“All aboard!” yelled Drew, my hilarious best friend, who since 5th grade had my back in every fight, tried to help me get with girls, and joked about the severity of my shyness. We boarded the large boat that Drew Vinson, Rick Richardson (Who’s a jerk), Mario Alaphatibita, and Celia Alaphatibita (with the help of her rich father) bought only a year ago, with all the money that we could compile. So far we were still in the red, because we hadn’t caught a lot of fish.

So we got on the ship and the trip started like most did: with Rick making snide, annoying comments, Drew making fun of all of us; and Mario being the aggressive husband to Celia. This is the part where I should tell you that I hate him. He epitomizes those husbands who their wives reluctantly marry for the sake of getting married, and he divorces them fifteen years later for someone better, younger, or richer. I couldn’t imagine anyone better than Celia, with her beautiful tall body, and her flowing soft brown hair, that has cluttered my dreams, and made Italy my new favorite country. She deserved better than him. She deserved someone who would treat her nice, someone, well… someone like me. I would never tell anyone that though, even through Drew’s implications of it, I would never, because Mario my enemy/friend was HUGE. He was a 6’7 250 pound former college defensive end for Michigan State (I met him because Drew played Wide Receiver there). So basically I’m a wimp, passive, poor fisherman, fool. Basically the total package, right?
“Hey babe,” Said Mario,”wanna go down to the room.”
“Mario, stop,” muttered an annoyed Celia, “It’s our shift, and the map says there’s supposed to be a lot of fish here, and it wouldn’t be nice to make Dom do all the work.”
Mario rolled his eyes and went to go eat lunch with Rick and Drew.
“Sorry”, Celia whispered, in her soft Italian-America voice.
“It’s fine”, said the puny doormat.
Then twenty minutes of silence went by, as I thought about what a baby I was, and she probably thought about what a jerk she married. Then I got a bite. Not just a bite like a salmon, no! A bite, like a freaking whale. The last thing I remember were Celia’s hands trying to keep me on the boat and her screams. Her concern. She cared.
An hour later I awakened to Drew’s screaming, “I got him, I got him, holy crap”.
Then I heard him say “Thank you God, for saving my best friend”, but his mouth didn’t move. In fact I heard it in my head.
I thought about that oddity as my friend jumped out of the raft picked my pruning body up, and brought me back to the boat, with little difficulty.
“Pay me, pay me now Rick”, yelled Mario with glee.
“Fine, here you go all one-hundred”, moaned Rick.
“What are you guys betting on”, I asked.
“Rick said he’d bet one-hundred dollars you were dead, after you were under for two minutes, so naturally I took the deal”, said Mario, as if that in itself wasn’t enough to send a man to Hell. Then again I heard a voice that sounded like Mario but didn’t come from my ears it came from my head it said, “It’s a pity, I would have taken the loss to kill that baby”.
“This is why women don’t like you Richardson, your such an a**”, joked Drew,” to bet against my man Dom’s living, you’re crazy, he’s lived 27 years straight”.
“CEEELIIIAAAA, Come up here I’ve got a surprise!” then a tear stricken Celia, face covered in mascara, appeared.
“Oh my… Dom you’re alive”, she said in shock, “but it’s been forty-five minutes”, she blurted out. WHAT! “Forty-five minutes! I was under for forty-five minutes and no one told me. I don’t even remember any of it! FORTY-FIVE MINUTES!” I screamed with rage. I mean that can’t be possible. “Actually it was forty, you’ve been up here for five”, said Drew, “and that’s a good point, Dom, you have the world record, congratulations”.
Then I heard two things in my head. One in the beautiful voice I have come to love, “Thank you God, thank you for saving the nice guy”
“Thank you God, thank you for the hundred bucks”.

Then I realized, something happed in those freezing Atlantic Ocean waters. I could, and don’t call me crazy, hear what people would say or think about me.
The next two days were filled with the normal amount of fish, which is very little. Then one evening I went to bed early, and Rick had fishing duties, Drew and Celia were finishing the dinner I just ate, and Mario was steering the ship.
“Hey Mario”, I heard Rick say which was the first voice in my head in the last two hours. The voice had been mostly boring stuff in the last couple days, which I have no problem with, cause that means people aren’t talking bout me, they’re just saying that I’m eating, or thinking where’d he go. But then Mario said the one thing I finally cared about:
“Hey Rick, I have to ask you something. You know my “friend” Jillian the Starbucks girl. Yeah well she’s starting to get suspicious that I’m cheating on her, as opposed to, with her, and she wants me to take her away to prove that I love her. I have been with her for two years, so that does make sense. She thinks that I’m in boring conventions in Connecticut this week. But she wants to go to Hawaii, so what could I tell Celia. I mean I know she’ll run to that girl Dom, if she ever thought I was cheating on her……”
The rest I didn’t hear, because apparently it had nothing to do with me but I had heard enough. Enough to know that Celia should be mine not that jerk’s. I decided she should know that I wouldn’t’ be the passive baby, Drew always told me I was. I spent that whole night just dreaming about it.
The next day during lunch, I approached Mario and whispered, “Celia know about Jillian, she told me all about it. But I think if you go over and tell her yourself she’ll forgive you”
I walked away and missed his reaction, because I had to make sure he didn’t see my ear-to-ear grin.
He walked slowly to Celia, and said, “Celia, baby, it’s true I do cheat on you, but I do love you. I’m sorry, I hope you’re mad, I’ll call Jillian and break it off right now if you want”
After a moment of shock and silence, she said, “What? Who’s Jillian, o one of your little girlfriends. I never loved you, you jerk.”, and with that she slapped him across the face, and stormed away.
Mario was so shocked, but did start to put the pieces together. He was going to hit somebody. But surprisingly he went after Rick.
“Rick you jacka**, you had to tell this dirtbag”, Mario screamed
He than ran up and knocked him out. That punch would have killed me.
Now was my chance to find out as Mario approached me. Mario cocked his arm back slowly. I counted one, two, three veins in his neck. He wasn’t stopping, he was for real. O crap! I was gonna hit off boat as we both stood against a 3 foot wall. I heard, “I hate you Dom”
That wasn’t in his head, his mouth yelled that one. As he started throwing his hand forward, which would surly have hurt Drew came out of no where nailed him with a shot in his face. Rick and Mario both lay unconscious, the jerk and his goon

Celia ran over and hugged me.

We docked the next day, Rick and Mario walked off the boat without a word.
So it’s a week now and tomorrow night Celia and I go on our first date. She has high hopes, I heard her think it.