Saltwater

Nico

It was quiet in my room. The oil lamp on my bedside table seemed to be flickering in tempo with the waves jostling my body back and forth on my cot, exhausted but unable to sleep, like I had been for an eternity. I lay there, in a purgatory worse than hell, my delicate white nightshirt insufficient at comforting the aches of my body or heart. 

I couldn't do this. I couldn't marry a woman that I haven't even spoken to. She didn't deserve a husband like that, like me. I certainly couldn't curse my children with a father too weak and pathetic to care for them.

So I wouldn't.

I forced my body upright, my bare feet on the wooden floor, and grasped the crucifix around my neck. "I'm sorry." I muttered. "Forgive me, Christ, for what I plan to do."

I then stood, put out my lamp, and snuck out to the bow of the ship. The chill of the October wind seeped right through my thin linen shirt, the salt it carried stinging my throat, but I carried on. I clamored onto the bowsprit, my arms wrapped around the figurehead's wooden waist. 

As I fell, my fist around my rosary, time itself seemed to slow down, and I pictured my tombstone: Prince Nicolas diAngelo, January 28, 1686 to October 24, 1704. We expected a leader, and we got a coward.