open. Rylan hardly knew MJ, not really. She had sailed with them on and off over the summers, and she was friends with Tia, but she hadn’t been there when it mattered. When everything fell apart.

Yet now she knew. He felt hollowed. Excavated. She had practically forced it out of him.

Rylan needed to see Tia, but she was in their cabin, and he would have to pass his father and MJ to get to her. But without Tia, he could never quite banish the ripples in his gut. Without Tia, everything went wrong. Without Tia, Rylan was in the house again, alone and abandoned and—

“Don’t tell me you’re getting seasick, Mr. Cameron,” a voice called from the cockpit, rhythmic and warm.

Nico.

Rylan turned his back to the sea. Nico was at the helm, casually steeringThe Old Eileenthrough the swells. He gestured for Rylan to come sit beside him.

“If you stare at the horizon long enough, your body stops getting so confused on the motion,” Nico advised.

“O-oh, no. I’m not seasick.” Rylan glanced at the horizon all the same. The sun poured, half melted, over the sky. “Just... I get anxious. Sometimes. My dad’s trying to teach me CPR stuff.”

And I told MJ. I really told MJ...

Nico nodded knowingly. “I remember that feeling. For me it was English, though. Couldn’t make sense of all the abstract stuff. Not that I fared much better at math or science.” He laughed self-deprecatingly, watching the sea like a good driver watches the road.