Channel Crossing
"On a ferry to France, divorced geography teacher Hannah shares cabin space with a handsome stranger—and a storm forces them closer together."
The ferry to Calais was packed—holiday crowds, school trips, lorry drivers heading to the continent. I'd booked late and ended up with shared cabin accommodation, which at forty-three and recently divorced felt like a particular kind of humiliation.
"Looks like we're bunkmates." The man standing in the cabin doorway was around my age, carrying a single rucksack and an apologetic smile. "I'm Tom. I promise I don't snore."
"Hannah. And I can't make that promise."
He laughed and threw his bag on the top bunk. "Fair enough. Heading to France for fun or work?"
"Fun. First holiday alone since..." I gestured vaguely.
"Since the divorce?" At my surprised look, he shrugged. "Same boat. Figuratively and literally. Sometimes you can just tell."
We shared the cabin but spent the first hours of the crossing separately—me on the deck watching England disappear, him somewhere I didn't track. But when the storm hit, everything changed.
The Channel in a storm was a different proposition entirely. The ferry pitched and rolled, announcements warned everyone to stay inside, and the corridors emptied of anyone with the sense to find stable ground.
I found Tom in the cabin, looking slightly green.
"Not a sailor?" I asked, gripping the doorframe.
"Apparently not." The ferry lurched, and he grabbed the bunk rail. "Is it supposed to do that?"
"It's supposed to eventually stop."
"That's not reassuring."
I sat on my bunk, bracing against the motion. "Distraction helps. Tell me about your divorce."
"That's your idea of distraction?"
"It's something to focus on."
So he told me. Seven years married, three gradually realizing it wasn't working, one horrific year extracting himself from a life that had stopped fitting. It sounded familiar because it was familiar—my story, with different names and slightly different details.
"The worst part," he said, "is realizing you've been unhappy so long you forgot what happy felt like."
"I know exactly what you mean." Another lurch, another grab for stability. "I was a geography teacher. Spent twenty years telling students about places I'd never been. When the divorce finalized, I decided to actually see them."
"Starting with France?"
"Starting with France. Then Italy, Spain, wherever the fancy takes me." I smiled despite the ship's attempts to throw me off the bunk. "I've got savings and no responsibilities. Might as well use both."
"That's brave."
"That's desperate. But I'm hoping it becomes brave eventually."
The storm peaked around midnight. Neither of us could sleep—the motion was too violent, the sounds too alarming. We ended up sitting on the floor between the bunks, braced against each other for stability.
"This is ridiculous," Tom said. His arm had somehow ended up around me, steadying us both.
"Completely ridiculous."
"And yet I'm glad you're here." His voice was close to my ear. "Better than weathering this alone."
"I've been weathering things alone for a long time."
"Me too." His hand found my face, turned it toward him. "Hannah. I'm going to kiss you. If you don't want me to, say so now."
I didn't say anything. The ferry lurched, and our mouths found each other, and suddenly the storm didn't matter. He tasted of the ferry's mediocre coffee and something else—loneliness, maybe, or the particular hunger of people who'd been without touch for too long.
"Bunk," I gasped when we broke apart.
"Which one?"
"Either. Both. I don't care."
We tumbled onto mine, the lower one, and the storm became the rhythm of our movements. His hands found curves my ex-husband had stopped appreciating years ago; his mouth told my body things it had forgotten it could feel. When he finally pushed inside me, the ferry's motion merged with ours, and I couldn't tell what was waves and what was want.
"There," he breathed. "God, Hannah, you feel—"
"Don't stop. Don't—"
I came with the ferry cresting a wave, the timing so absurd we both laughed even as I shattered. He followed moments later, and we collapsed into each other while the Channel continued its tantrum outside.
"So," he said when we could speak again. "France."
"France."
"I don't actually have plans. Just bought a ticket because I needed to be somewhere else."
"Me neither." I propped myself up. "Want to make plans together? Just for a while. Two divorced teachers figuring out what comes next."
"I'm not a teacher. I'm an architect."
"Two divorced professionals, then."
"I could be persuaded." He kissed me softly. "Though I should warn you—I'm not looking for anything serious."
"Neither am I. I'm looking for adventures."
"Adventures I can do."
We spent a month traveling together. France, then Spain, then Portugal. Two people who'd met by accident and chosen to keep meeting, day after day, night after night. The sex stayed good. The conversation stayed better. And somewhere along the way, the "nothing serious" became something neither of us had expected.
I'm back in England now. So is he. But we're not back to our old lives—we're building new ones, together, starting from that storm-tossed cabin where two lonely people found each other and decided that being found was better than weathering things alone.
The Channel crossing took twelve hours. The storm took six. But what started in that cabin has lasted years now, and shows no signs of stopping. Sometimes the best journeys aren't about the destination—they're about who you meet in the crossing.