by Nikki Godwin
Part of me wants to tell him it’s not the competition that makes them crazy...or makes him crazy. This whole whirlwind of lies and the secret life of Colby Taylor is what makes everyone crazy.
“Hey, Saturday night…Sunday morning–midnight, meet me here?” he asks. “I swear, this time I mean it. None of that no-show paper star mess. For real. Will you meet me here?”
I’ll be long gone before then. I plan on bailing as soon as competition gets underway. I don’t want to leave, but it takes so many days to drive back across the country.
“Why didn’t you show?” I ask, crossing another question off my mental list.
He shrugs. “I got scared,” he says. “I didn’t mean to be a jerk about it like that. I was afraid you’d figure out who I was or someone else would see me. I bailed before I could get caught. I’d hoped you’d find the star, though.”
I nod as he explains he left it there as a good luck token for me. I wish I had it right now. I need some luck. And I seriously have to get away from Colby Taylor.
“So you’ll meet me here? This very spot?” he asks again. He counts the tiki torches. “Third torch from the end?”
“Definitely,” I lie. “I’ll be here.”
The night is as dead as the guy who was once Spence Burks, and I’d give anything to hear the roar of Vin’s motorcycle or even that dying cat shriek of A.J.’s car. For a clear cove night, the air is thick with disappointment. The stars mock me from way above, looking down on me and laughing. They make me feel like I’m back in junior high and not cool enough to hang with the popular girls because my hair is too frizzy and my makeup isn’t heavy enough.
Red Christmas lights flicker on the hill above where Colby’s truck is parked. Their time with me is short-lived before the restaurant’s owner flips them back off and heads home for the night. But those words – those words painted in red on a wooden sign with a silly red crab painted next to them – give me hope. Solomon’s Crab Shack. His light has found me on the far side of the cove.
“Oh shit!” Colby yells. He grabs my arm, and we pummel back toward the wooden floor of the pier. “Get back!” he hisses.
We duck down behind a garbage can that smells like bananas and onions. Headlights whirl around the parking lot, near his truck, and in the vicinity of where we’re hiding. I don’t think he’s even breathing. In the moonlight, I can see his wide eyes, but he’s a statue.
“That was close,” he finally whispers after the car is far gone.
I hate admitting that Vin was right. But he was so right.
Colby Taylor is never going to change.
I keep my best smile painted on my face through the first DVD Colby shows me of his surfing competitions from last summer. He falls asleep during the second DVD, the one where Alston is mock interviewing him about surfing and what it means to him. It was filmed not long after Shark died, before Colby lost all of his heart. He has a spark in his eyes and a light in his voice that reminds me of Miles and the way he talked about “getting it” and how Dominic never would. If this forever-chasing path leads to what Colby’s become, then the gods of forever can have forever back.
I grab his cell phone off the coffee table and slip outside. I carry my flip flops so they won’t make any extra noise. His contacts are very few, so it’s easy to spot the name I need. I press the “send” button and wait until I hear his voice.
Then I whisper, “Hey, it’s me. I need your help.”
