Marine Boundaries: The Gratifying Journey of an Underwater Intervention Team

I feel like this is usually the part where I tell a joke and everyone laughs and we all have a good time. But I know that's not going to happen, because these are my friends. And these are their problems.

"So..." I begin. "I have your paperwork here."

They're all staring at me with blank looks on their faces. Well, except for Emily. She's got that scowl on her face that she always gets when she thinks I'm taking too long to get to the point. "Marina," she says impatiently, "we want to help you, but we don't really know what you need help with."

"I'm just... uh... well... it's..." I stammer, trying to find the words to explain my problem. "I'm lonely," I finally spit out. There's silence in the room for a few seconds as they look at each other with confused looks on their faces. Finally, Patrick speaks up.

"That's... not one of our problems." He sounds almost offended by the suggestion that his personal struggles might be related to mine in any way whatsoever.

"Well..." I begin again, flustered and unsure of what to say next. "It is! Anyway, that's not why I called you guys here today..." It's true, though. I am lonely. It's been a little over a month since Dominic broke up with me and frankly, it's been hard going alone long distance with him being gone so much for work - he already has two other long-distance relationships and I didn't realize how exhausting it would be until after we got together and he was constantly flying between us. And now the last person he wants to travel with is me because apparently his entire family hates me now? So yeah, it's not been fun or easy or anything like that but whatever - back to the problem at hand: my loneliness!

"I think you should talk about your breakup with Dominic," Emily states bluntly, further proving her status as Chief Jerk of the entire group (a title she earned when she was only 9 years old). "You've had some time now to think about it and process it."

"Are you kidding?" Patrick snorts derisively from across the table from her. "Dominic was an asshole."

Emily throws him a dirty look and shrugs defensively. "Well," she begins quietly, looking down at her hands folded on the table in front of her, "I don't think it was nice for him to break up with her over Thanksgiving dinner." Emily's parents had thrown a dinner for all of Dominic's family members who were also in town that night so he could see them all together before he went back home - everyone had been so happy and excited and generally just full of good feelings and then suddenly he says he can't do this anymore - we're over - goodbye forever - and all his relatives were left staring at their plates in shock while Emily sat there choking on turkey and stuffing with tears in her eyes thinking no one was going to notice if she threw up because honestly she didn't even realize what had happened until after everyone had left the table and Dominic was gone forever which wouldn't have been so bad except for the fact that Emily kept calling him every day afterwards until eventually everybody who knew either one of them stopped picking up their phone when they heard her voice on the other end saying things like 'Dominic' or 'hey' or 'weeelllll?' or even just 'uhhhh'.