The Day Of The Wave

by Wicks, Becky

  'What's so funny?' he asks.

  'Nothing!' Sasi throws me a conspiratorial look, tilts her head back so he can reach her lips. They seem like they never broke up at all. It's hard to believe he was hooking up with that French girl just a few days ago, but maybe they both had some kind of an epiphany at the same time. Maybe the past doesn't matter because they still have now. Life is too short to be with the people who don't make us happy. Life's too short to do anything that doesn't make us happy, actually.

  'We have to go,' Sonthi says. They exchange a few words in Thai before she gets up, puts a hand on my arm over my scars. Her eyes are kind now. I don't think she's angry with me.

  'I go see my mother. I see you later.'

  'OK,' I say. I watch her walk around the back of the dive shop. But the uneasiness floods my veins again when I see Ben testing a mask on the older woman in the doorway. She's laughing as it pinches her nose. Her husband is taking photos. Ben takes the phone, takes a shot of them together, right before his eyes dart to mine. It's a split second but my heart convulses like he's just put a livewire to it.

  It's fear and dread and exhilaration all at once - the jumble of emotions I feel at the sight of him now. I have no idea how I came to wake up locked in his arms in that hotel room and if it wasn't for my raging headache and the burning need to drink about twenty liters of water I probably would have never moved. It's comfortable and easy with Ben, like it always was, but at the same time he has layers I can't fathom at all. I feel like I've opened a door partway and all I want to do is kick it down, but I can't.

  Not yet anyway.

  I swipe my hands across my hot face, pull my iPad out of my bag quickly, connect to the WIFI. Colin's not logged onto Skype but I type him an email before I can chicken out.

  Don't make it harder, Colin.

  When I look back up, Ben's walking over to my table. His tall frame and the slight bulge of his biceps in his wetsuit makes my throat dry up, even before he meets my eyes again. I shove the iPad back into my bag. He's carrying flippers and a huge black torch on a cord. His mask is down around his neck, under his stubbled chin.

  'Right, we won't be long,' he says, leaning on the table next to me with one arm.

  'No problem, I'll moon-bathe.'

  He winks. 'Good plan. Are you going to wait here?'

  What?

  I'm still smiling but the line is like a punch to my gut; so much so that I can't do anything but nod quickly, pull my notebook out with a pen and hold them up at him. Does he even realize that's pretty much exactly what he said on the day of the wave, when my infatuation was a glue that kept me stuck right here, on a bench like this? Are you going to wait here?

  He narrows his eyes like he's about to say something. 'Ben!' Sonthi calls from the beach. They're all getting onto the boat.

  'Gotta go hot cross bun,' he says now, squeezing my shoulder. I still can't speak. I keep expecting him to say he'll bring me back a blue starfish, but he runs up the beach before the tears fill up my eyes and there's nothing I can do to stop him.

  *

  I watched the boat leave with Ben on it. My hand was still hot from his touch. The buzz through my body stopped me moving for a second as the bird's egg blue of the water sloshed up around my legs and waist. I wanted to go with them, but I had to ride an elephant and Toby had to get qualified.

  He won't be gone that long, I thought. I knew each dive was only forty-five minutes to an hour, depending on who ran out of air first. Most of the time when he was out with Charlie I collected shells with Toby on the beach, or wrote in my notebooks. I had a million stories. Since I'd met Ben I'd been writing more about true love's kiss. Lame, but true.

  I walked back and sat at the table, right by a Japanese woman who was looking at fish in a book of Asian marine life. She was wearing a funny, floppy white hat with a chinstrap. I think her husband was on the dive. I got out my notebook but I couldn't really concentrate.

  Maybe I'll have to give it to you when I get back. That's what Ben just said. He was looking straight at my lips while he said it, too. He meant a kiss, I knew it. I could feel it.

  I'll stay here and wait for his kiss, I thought, running my fingers over my lips. I was caught in the giddy rush again; the one I'd been getting every time I thought about Ben; his ocean-blue eyes, his lips, his laugh, his voice, his everything. I was a balloon full of love, the truest kind, floating high, about to burst.

  'They're so loud today, aren't they?' the Japanese lady said.

  'What?'

  'The dogs!'

  It was only then I realized they were barking. But I'd never heard so many dogs barking by the beach before. Most of them were lazy, just lounging around nonchalantly under loungers and in the shade of longtail boats. They were wild now.

  'I don't know what's wrong with them,' I said. 'What are they even barking at?'

  'They're making my head hurt,' she groaned, covering her hat with her hands and squishing it up at the sides in annoyance.

  I stood up, walked away along the sand in the hot sun. It looked like a brown-colored dog on a chain outside a shack was trying to get away, but before I could reach him, the dogs that were free to move turned and ran full-speed towards me, then bolted like lightning onto the road leading inland from the beach. I saw birds then too, lots of them, flying over everyone's heads in flocks. 'Weird.'

  A woman close to me echoed my thoughts. 'This is so weird!' Then I saw she wasn't even looking at the birds.

  The ocean wasn't where it had been.

  Before I started walking, the waves had been touching the sand just meters from my bench. Less than three minutes later, the water was gone. The rocks were jutting out like rotten teeth in a mouth. 'What the hell?' another woman in a blue sarong cried out, running from a resort exit and onto the sand in front of me. 'This isn't right.'

  I wanted to laugh at her face; she looked totally baffled. A kid in bright green shorts ran ahead of her across the stretch of exposed, wet sand. I watched him till he stopped and started pointing. 'Look, mummy! Look at the fish!'

  There were hundreds of them suddenly. They were silver, gleaming in the sun, leaping like glossy acrobats. I heard laughter and shrieks all around me. 'Go catch some, quick!' the woman cried at the boy, and he ran out onto the sand while she clapped her hands and turned to me, shrugging and pulling a face in amusement. Other people along the beach were running out there too and for a second I almost followed. I want to catch some fish!

  The dog on the chain was still barking manically as I walked back to the dive shop, laughing to myself. 'We don't get flying fish in England,' I told the Japanese lady, picking up my pen again.

  Flying fish. There has to be room in my story for those.

  A hand on my arm. 'What's that?' The lady clutched at me, hard, then harder. Then she hopped to her feet. Her book fell to the floor.

  I heard the noise at the same time as I saw the water leaping a million times higher than the fish. It was dancing straight towards us from the horizon, a beautiful white wall, the height of a building. And it was screaming like a jet plane.

  'It's coming!' she yelled, pulling me from the bench. I was frozen stiff. The sound was getting louder. 'It's coming!'

  What?

  'Run!'

  What?

  'Run!!!'

  I turned around, ran as fast as my legs would carry me. Her hat flew off her head just ahead of me and dangled by its strap at the back of her neck; the last thing I saw.

  The water slammed into me, slipped under me and tumbled with me in it like a spin cycle, till the force of it pinned me to a fence full of barbed wire. It happened in seconds. Over and over again it slammed me up against the spikes. I held on till my arms were raw, even as my clothes were ripped clean from my body. Oh my God, I'm naked.

  'Up here!'

  A boy in a tree, high above me, reaching down to me. 'Take my hand!' he yelled over the pummeling whoosh and the ringing in my ears. He climbed down a little, reached further. He
was bleeding from the side of his head. 'You have to come up here now, or you'll die! It's coming back, it's coming back!'

  What's happening? I'm naked. What is this?! Did the world end? Where are my mom and dad?

  In the back of my mind, as I drifted between awareness of the boy's hands hauling me up and a state of half-gone dreamy nothingness, my thoughts galloped over my parents, waiting back in their hotel room. And Ben, out on the boat with Toby and Charlie. Ben had my kiss. I was only waiting for my kiss.

  I'll never get my kiss.

  BEN

  My eyes scan the dive shop lights till I find her. My pulse rockets, then calms at the sight of her head bent over her notebook. 'Great dive, guys,' I say as the boat pulls up, 'get the wetsuits off in the dunk tank and we'll fill out the log books, OK?'

  I pick up a tank, help Sue and her husband gather their flippers and BCDs while Sonthi jumps down to help them onto the beach. The moon is bright tonight, big and almost full. Usually we don't dive on full moons as the currents can be a little unpredictable, but tonight went pretty smoothly. The wreck is always incredible, though. Sue got her octopus sighting. I got to play with a Spanish Dancer - a pink slinky thing that seems to love being held by humans. Sometimes I think he recognizes me. Then we all got to float like astronauts through the bioluminescence; a neon cloud of underwater stardust that's only visible when we turn the lights out. The tourists love that.

  Izzy looks up from her writing when I'm halfway up the beach. She stands quickly and I raise my hand, but it's only when I step off the sand and onto the concrete floor in the lights that I realize how pale she looks. I put the tank down on the floor for the staff to look after, unzip my suit.

  'You came back,' she says. Relief is written all over her face as she looks me up and down.

  'Of course I came back!'

  She sits on the bench again heavily, covers her face with her hands for a second and rakes her hair. Shit.

  'Izzy, I'm so sorry.' I sit beside her as the pieces fall into place, put a hand to her back. 'Were you sitting here thinking about all that? The last time I left you?'

  Shit, shit, shit.

  I'm dripping all over the floor and table. It hadn't even crossed my mind she'd start to weigh up the past with the present. I was concentrating on Sue and her husband and their first ever night dive. I never let people out of my sight anymore; I never think of anything down there, if I can help it. Diving clears my head, that's why I do it. I space out except for a hyperawareness of the actions of everyone with me and their dive buddies, especially at night. A pitch-black ocean can twist the perspective of anyone down there. If it weren't for your bubbles, always floating upwards, you wouldn't even know which direction you were facing most of the time.

  'I was just being stupid,' she says now. 'I'm just glad you're back, safe.'

  'I'm always safe, I told you that.' I bring her hand to my mouth and kiss her fingers quickly. 'I'll be five minutes more, OK? Then we'll go eat and watch a movie, sound good?'

  'Sounds good,' she says, just as her iPad starts buzzing with the Skype sound in her purse. She ignores it as I go finish up with the couple, cursing under my breath every time I glance her way. Of course she was freaking out being here. This is right where I left her last time. This is right where I left everything. Idiot.

  I wrap up the log book stuff as fast as I can. 'Don't think movie happening,' Sonthi tells them as he gathers up the Dream Dive pens. Sue looks disappointed. 'Rain coming,' he adds, pointing at the sky.

  He's right. It's about to start again. 'Things are always unpredictable this time of year,' I say.

  'We saw our octopus, I'm happy,' her husband grins, putting an arm around his wife. They're so cute. This is why I love my job. This is why I stay; well, one of the reasons anyway.

  When I'm done and the happy couple have promised to write something nice on TripAdvisor I tell Sonthi we'll meet him later. He puts a hand to my shoulder before he leaves, motions to Izzy, who's looking out at the water now. 'I won't tell Kalaya,' he grins. 'I tell Sasi not to tell her, too.'

  'Tell her what?' I shove his chest, roll my eyes and he walks off laughing.

  'Let's go!' I shout to Izzy. She stands, hugging her purse to her chest as I switch off all the lights and hand the keys to the staff to lock up. Her iPad is still making noises. 'Aren't you going to answer that, before we go out of WIFI range?' I say, but she shakes her head, making a point of not looking at me. The tension in the air is a living thing the moment we're alone, coiling around us with the threat of the oncoming storm. 'You sure?'

  'I'm sure.' She walks with me to where we left the bikes. The crickets are so loud. The smell of frangipanis is stronger than ever in the humid air. 'It's just Colin,' she says, flickering her eyes at me suddenly in the moonlight.

  'You don't want to talk to him?' I'm biting my cheek as I get my keys out. My hands are so shaky all of a sudden that I drop them and have to pick them up from the dirt. Sonthi got to me. All the way back on the boat he was talking at me, asking questions about what happened on Phi Phi.

  'I broke up with him, for good,' she says.

  Shit.

  'I know he'll want to talk about it, and try to change my mind. Am I bitch for not picking up?' Izzy rests her purse on her seat, fishes for her own keys.

  Stay cool.

  'Put the lights on,' I tell her. I walk to her side as she climbs on, puts on her helmet, flips the stand and balances the bike between her legs. My fingers brush hers on the dash as I flip the lights on. I do up her chinstrap with fumbling hands. Her soft breaths on my face are like zaps to my insides.

  'When did you break it off?' I ask, keeping my voice nonchalant.

  Her eyes flit to my scratches. 'Today, but I was a bit of a chicken, I wrote him an email,' she says. 'We talk so much on Skype and on the phone and every time we do that he manages to convince me that everything's fine, when it's not. I only see that clearly when I'm...'

  'When you're what?'

  Izzy turns the key in the ignition. The bikes rumbles to life but I press my hand over hers on the brake. The wind howls between us again. Already the clouds are threatening to block out the moon. 'When you're what?' I say again.

  'Doing stuff I would never do with him,' she finishes. 'Like this.' She revs the engine slightly. A grin spreads from her mouth to her big brown eyes and I can't help matching it.

  'Well, you're one hell of a hell's angel,' I say as her hair blows out from her helmet and brushes my cheek. Some of the tension lifts. Some, but not all. 'I'm not so sure many people could match your awesomeness, Isla Sullivan.'

  'I have you to thank for that,' she says. 'Let's go before it rains.'

  'Yes ma'am.'

  It takes us just a few minutes to reach Shady Palms, but by the time we get there the rumbles from across the headland are louder each time. It could get pretty serious later. I guide her up the pathway under the swaying trees, till the glisten of the ocean is ahead of us again. We stop between our two huts. 'I have to shower.'

  'Me too.' she says.

  'I'll knock for you in ten.'

  'OK.'

  I watch her head into her room, then I walk back into mine, turn on the shower. With the water splashing my face I look up at the bathroom ceiling - the sky - black with no spattering of starlight now. I still feel so bad about what Izzy must have been thinking tonight, sitting there waiting for me like before. Staying here might be my own way of making sure I never let go completely, but that doesn't mean Izzy feels the same. She's been trying to let go since that day, while I've been trying to hold on. Somehow we just met in the middle.

  Did she really break up with Colin?

  The battering in my chest at the thought of her next door makes me soap up faster and I'm dressed in my jeans and a white shirt in no time. I can't help pacing my room, though. If she broke up with Colin, and I broke up Kalaya, there's no barrier anymore; there's nothing to hide behind. The only thing between us right now are these walls.

&n
bsp; Pull it together.

  I grab two waters from the fridge, head back outside, run up her steps faster than I probably should. I knock on her door and she opens it right away. She's wearing the long green dress and a look I can read as apprehension, because it's pretty much like looking in a mirror. Her hair is wet, down around her shoulders, falling into her cleavage. 'Drink?' I say, holding out the bottle.

  She smiles, taking it. 'No bucket tonight?'

  'I don't trust you with buckets.'

  She laughs, steps past me onto the deck and rests her folded arms on the railings. I stand next to her, watching the rain. The branches and bushes are glittered with droplets now and the jasmine is blooming like it always does at night, filling the thick, heavy air with perfume. I can feel the pressure like the storm, building out at sea and inside me. 'I'm so sorry I made you wait tonight,' I say after a moment. 'I didn't even think, Izzy, I'm such an idiot.'

  'You were doing your job, Ben, don't worry about it. You do it every day, why would you think about it?'

  'I just don't want to bring all that stuff back for you...'

  'I was thinking about the starfish,' she cuts in, turning around with her back to the ocean. The wind is causing ripples to billow in the flat black blanket of it. She looks to me. 'On that day, I was waiting for you to come back, and I was writing in my book and I was thinking how you were going to give me that starfish.'

  I sit down on the hammock now, but my eyes never break from hers. 'I forgot about that,' I say. I really did. Things got crazy after that.

  Don't think about it.

  'It wasn't just a starfish I was waiting for though, Ben,' she says now, folding her arms and looking down at them, nervously. I watch her teeth on her bottom lip, biting down, and my heart starts its thud, thud, thud.