I Was Married For _ Days (Day 4)

Tuesday

As soon as the doors opened in St. Thomas I ran off of the ship hoping I’d have cell service so that I could call home. I didn’t, said, “Fuck it!” and turned my phone on roaming.

After 2 minutes on the phone with my mom she was offering to book a flight home for me. I was crying again. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know if he was trying his best and his best just wasn’t good enough for me. Or, if he was blowing me off.

I told my mom not to book anything yet. I had to speak to him first. So I headed back to the ship to call him.

TurkishDelight: <unintelligible sleepy voice>
WinterInNYC: Hey, it’s me.
TurkishDelight: <unintelligible sleepy voice>
WinterInNYC: You sleeping?
TurkishDelight: <click>

Now, I was beginning to panic. I had a very short window to book a flight home, pack, get off of the ship and get to the airport. Flying out of St. Maarten the next day would have been pricey because it would have meant booking a flight through a different airline and then I’d be at sea for the final two days with no way to escape. It was now or never. I needed to talk to him!

I waited for TurkishDelight to return my call. He didn’t. So I headed up to his restaurant. He wasn’t there so I sat and waited. I called him again…no answer. I waited some more.

By 12:30pm I was back in my room replaying the past 3 days. Did the bad cancel out the good?

In my gut I knew that something had changed. If I stayed, I knew that I would be on my own for the remainder of the trip. I would have seen him at lunch and dinner, like all of the other 6,000 guests. Maybe he would have hung out in my room again if he felt like getting laid.

But we would not have been going to dinner together like he had planned a week prior. We would not have gone to the dance club or comedy club or bar together. We would not have gotten off of the boat to snorkel or shop or head to the beach.

He blew me off the night before and didn’t even have the decency to call me and let me know that he wasn’t going to come over.

And now I couldn’t reach him…when he was always reachable before.

I called my mom and told her to book the flight.

As tears ran down my face I re-packed my suitcase with dresses he never saw, shoes I never wore and lingerie that still had their price tags hanging from them.

I headed down to guest services and after getting approval to disembark the ship I called his phone again and this time he picked up.

I told him that I was leaving the ship. He seemed confused and asked me why? The phone connection was poor which made the conversation difficult but I did hear him say, “You knew that I would be working.” What I didn’t hear was an apology. I told him that I knew that he would be working when I booked and that I saw how hard he worked and how many hours he worked. I told him that I wasn’t mad, just disappointed, and that I just couldn’t be on my own for another 4 days. I told him I had to go and hung up the phone.

I had to wait till 4:00pm for the customs agent to escort me off of the ship. I was miserable. I felt as though I had a made a rash decision to leave. I was heartbroken that I didn’t have an opportunity to talk to him, before booking the flight. I wanted to tell him how I was feeling and find out if he could have made more time for me…if he even wanted to.

I called TurkishDelight back. I was sobbing on the phone and asked him to come down and see me before I left. I didn’t want it to end this way.

He told me he couldn’t because he was in a meeting and then hung up the phone.

I will never know if leaving was the right decision.
I will never know if he intended to spend more time with me but lost interest after seeing me.
I will never know if he truly was working all of those extra hours.
I will never know if he would have persuaded me to stay if I had reached him on the phone before booking the flight.
I will never know if he would have spent more time with me.
I will never know if my leaving upset him in the slightest.

What I do I know is that I’m tired of being disappointed, rejected and disregarded by men.