Three hours. Three hours since George told me to talk to Daniel. I've drank. I've danced. I've nibbled. I've done some small talk with guests. I've drank some more. But, talk to Daniel? I've avoided him like the plague. 

George once in a while gives me subtle pointed looks and at other times not so subtle head nods towards Daniel. I've noticed Daniel circling me a couple of times. He is definitely not the King of subtlety. I've managed to evade him successfully so far. At one point he was heading towards me and I used Gunther a protective shield to hide away. 

I got an amused look by the large German before I stumbled and poured white wine all over my dress. Thank goodness it's bloody black. Not my proudest moment I have to admit. 

Now, it's four in the morning. Half the party has left. The other half is blindly drunk. Including me. I sit in one of the furthest corners of the boat listening to the waves mixing with the DJ music and the occasional cheers from everyone else still holding on to their party mode on the other side of the ship. I look up to the stars with my champagne glass in my right hand swirling the liquid around the glass. 

I think about all the times that Daniel and I would do the same back in Meersbuch. Almost every night, after dinner, we would sit outside in the balcony with a glass of wine and look at the stars. Often it was bitterly cold and we would snug under a blanket with my head leaning on his shoulder. He would show me all the constellations and we would speak about a number of things. Big and small. Mundane and extraordinary. The three months we had together made more sense that all the years with Harry. 

I can feel the alcohol numbing my senses but somehow alighting my brain with vivid memories of the past. Of something I cherish and deeply miss. 

"Still can't find Ursa Major?" 

I lift my neck and see Daniel smiling at me. He finally managed to corner me. It's inescapable now. I sit up and sip the drink in my hand. 

"Wasn't trying to be honest. My lack of sobriety would not allow me to find a needle in a haystack."

Daniel slumps next to me. I can smell the mixture of his cologne with the alcohol that flows in his bloodstream. 

"I can still find it. Even if I also lack sobriety." He smirks and leans back to look up. He grins like a Cheshire cat within seconds. "There." He points to the sky. He looks at me still with his hand held up to the sky. "Want me to show you?"

I go back to my original position and rest my neck on the back of the seat. I gaze up to the star lit sky. Daniel starts drawing with his finger the constellation but I can't focus. He gives me a side glance. 

"Can you see it now?"

I shake my head. He picks up my left hand and raises it to the sky and starts tracing the constellation with my finger. Exactly as he used to do back in Meersbuch. I can feel how close he is. I turn my neck to the left only to find him staring at me. 

"Du hast dich vor mir versteckt..." he whispers. (You've been hiding from me...)

This is exactly like in Munich. He is completely drunk and his spiel has turned to German. But, this time around I have the upper hand with some understanding of what he is saying. 

"I haven't" I respond confidently and turn my eyes back to the sky. "I was around." 

He lowers my arm back down but his hand lingers on mine. 

I hear him chuckle softly. "Warum lernen Sie Deutsch?" (Why are you learning German?)

I shrug. "Why not?" 

He may be insistent in his German spiel but two can play this game.  Especially when I'm so drunk I may trip in the very long and complicated German words that I already find puzzling when I'm a fully functioning human being. 

"I used to live here for a little while and if you may remember I relied on other people either speaking with me or translating things for me. So... why not learn it?"

I lie. Shamelessly. My stomach roars in response. Even when I'm drunk the damn cat doesn't let me be. Daniel chuckles. He knows very well my tell now. How I wish we were back in the good old days when he would ask me if I was hungry....

The truth is that I downloaded Duolingo when we were in our awkward friend phase that culminated with the shitshow after the cousin wedding of hell. I wanted to surprise him somehow. I used to imagine that one day we would meet either in London or New York and I would astonish him with my fluency of his native tongue and that would be the catalyst for our reunion. 

Three months after I returned back to London, I saw an advert for short courses at City University. I enrolled the week after in German for Beginners. I kept my sustained effort until now. I'm not the most regular of students, but it's enough to understand drunken lines that my ex-boyfriend spits out. 

"Lügner..." (Liar...)

I huff in response and keep my eyes on the skylit painting above us. I feel his hand tracing small concentric circles on my arm. 

"Ich vermisse dich..." (I miss you...)

I choose to ignore him. You chose this, Daniel. Not me. 

"Vermisst du mich?" (Do you miss me?)

I can feel his eyes on me. My heart hurts at his words. I've been missing you from the moment you decided that we were no more. The moment you said that it was either everything or nothing. 

"You shouldn't have kissed me when you were helping me with my dress..." I counter-argue trying to avoid to give him an answer to his question. 

"You didn't like?" 

I turn around surprised he decided to switch back to English. 

"If you must know, no I didn't!" My stomach roars again. 

Daniel laughs almost maniacally. "Lügner..."

I sit up and shake his touch away from my arm. I get up abruptly and almost lose my balance once more. I turn to Daniel that is now sitting up with a frown. 

"Sitzen," he says as if almost is a command. (Sit)

I cross my arms while holding in my left hand the champagne flute. "I am a liar but at least I'm not a cheater."

Daniel frowns at my comment. "You're calling me a cheater?"

I smirk. "See anyone else here?" 

"I've never cheated on you..." He rubs his face before glaring at me again.

I drown the rest of the champagne in the glass and set it down in a nearby table. "I'm not talking about me... I guess Ada would not be very happy to see you all cosy here with me..."

Daniel frowns again. "Ada?"

"Or to know that you were touching me just now inappropriately, or about the kiss in the vestibule!" I turn around and point towards the cabin area as if I'm disclosing evidence in a grand jury. "Where is she anyway? Or, will she make an appearance at the worst possible time as usual?"

Daniel gets up. "I have no idea what you are talking about..." 

I approach him furiously and poke a finger at his chest accusatorily. "I'm talking about your girlfriend, Mr Cheater!"

Daniel looks away for a moment. "I don't have a girlfriend," he says stoically. 

I lower my indicator and my mouth opens wide. "But, Emily said..."

"I was with her for a little while. She came to New York and was intent in making things work between us. But, she quickly left and we called it what it was." His tone is frightenly sombre. "So whatever information Emily has given you, it's outdated and wrong. I'm not a cheater."

I gulp and look at him feeling a wave of shame overcome me. Suddenly, I want to go back to the point in the party where I was hiding from him. 

"Aber Sie sind trotzdem ein Lügner. Du hast über deinen kleinen Freund gelogen. Du hast gelogen, als du sagtest, du hättest Deutsch gelernt. Du hast wegen des Kusses gelogen. Und du willst nicht zugeben, dass du mich vermisst." (But you are still a liar. You lied about your little friend. You lied about learning German. You lied about the kiss. And you don't want to admit you miss me.)

My heart races with his words. A mixture of shame and anger. He stands near me with his accusatory tone still lingering and his pointed look demanding a response. 

I look down at my feet and turn around to walk away from him. Again. But, Daniel is quicker than I expected and cuts me off. He glares at me. 

"Warum gehen Sie mir aus dem Weg?" (Why are you avoiding me?)

I huff at his audacity. 

"Why am I avoiding you?" I raise my voice. "You really have no freaking idea why, Daniel? Really?" 

I turn back around and slump on the sofa and rub my hands on my face. I'm sure I'm smearing my make-up but at this point I don't really care. 

"You were the one that gave me the ultimatum. That cut all contact with me. That walked away. You! And, now after all this time... You think you can just waltz back into my life with your messages, and your Kleiner, and your kisses and touches and I will just fall into your arms? You want to know why I lie? Because then it doesn't hurt as much to think you preferred to not to have me at all in your life then to wait and see what would happen. Because that was my game plan all along." 

I take a deep breath and get up. I pace wildly from right to left. "I was so stupid that I thought we had a chance. I thought we would be apart for a little while but that we would find our way back somehow. But you with your stupid black and white life philosophy shut it all down. You shut it down and moved on to New York with Ava and apparently you started painting!"

"Ava didn't move with me to New York..." he rebuts.

"Do you really think I care about Ava?" I stop and look at him bewildered. "Painting! You're painting after you told me it was a stupid dream. After you dismissed my dreams. You go to New York and you start painting again..." 

I chuckle. Not the type of chuckle when you find something amusing but the kind that you give yourself when you have an epiphany. 

"While, I was the stupid one that stood still. Trying to understand what happened. How I could have found you, only to lose you? I've been trying to get closure from the briefest affair I've ever had and that has wounded me so much that I'm barely adept at relationships anymore. So call me what you want but I'm not the one that fucked it up here and you have no right to act as if nothing has happened."

I can see in his eyes that he wasn't expecting me to have a full blown meltdown. He stays silent for the longest of times. His eyes turn misty as if he is avoiding tears from spilling. I look away trying to do the same. 

"Can we just get through the rest of this stupid wedding and go back to the point where we both ignore each other existence, please?" I whisper.  

"Kle.." He stops himself and stays silent for a beat. Clearly at a loss for words. "I'm sorry, Natalie," he finally says.  

I give him a curt nod and disappear as quickly as I can. Part of me hopes he will leap again in front of me but I know that is my wild imagination playing tricks in my wounded heart. I take a deep breath and re-join the party that is oblivious to our little showdown. I approach the bar and take the brown liquor that has been my saviour tonight. 

I lean at the counter to look for a glass. 

"Fraulein..." the bartender eyes me while looking at the bottle I just retrieved. 

"Ein Glas.." I say while shaking the bottle. (One glass...)

The bartender frowns but gives me the glass. I pour the whiskey on the glass and swing it in one go. I wipe my mouth as the alcohol burns through my throat and pour another one. 

"Fraulein..." The bartender attempts to retrieve the bottle from my hands.

"Ich habe sie..." (I got her)

Jonas takes the bottle from my hand and I whimper like a child in return. 

"What did I say about taking it easy?"

I huff and go back to my still full glass. The time to go easy has long gone. I look up and see Daniel standing near Gunther with a drink in his hand. He looks at me and drowns whatever he is drinking. I mimic him and try to reach the bottle that Jonas has in his reach. 

"Nein!" He admonishes me. "What are you two doing? Some kind of drink me stupid contest?" 

I settle the glass down and walk away but the two almost full glasses of whiskey alongside the other cocktail of alcohol content in my stomach makes me queasy. I lose my balance and almost fall over a deck chair. I feel someone holding me. 

"Daniel?" I slur. 

"That's it. Party is over." 

George picks me up effortlessly and we leave the boat party of hell. 

"What were you thinking?" I hear George saying before blacking out in his arms.