The fifth day of our voyage usually marked an excursion of some sort. We’d stopped midway down the west coast of Florida in a small town called St. Jeanne. Excursions weren’t something the entertainment crew usually involved themselves in. Instead, this was a rest period. I went ashore, not to sightsee, but just to shop. While I loved my job and the sea, there were times when it became just a bit too much. I went stir-crazy easily, regardless of where I was.

St. Jeanne was pretty. It had numerous museums and was, allegedly, a place frequented by the famous pirate Lafitte, not to be confused with the Revolutionary War hero, Lafayette, or the writer, Adrian Lafayette. I wandered the cobblestone streets, looking in the little tourist shops along the way. This place reminded me quite a bit of St. Augustine, even though that city was on the opposite side of Florida.

A few of the ship’s guests, like me, had ventured this way. Hopefully, they’d all return to the ship on time, and we wouldn’t have to hunt anyone down. Someone tapped on my shoulder. I jumped and turned around.

Adrian Lafayette’s green eyes judged me.

“For someone who finds me annoying and naïve, you sure do keep seeking me out,” I said.

Adrian rolled his eyes. “I just thought I should, perhaps, apologize again. For snapping at you about things not being any of your business: my omega and me, and Angelica. That wasn’t fair to you, but I’m still dealing with the fact that the entire world knows about it. So…sorry. I’m dealing very poorly with it.”

My heart softened with sympathy. “It’s hard,” I said, “but you can do it!”

“But I can do what?” Adrian repeated blankly.

“Keep going,” I said. “That’s all. I know it’s hard to deal with the loss of a loved one, but it does get easier.”

“Yes,” Adrian replied, although he sounded unsure about it. “So, ah, how are you enjoying Abandon All Hope?”

I shrugged. Honestly, I hadn’t picked it up again. “I suppose it’s an interesting romance,” I offered.

“It isn’t a romance,” Adrian said. “It’s a tragedy. You couldn’t tell that from the way I set it up?”

No, not really. I’d thought it was a love story between a woman named Clarisa Margarita de La Fuente Arias and her long-time friend, Jóhannes Bryndísarson. It certainly had seemed to be heading that way. There was a lot of pining on Clarisa’s part.

“No,” I replied.

Adrian looked, for once, something besides angry. Indeed, he looked completely baffled. “You couldn’t tell it was meant to be a tragedy,” he deadpanned, as if it was some incomprehensible sin.

I shook my head. “I mean, she likes him, and they have lots of sex,” I offered. “How is that not a romance?”

“By the way I set it up,” Adrian argued. “The fact the Clarisa is, wait, how far have you gotten?”

“The hundredth or so page? But I thought you didn’t care whether I’d read it,” I teased.

“I don’t, but it bothers me that you’ve formed such a blatant misinterpretation for my most beloved work,” Adrian argued.

“So you have to correct that, huh?” I asked.

I wondered what he had planned. Was he going to read the entire novel over my shoulder and point out every error I made? Was he going to ambush me when I was on my treasure hunt with the kids and quiz me about his magnum opus. I laughed at the image of Adrian dogging me for information while I was engaged in a fight with five sword-wielding kids.

“Normally, I’d just say you don’t have a head for literature and leave it at that,” Adrian said. “But Angelica did like the pirate princess idea. Your advice worked really well, so I think I should, maybe, offer you something in return. That’s all this is.”

“That’s fair,” I said. “So what? You’re going to start coming over in the evenings and reading to me? Are you going to bring your daughter?”

“No, she’ll stay with Joan.”

“Joan?”

“Her nanny,” Adrian replied. “That’s who she’s with now.”

“Okay,” I said, “So it’s a date. You’ll come over in the evening and read the book to me.”

Because really, when would I ever get the opportunity to have a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist-turned-novelist read and interpret his book to me ever again?

That night, Adrian invaded my apartment. I had my copy of Abandon All Hope pulled up on my Kindle, and after sneering at it and giving me a lecture about the sanctity of print, he’d produced his pristine printed copy and idly opened it to read.

A few days after Christmas, Chris Collins has his funeral. I decide to go and drag Jóhannes with me. I don’t ask why he just happened to bring black dress clothes with him. If there’s one thing I’ve discovered, it’s that Jóhannes has a ridiculously big wardrobe. I hate the black dress I end up wearing. It’s something I grabbed from Skye’s clothes. The dress is pretty and decent, but I wear black all wrong. It makes me feel edgy and nervous because it’s not bright enough. It doesn’t feel like a good color.

I’m not certain exactly what I’m expected to do at this funeral. There are too many people wearing the wrong color and crying. It makes my fingers itch, and I just want to scream that everyone should just stop. I’m out of place because I’m not crying, and unlike them, I can’t even manage an appropriately soft, mournful expression. I didn’t exactly know Chris Collins, so I can’t talk about him. I stare at him, and he looks eerie in his casket, frighteningly alive. The coffin is beautiful, some sort of polished red wood that I can’t name, and the inside is an inappropriately light blue silk. Chris, himself, wears a navy-blue suit, and it’s odd. It feels wrong and uncomfortable, and I have butterflies in my stomach, but they’re not the sort of butterflies I’m accustomed to. This isn’t like going to Robert’s funeral to ensure that he was dead. This is something else. Something I don’t have words for.

Adrian paused. “And what do you think about Clarisa going to the funeral of a man she only met in passing?”

I shrugged. “It’s a bit weird.”

“And?”

“And it’s even weirder she invited the guy she was interested in to go along with her?”

Adrian furrowed his brow. “It’s supposed to be symbolic. It indicates the dangerous, excessive attachment Clarisa places upon even people she barely knows. It’s indicative, also, of her ultimate demise and her fear of death.”

“She dies?”

Adrian rubbed his face. “Yes, she dies. How did you not pick up on that?”

“How was I supposed to know there was something to pick up on?”

“Because of the pattern. I’m obviously writing a tragedy about two people who aren’t meant to be together, who are doomed to destruction from the beginning. And you didn’t…get that?”

“No.”

“But how? It’s so obvious!”

I shrugged. “It read like a love story to me.”

“But Clarisa isn’t even sympathetic as a love interest. I purposefully made her unlikeable, and you wanted them to be…in love.”

“But she isn’t unlikeable,” I argued. “She’s had a difficult life, and she does her best. Just because she’s a little rough around the edges doesn’t mean she’s unworthy of love.”

“But she’s horrible. She’s fickle and vain.”

“Her love interest doesn’t seem to mind. Besides, she clearly softens up as the story goes on,” I argued. “She’s overly-attached to people, sure, but she isn’t clingy. Like the part where Jóhannes wants to go to Akureyri. Clarisa realizes that’s something he must do, and she lets him go, even though she fears he’ll never return to her. Sometimes, when people are hurt, they lash out. It seems to me that spending time with someone who loves her should make Clarisa a better person, not a worse one.”

Adrian looked, for once, at a loss for words.

“But I always have liked to see the best in people,” I said. “I don’t really think people are inherently bad. It’s the world that makes them that way.”

“Rousseau.”

“Hmm?”

“That’s Rousseau’s philosophy,” Adrian said. “It’s a ridiculous idea. Some people are just really awful. Only someone very immature would believe otherwise.”

“Well,” I said, as I climbed off the sofa. “I disagree.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Do you want coffee?”

“No, I’m waiting to hear why you disagree.”

I shrugged and walked into the painfully small kitchen. To be fair, all my meals were free, so I didn’t have much need for an expansive kitchen. Anytime I was hungry, I went to the dining hall, and they made me food. Still, it might’ve been nice to have an oven at least. Maybe a full-size refrigerator instead of a mini-fridge. “You aren’t going to. We’ll agree to disagree,” I said.

“But you’re wrong!”

I laughed at the earnestness written across his face. “Look,” I said. “We aren’t at, like, a presidential debate. Do we really need to justify everything we believe?”

Adrian nodded.

“I think you just like to argue because you know you’re better at it than most people,” I said.

“I am better at it than most.”

I poured two mugs full of coffee, just in case he changed his mind. “So,” I said. “How exactly am I, as a reader, supposed to know when there’s something symbolic?”

“You just…what do you mean? You just know.”

“So, what’s symbolic about Clarisa having lots of wild sex with her boyfriend?”

“It’s supposed to be a reference to Sade’s Juliette, who is equally unsympathetic and undeserving of love.”

“But if I’ve never read that, it’s just…them banging,” I said. “A lot.”

“Then, you should read more.”

I poured a generous amount of sugar and cream into my coffee. “I’m trying to read more. I told you that, and you made fun of my translation of Arabian Nights.”

Adrian’s smile wasn’t entirely friendly. It was almost condescending, like he couldn’t believe someone would dare to argue with him. “It is a bad, self-indulgent translation,” he said. “I swear it’s like a Facebook argument with you.”

“Okay, but you can’t punish desirable behavior,” I said. “Either you want me to read more, or you don’t, Mr. Edgelord.”

“Edgelord?”

“It means you’re argumentative just for the sake of being edgy and brooding.”

“I’m not. You’re missing a fundamental point of my novel. These symbolic meanings matter. It’s like…the orangutan. Have you read “The Murders in the Rue Morgue?” It’s an Edgar Allan Poe short story.”

I shook my head. “I’ve read “The Raven” and…that might be it.”

“Of course, it is,” Adrian replied, rolling his eyes. “In ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue,’ two women are murdered: a mother and her daughter. White, beautiful, kind. The perfect victims. The plot twist is that the murderer is an orangutan, and this orangutan is described in gratuitous detail.”

“Okay?”

“And scholars disagree on the symbolic meaning of this orangutan. The meaning heavily colors how an individual would read the story. If, for example, the orangutan represents an African American man, as some have said, the story is a warning of the dangers posed to white women by black men. If, however, the orangutan is just an orangutan, it represents a caution towards colonialism and foretells how colonization will bite back.”

“But why does it matter?”

“Because it completely changes the story and our thoughts about Edgar Allan Poe as a writer.”

“Yeah, but Poe is dead. We can’t just ask him what he meant the orangutan to symbolize, so why have the debate at all? Why shouldn’t we just accept that it’s one or the other?”

“Because it colors our understanding of Poe.”

I shrugged. “Okay, but Poe was a white, Southern man, wasn’t he? Living during…I don’t know, post-Civil War?”

“Before the Civil War.”

“Right. But isn’t it safe to assume that, being a white, Southern man, Poe probably would’ve been at least a bit inherently racist whether he meant to be or not?”

I crossed the room and offered him the extra mug of coffee. “Are you sure you don’t want it?” I asked.

“Is it black?”

I nodded and he took it. As I leaned back against the sofa cushions, I smiled and toyed with the rim of my cup. “Mr. Edgelord, you even take your coffee black,” I said.

Adrian rolled his eyes. “It’s because I can’t taste the tannins.”

“Tannins?”

Adrian nodded. “They’re…this substance in plant tissues. They’re most often found in coffee, although they’re also in some wines. But they’re what gives coffee its distinct bitter taste. People who like black coffee usually do so because they can’t taste the tannins. The opposite is usually true of people who don’t like black coffee. You can probably only taste the tannins which is why you’ve poured three cups of sugar in it.”

“It wasn’t that much,” I said.

“Mmhm. That isn’t what I saw.”

I stuck my tongue out at him. Adrian shook his head. “You’re such a brat. No wonder you work with children.”

“I was going to go into elementary education,” I said. “Before, well, you know. I’ve always wanted to work with kids.”

“That’s admirable,” Adrian said. “You have a lot of energy, too. Befitting of such a job, I suppose. I didn’t appreciate being thrown in jail, by the way.”

“Angelica seemed to like it.”

“She did,” Adrian admitted. “I liked seeing her enjoying herself. I haven’t been…well, I’m not really a good parent.”

“I’m sure you’re better than you think.”

“You don’t know me well enough to make that judgement. I’m just not used to taking care of a child. That’s all.”

“Every first-time parent has a learning curve.”

“Yes, but I didn’t really take care of Angelica. Her mom did that, and I was free to do whatever I wanted. I came home for holidays and birthdays, and the rest of the time didn’t matter. We had a system, and it worked. I’m used to living a certain way. Writing when I want, eating when I want, going wherever I want at the drop of a dime, and you can’t do that with a kid. They need stability.”

“So what are you going to do?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Adrian said, as he downed his cup of coffee. “I do love her. Don’t think for a second that I wouldn’t give my right arm to make Angelica happy. It’s just that…”

“You’ll figure it out.”

“Yeah, well, I’d rather not screw it up ninety ways to Sunday while I’m figuring it out. Can we talk about something else?”

“Your writing?” I offered.

Adrian snorted. “You think you’re clever, don’t you?” Adrian paused. “You actually remind me a bit of one of my former classmates. We took Anglo-American poetry together. She was so much smarter than the rest of us, but so flippant. The professors adored her. You want to talk about writing? Fine. Go ahead.”

“What are you working on now?” I asked.

Adrian shrugged. “I’m tossing ideas around,” he said. “I thought about writing about how terrible this cruise is.”

I winced.

“It’s a joke,” Adrian said, although his tone didn’t seem very humorous. “Lighten up, Lancelot.”

“Lancelot?”

“If I’m going to be ‘Mr. Edgelord’ as you’ve so eloquently dubbed me, you’re going to be Lancelot.”

“The guy King Arthur’s wife cheated on him with?” I asked.

“Crudely put, yes,” Adrian said, rolling his eyes. “Literature treats Lancelot very differently, though. There, he’s a tragic figure whose attempts to be the world’s best knight are sabotaged by his insatiable love for Queen Guinevere.”

“Oh.”

“It’s romantic,” Adrian said, adding a bark of laughter.

I didn’t get the joke, but I smiled all the same. He had a nice, deep laugh, and I leaned forward, enchanted. I wanted to hear him laugh more and see the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled. “Don’t worry,” Adrian said. “I’m not going to throw you under the bus.”

“Thanks. I’d rather not be a victim of vehicular homicide.”

Adrian’s lips quirked into a smile. “Thanks for the coffee,” he said. “I’ll leave Abandon All Hope for you. It might have notes in the margins, though. Sometimes, I go back and re-work things I’ve written.”

“Oh. Am I allowed to make notes in it?”

Adrian shrugged. “I don’t care, and if you have questions, you can ask them. If you want,” Adrian said. “No pressure.”

Even though he’d framed it in that gruff manner of his, I understood it was an invitation. “Perfect,” I said. “I’ll let you know.”

Adrian stood and considered me for a second. Then, he grunted and headed towards the door. I remained on the sofa and stared at my coffee. There really was something admirable beneath his rough exterior, and I wondered if his real problem with the character of Clarisa Margarita de la Fuente Arias was really that I liked her. Because, to me, it seemed like Adrian, himself, was an awful lot like his own character: lonely, lost, and terrified of showing it. Attaching to people quickly and brusquely because he was so desperate to be loved and to live in a world where everything made sense.