Caroline let her gaze glide along the monumental cruise ship in awe and took a deep breath of the sea air mixed with the ship's fumes. For the first time in weeks, she felt light. Ignoring the farewell calls and the over-excited shrieks of teenagers who seemed to want to finally start their first holiday without parents, she walked up the jetty.

To her relief, she saw many passengers her own age. The average age for the party cruise was listed on the homepage as thirty; she would hardly raise it with her thirty-one years. Stops were planned on two Hawaiian Islands, Sydney in Australia and in two cities in New Zealand unknown to her. The cost, despite the inside cabin, was more than five thousand dollars. She pushed aside the thought of the unnecessary expense and continued to examine her fellow travellers.

One girl in particular caught her eye. She stood quietly in a group of younger people, looking around attentive. Their eyes met and the fine hairs on Caroline's arm stood up. There was just over twenty-five metres between them and yet it felt as if they were touching.

A warm mental embrace. A tingling sensation like fingertips gliding delicately over bare skin. The young woman smiled cautiously, but before Caroline could react, large rough hands grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her aside. The entrance to the ship was narrow and the bearded broad-shouldered gentleman behind her was apparently tired of waiting.

What annoyed her more than uninvited hands on her body was the lost eye contact with the young woman. So many people were crowding in that it was impossible to get back to the entrance. There were windows a few metres away, but when she reached them she could not locate the girl.

She didn't know why her reaction to the brief eye contact had been so intense, and hoped that the petite brunette was among the passengers. That way she would perhaps have the opportunity to find out.

She went exploring and looked around with satisfaction. The ship seemed to be straight out of one of the Cruiseline promotional videos. Clean-cut constructed and decorated in a kitschy tropical contrast.

She looked around, taking in the atmosphere. The sun was slowly setting, palm leaves swaying in the breeze, the scent of caramel drifting past her and happy shouts, laughter and the sound of splashing from the pool area. She took a few steps towards the railing, her eyes fixed on the horizon glinting in the evening sun.

She could not completely shake of the looming dark uncertainty of what her future would hold. Yet, or perhaps because of it, she ordered herself to enjoy this trip as if it were her last. Whether it would actually be was yet to be decided.

It would be a fortnight of drinking, partying, optional sex, a little sightseeing and, at best, self-discovery. Should the latter fail, ... well. According to statistics, many people left the cruise ships not via the jetty, but on the high seas. So she wouldn't be the first and certainly wouldn't be the last.

She had nothing left to loose and, deep down, felt infinitely tired.

The next day, after breakfast, Caroline lay down sleepily in the shade of an umbrella by a large pool. She had slept terrible and it would probably take a while to get used to the vibration and volume of the ship's engines.

The young girl from the day before had appeared in her dreams. She had waved at her, but the more determined Caroline had been to run towards her, the faster she had slipped out of reach, smiling sadly.

The chill-out tune from her headphones, her stomach filled with omelette from breakfast and last night's lack of sleep let her gently drift off to sleep. When she startled awake, more than two hours had passed. She straightened awkwardly and yawned profusely. Her right arm stung and tingled uncomfortably.

There she was!

All at once Caroline was wide awake. The brunette girl who had been capturing her attention since yesterday, for some unknown reason, was standing about 30 feet away and turned her profile towards her. A small knot formed in her stomach as Caroline saw that she was talking intently to a handsome young man who clearly was interested in her.

The knot was not because she was jealous, but because of the little signals the young woman was sending. The avoidance of eye contact, the nervous smile that didn't reach her eyes, and how she tried to make herself smaller by slouching slightly. When the man grabbed her by the arm and gestured to the inside of the ship, Caroline involuntarily held her breath. The girl tried to escape his grasp, prompting him to put his whole arm around her. Now it was either make a scene or go along.

Before Caroline could make a decision, she had already jumped up and taken the first steps towards the couple. She pulled off her sunglasses and sought eye contact with the girl. Like an animal in a trap, tht little one looked around, presumably to spot one of her friends who could inconspicuously help her out of the mess.

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Finally their eyes met.

"There you are at last!" said Caroline quietly, squeezing in between the two to hug her still unknown new friend. The broad smile that spread across the pretty face showed that her help was welcome.

"Sorry about that, I got held up," the girl replied, wrapping her arms tightly around her.

What the hell was that? Caroline had met a lot of people she liked at an instant, but never with such intensity. She was holding a long-lost sister in her arms.

She almost forgot about the straw-blond guy behind her until an impatient exaggerated clearing of her throat reminded her. There was still an ego to be trimmed and a lesson to be taught. She turned to face him.

"Hi, I'm Caroline!" she introduced herself with an overly wide grin and thrust her hand out in greeting.

"Eric," he replied curtly, and after a moment's hesitation, took her hand. "We were actually just about to ..." he continued, pointing to an imaginary spot in the ship, but she interrupted him.

"You must have misunderstood!" Her grin widened a little more and her eyes grew colder at the same time. Caroline had been watching this expression in the mirror and she was not surprised that he wanted to withdraw his hand and backed away a few inches.

"You ..." she pointed to his chest and then behind her, "certainly didn't want to do anything together, because we," she pointed to her chest and behind her, "have a date." She held his hand so tightly that he had to jerk hard to free himself. "Besides, you're in not her type and if you'd given her your attention for a fraction of a second instead of your penis, you wouldn't now look like a three-year-old who's had his lollipop stolen."

He called her a psychobitch and, glaring angrily, disappeared down the stairs to the next deck within seconds.

"Now, that was pretty mean," Caroline heard a bright yet pleasantly raspy voice and turned around, "I'm sure now he'll never want to have anything to do with me again!"

The bright smile on the heart-shaped face belied her words and the offended tone.

"If you like, I'll run after him and try to convince him to give you another chance?" Caroline raised an eyebrow questioningly.

"Ah, no thanks, I'll get over it." The broad smile narrowed a little. "How did you know I wanted to get rid of him?"

Caroline tried not to look too pitying.

"That obvious?" The girl grabbed the beach ball that came rolling in her direction and played it back into the water.

A broad-shouldered woman laughed as she caught the unerringly splashed ball. "Is that all? Come on, show us what you've got, Isy!" She was one of the people who had stood with the girl in front of the ship.

"Shall we?" asked the girl, again beaming all over her face.

Caroline nodded. She was not unhappy that an opportunity had presented itself to distract from the unpleasant situation.

"Well, go on then, Caroline! Um, Caroline is your real name, isn't it? I'm Isy, by the way. Isabelle, actually, but no one calls me that."

Hearing her counterpart pronounce her name caused Carolines stomach to tingle.

"Nice to meet you, Isy!" She followed suit and pulled the shirt she was wearing on top of her bikini over her head.

Together they jumped into the water and had some fierce water polo matches. It was a silly game somewhere between volleyball, rugby and football with no clear rules. Caroline couldn't remember the last time she had had so much incredible fun.

She had been dunked under water, elbowed in the jaw, had a foot in her ribs at least once and must have swallowed half a litre of pool water.

When they were done and dry again, she now knew the names of the other four teammates and had a dinner date with them this night.

"I lost my job, my boss is currently in custody and I will probably never work as a sales lead again," Caroline sighed. She had summed up her professional situation for Isy in a nutshell.

"Wow, that sounds brutal! How the fuck can you help it that your boss embezzled investor money?", Isy was outraged.

They had sat down by the pool after dinner and talked until at some point the first purple appeared pale in the sky. Sabine, Daniel, Michael and Laura had already taken their leave.

"Well, I probably could have looked a little more to the right and left." She stared at the foamy surface of her drink. "To be honest, occasional bonuses of tens of thousands of dollars are a good reason not to take your blinkers off."

"So not only are you worried about your future, but you also feel guilty for enabling the scam?"

"Enabling?" Caroline looked at Isy with raised eyebrows. "You enjoy to twist the knife, don't you?

"Hey, do you want it sweet or honest?" The girl grinned broadly and at the same time compassion gleamed in her eyes. "The question is who you want to be before it's about what you want to do in the future, isn't it?"

"Bull's eye. I guess." Caroline's expression relaxed and they sat in silence for a while.

"You know, I think it might be that we noticed each other because we sensed that the other one wasn't doing so well," Isy volunteered a theory. She sucked on her Virgin something colada and continued after a moment's hesitation. "I think we've picked out the person in a crowd of outrageously good-humoured people who's doing us good at the moment."

She looked questioningly at Caroline, as if to confirm that her hunch about the unusual attraction between them made sense.

"Possible. Why aren't you well then?"

"Oh, my boyfriend, ex-boyfriend ..." she quickly corrected, "cheated on me and I broke up. He was supposed to be here, too." Her eyes suddenly looked very wet.

"First boyfriend?"

Isy nodded and Caroline dug out a packet of tissues from the depths of her handbag.

First heartbreak. She remembered darkly how hard it was and stifled any comforting comment. If anything didn't make the situation better, it was friends throwing around wisdom like: "There are other fish in the sea", or: "Time heals all wounds".

Being a support and companion through the pain is an exhausting business. Caroline did her best to be there for Isy, and vice versa. They gave each other space to let out the grief and frustration, but pulled each other out of downward spirals in time when things got too bleak.

The dynamic between them was so harmonious that they naturally found the right words, embraced each other at the right moment or challenged each other elsewhere.

Eventually Caroline put the question of what exactly had drawn her focus to Isy behind her and enjoyed the time together.