FLOAT PLAN
Excerpt:
Anna—
There’s a kind of jacked-up happiness that comes when you know
your life is almost over, when the decision to end it becomes solid. It might
be adrenaline. It might be relief. And if I had always felt like this, I might
have climbed mountains or raced marathons.
Now it’s just enough to see this through.
I should have left you alone that first night at the bar. If I
had, you wouldn’t be reading this letter at all.
You’d be walking your dog or watching TV with your boyfriend.
You didn’t deserve to be dragged into my shit, and you definitely don’t deserve
the pain I’m about to cause. This is not your fault. For two years you have
been my only reason for living. I wish I could give you forever.
You are strong and brave, and someday you’ll be okay. You’ll
fall in love, and I hate him already for being a better man. Someday you will
be happy again.
I love you, Anna. I’m sorry.
—Ben
ten months and six days (1)
I walk out of my life on Thanksgiving Day.
Last-minute shoppers
are clearing shelves of stuffing mix and pumpkin pie filling as I heap my cart
with everything I might need. (Dry beans. Canned vegetables. Rice.) I move
through the grocery store like a prepper running late for doomsday. (Boxed
milk. Limes. Spare flashlight.) I am quick so I won’t lose my nerve. (Apples.
Toilet paper. Red wine.) I try not to think beyond leaving. (Cabbage. Playing
cards. Bottled water.) Or about what I might be leaving behind.
My mother calls as I’m
wrangling the grocery bags into the back seat of my overstuffed Subaru. I
haven’t told her that I won’t be there for Thanksgiving dinner, and she’s not
ready to hear that I’m skipping town. Not when I’ve barely left the house for the
better part of a year. She’ll have questions and I don’t have an- swers, so I
let the call go to voicemail.
When I reach the dock, the Alberg is right
where it should
be, the shiny hull painted navy blue and the
transom empty, still waiting for a name. For a moment I expect Ben’s head to
pop up from the companionway. I wait to see his little fuck-me grin, and to
hear the excitement in his voice when he tells me today is the day. But the
hatch is padlocked, and the deck is covered in bird shit—another part of my
life I’ve let fall into neglect.
Ten months and six
days ago, Ben swallowed a bottle of pre- scription Paxil and chased it with the
cheap tequila that lived under the sink, and I don’t know why. He was already
gone when I came home from work and found him on the kitchen floor. In his
suicide note, he told me I was his reason for living. Why was I not enough?
I breathe in deep, to the bottom of my lungs.
Let it out slowly.
Step onto the boat and unlock the hatch.
The air is stale and
hot, smelling of wood wax, new canvas, and a hint of diesel. I haven’t been
aboard since before Ben died. Spiders have spun their homes in the corners of
the cabin and a layer of dust has settled on every surface, but the changes
leave me breathless. The interior brightwork is varnished and glossy. The ugly
original brown-plaid cushion covers have been replaced with red canvas and Peruvian
stripes. And a framed graphic hangs on the forward bulkhead that reads i &
love & you.
“Why do all this work
for a trip you’ll never take?” I say out loud, but it’s another question
without an answer. I wipe my eyes on the sleeve of my T-shirt. One of the
things I’ve learned is that suicide doesn’t break a person’s heart just once.
It takes me the rest
of the morning to clean the boat, unload the contents of my car, and stow
everything away. Traces of Ben are everywhere: a saucepan at the bottom of the
hanging locker,
an expired six-pack of Heineken in the cockpit
lazarette, a moldy orange life jacket stuffed in the refrigerator. I throw
these things in the trash, but even with my spider plant hanging from an over-
head handrail and my books lining the shelf, the boat belongs to Ben. He chose
it. He did the renovations. He charted the course. He set the departure date.
My presence feels like a layer as tem- porary as dust.
The last thing in my
trunk is a shoebox filled with photos taken using Ben’s old Polaroid, a dried
hibiscus flower from our first date, a handful of dirty-sexy love letters, and
a suicide note. I take out a single photo—Ben and me at the Hillsboro Inlet
Lighthouse about a week before he died—and stash the box in the bottom drawer
of the navigation station. I tape the photo to the wall in the V-berth, right
above my pillow.
And it’s time to go.
My only plan was to
spend today in bed—my only plan since Ben’s death—but I was startled out of
sleep by an alarm. The notification on my phone said: TODAY IS THE DAY, ANNA! WE’RE GOING SAILING! Ben had programmed the event into my calendar
almost three years ago—on the day he showed me his sailboat and asked me to sail
the world with him—and I had forgotten. I cried until my eyelashes hurt,
because there is no lon- ger a we and I’ve forgotten how to be me without Ben. Then I got out of bed and started
packing.
I’ve never been
sailing without Ben. I don’t always get the ter- minology correct—it’s a
line, Anna, not a rope—and
I’ll be lucky if I make it to the end of the river. But I am less afraid of
what might become of me while sailing alone in the Caribbean than of what might
become of me if I stay.
FLOAT PLAN
Book Info
Back Cover Copy:
Heartbroken by the loss of her fiancé, adventurous Anna finds a second chance at love with an Irish sailor in this riveting, emotional romance.
After a reminder goes off for the Caribbean sailing trip Anna was supposed to take with her fiancé, she impulsively goes to sea in the sailboat he left her, intending to complete the voyage alone.
But after a treacherous night’s sail, she realizes she can’t do it by herself and hires Keane, a professional sailor, to help. Much like Anna, Keane is struggling with a very different future than the one he had planned. As romance rises with the tide, they discover that it’s never too late to chart a new course.
In Trish Doller’s unforgettable Float Plan, starting over doesn't mean letting go of your past, it means making room for your future.
"The perfect escape. Fresh, funny, and romantic. I wish I could sail away with this book." - Meg Cabot, New York Times bestselling author of The Princess Diaries and Little Bridge series
Author bio:
TRISH DOLLER is the author of novels for teens and adults about love, life, and finding your place in the world. A former journalist and radio personality, Trish has written several YA novels, including the critically acclaimed Something Like Normal, as well as Float Plan, her adult women's fiction debut. When she's not writing, Trish loves sailing, traveling, and avoiding housework. She lives in southwest Florida with an opinionated herding dog and an ex-pirate.
Buy link: https://read.macmillan.com/lp/float-plan/
Social Links: @TrishDoller on Instagram and Twitter
