by Nikki Godwin
“I wish we could take the dragon,” A.J. says, pointing across the carnival grounds.
The turquoise dragon rests back against the sunken pirate ship. The ride looks even more massive sitting on the ground. Jace’s flashlight batteries are dead, but he set out to detach a dragon and did it.
Topher glances over at it after he jumps down from the bed of Colby’s truck.
“Looks like a wave,” he says. “I wish you could take it too.”
A.J. looks down at the dragon inked on his arm, the same one from the ship, and shrugs. “I guess, in a sense, I’ll always have it,” he says. “We don’t have a truck big enough to haul that thing.”
The House of Mirrors stands as the only intact item on the grounds. The tilt-a-whirl is in metal shambles, strewn across the ground like a junkyard. What’s left of the carousel sits behind us. I didn’t think this place could be any creepier in the glow of the moonlight, but it looks like a storm swept through here and ripped the place to ghostly pieces.
“Alright,” A.J. says, glimpsing around one more time. “Let’s go. There’s nothing more we can do here.”
He walks over to Colby’s truck, gets into the driver’s seat, and cranks up the truck. It actually breaks my heart that he never looks back.
An hour after we drop the final items off in the storage unit at Reed’s dad’s store, Topher still buzzes with adrenaline. He fidgets next to me on the couch while Alston and Kale curse each other throughout their racecar game.
“We should go surfing,” Topher says. “Right now. Night surfing. Who’s in?”
“I’ll go,” Kale says, looking back at us. He raises his game controller as if he were raising his hand. His racecar smashes into a wall.
Alston declines the offer, and Reed volunteers to take Kale’s place behind the imaginary steering wheel. Topher then turns to me.
“You’ll come, right? Just come watch us. I’ll call Miles and tell him and Emily to come watch too, so you won’t be alone,” he says.
Great. That’s exactly what I want to do with my night – stand on the Horn Island shoreline while Emily babies Miles and Topher and Kale dominate the night waters.
I glance to A.J. “Will you go with us?”
He shakes his head, and I want to slap him. I sort of need the company right now, Mr. BFF.
“I have to get up early,” he says. “Vin wants me to do the inventory in the morning since he won’t be there, and I want to make sure I get it all in on time. I don’t want to screw it up doing it on my own the first time.”
Damn. I’m proud of A.J. and his manager position, but he’s completely changed gears since he started working for Vin. Maybe this is what growing up is.
But since I’m technically unemployed and don’t have a day job to hold me back, I agree to go with Topher and Kale, even if it means standing with the super couple on the shoreline. It’s better than watching the guys play video games.
I ride back to Horn Island with Topher and Kale, sandwiched between them in Topher’s tiny excuse for a truck. Emily and Miles are meeting us at the beach. Kale’s phone reflects off the window while he texts Jace. Maybe I won’t be alone after all.
The moon splashes a string of light across the water’s surface, just enough of a glow for me to see the unsteadiness of the night tides. The water sloshes, pushing toward the shore and then pulling back as if the ocean has made a sudden change in plans. Topher pulls his blue and white board out of his truck bed and glances across the water.
“Looks choppy,” Kale says as a wave slams into the rocks to our right.
Topher studies the ocean for a second. Then he shrugs. “It’s not like we’ve never surfed in rough waters before,” he says.
“You’re right,” Kale says. “Let’s paddle out.”
The two of them hit the water as Jace makes his way through the clumps of sand to join me. The headlights of Miles’s truck glow behind us. Emily gets out of the driver’s side and walks around the vehicle to wait for him.
“I’ll be glad when he gets off those damn things,” Jace says, glancing back at the glowing headlights. “He’s about to go stir crazy being out of the water, and in turn, he drives all of us crazy.”
I don’t doubt for two seconds that Miles would be out there with them if he could be. He’d be paddling and elbowing them, just to get the best position to catch an epic night wave. He’d probably howl at the moon or something. He can go from calm and mysterious to a wild Hooligan in two seconds flat.
I change the subject as Emily makes Miles take the concrete steps down to the beach rather than coming through the sand.
“You think you’ll be able to find someone to haul that dragon?” I ask Jace.
He shrugs. “Most of the people I know who could do it aren’t exactly the people you want to ask,” he says. “But that guy Terry, the one you somehow found, has a friend who drives an eighteen-wheeler. He gave me his number, said he does side jobs, legal or not. I think I might actually call him.”
Who knew a drug supplier might actually save A.J.’s carnival dragon? In a sick, twisted way, I’m glad I went behind Vin’s back to pay that entry fee because meeting Clover might turn out to be worth losing my job for.
While Miles cheers Topher and Kale on as they battle the night’s rough waters, Jace tells Emily and me about how Joe taught him how to surf at the same time he taught Shark.
“Shark surfed goofy, like Miles, so it was confusing at first because I always thought I was popping up the wrong way on the board,” Jace says. “Luckily Joe surfs regular too, so it was easy for him to teach me.”
Jace talks about forming his band Sapphires and Sunsets, how he met Emily’s friend Alex who works at Summer Snow, how the Hooligans formed because Shark didn’t like non-locals in their waters, and gives us an in-depth version of what happened when Topher got kicked out of his parents’ house.
It doesn’t feel like thirty minutes have gone by when Kale emerges from the water. “Sets are shifting,” he says, drying his long hair with his towel.
“Where’s Topher?” Jace asks, looking out into the water.
“One more! Then I’ll come in!” Topher shouts from the distance.
The waves rush in, one after another – black water overlapping black water – and in the midst of the night waves, Topher pops up on his board. Then he wipes out.
Seconds pass, feeling longer than they should, as we wait for him to resurface.
But Topher doesn’t come back up.
Chapter Nineteen
“Where is he?” Miles asks, digging his crutches into the shoreline. “Where the fuck is he? Why hasn’t he come up?!”
The panic in Miles’s voice fills my chest. A lump forms in my throat. Every second that passes – every second that Topher doesn’t come up – is another second that he’s trapped under those waves, another second without oxygen. Each second is a second closer to losing him.
“We have to get him out!” Miles screams, throwing his crutches onto the clumpy sand. “I’ll fucking die before I leave him out there.”
Jace grabs Miles by the arm and pulls him back. “You idiot, you’ll sink straight to the bottom with that damn cast. Calm down.”
Miles pushes Jace away from him. “Calm down? Don’t tell me to fucking calm down. Topher pulled me out of the water when I smashed my fucking leg, and I’m not letting him die out there!”
The seconds tick by while Jace and Miles argue. Life moves in slow motion. The ocean plays tug-of-war with the sand, pulling the waves back and forth in a never-ending battle.
But Miles is right. We can’t let Topher die out there.
I grab Miles by his shoulders, somewhat pushing him back but also steadying his wobbly stance. There’s no way he can save Topher, and he’s not even kidding when he says he’d die before leaving Topher out there.
“I’ll go,” I say. I fish Topher’s truck keys out of my pocket, hand them to Miles, and crane my neck to see the water.
“Haley,” Kale
says from behind me. “You’re not strong enough to bring him back to shore. I’m going with you.”
Jace tells Emily to call 911. That’s the last thing I hear before Kale and I rush into the water. The Pacific Ocean clearly isn’t up for company tonight. The sea rushes into my ears, and the salt water stings my eyes as another wave slams into us. I shake my hair back and paddle through it, doing all I can to keep up with Kale’s pace. His arms pummel each wave, slicing through the water like a determined soldier’s sword.
“His board!” Kale shouts before duck diving under a wave.
That same wave crashes into me, knocking me backward into the water. The reef scrapes my skin. Kale’s hand grasps my forearm when I come up to the surface.
“You okay?” he asks, pulling me toward him.
“Yeah, I’m okay. Where is he?” I ask.
Kale grabs the board’s leash, but he freezes. I reach out and pull it to see if there’s a response. Nothing. I hope and pray and wish on every star in tonight’s sky that Topher is still on the other end of the surf leash.
I stare at Kale for what is too many seconds, waiting for him to dive under, but the fear etched into his face won’t allow him to move. The tides shove me back, showing their strength as they try to guide me back to the shoreline, as if they’re telling me that I don’t belong out here. I force Topher’s board forward, resisting the push of the ocean. I refuse to be washed back in just yet. I squeeze onto to the leash, take a deep breath, and go under.
The darkness of the ocean is terrifying, but losing Topher scares me more. I blink a few times, trying to adjust to the sting of the salty water, as I follow the leash deeper into the darkness. I tug it just enough to see if there’s any weight on the opposite end but not hard enough for it to snap away, just in case Topher’s still somehow attached.
The leash feels heavy, and a surge of energy hits me, forcing me through the rough waters that want to teach me a lesson for even stepping into them. Topher’s body swirls through the backwash of the waves, pulling the surf leash closer to the ocean bottom and that awful reef. I pull his body to me and unhook the leash before kicking my way back toward the surface.
Salty night air floods my lungs when my head bobs above the water. Kale was right – I don’t have the strength to haul Topher in myself. I credit the adrenaline rush for being able to get his head above water. But Topher doesn’t gasp for air.
“He’s not breathing,” I say, gasping for air myself. “He’s not breathing.”
“Here!” Kale yells from about ten feet from us.
Kale paddles toward us and uses all of his strength to pull Topher to his board while the waves throw punches at us. Topher’s body falls limply onto his own surfboard. Kale paddles with all he has, although his energy has faded and the panic has taken over. Headlights sweep around the shoreline, and a black sports car squeals as it leaves the pavement and plummets down the sand toward the water.
I help Kale push the surfboard through the ocean, heavy from Topher’s deadweight. The Pacific doesn’t argue. She pushes us toward the shoreline, making her point once and for all that no one should’ve been surfing tonight.
Jace rushes toward us, hoists Topher over his shoulder, and rushes him back to the shoreline. Theo jumps out of his car without even killing the engine. Emily runs toward me with a dry towel. She wraps me up in it when I come out of the water. Sirens wail in the distance.
“I can’t! I can’t!” Theo yells, shaking his head while Jace lowers Topher onto the sand. “I can’t be the reason we lose him. I can’t do this again.”
“CPR, Theo,” Jace says calmly. “He’s not breathing, and he needs CPR. He needs you. Look at me – focus. CPR.”
Kale wraps his arms around me, and I squeeze my eyes shut, burying my face into his chest because I can’t watch. Theo counts off numbers, Miles starts to pray, and that’s when the tears fall down my face.
The screaming sirens grow louder but not loud enough to block out Theo.
“You’re not fucking dying on me, Topher!” he yells. “Fucking breathe!”
I don’t look up, but from the tightening of Kale’s arms, I fear the worst. Emily sobs behind me, sniffling every few seconds. Miles loses all redemption when he adds the words ‘better not fucking die’ to his ongoing prayer. And then there’s coughing.
“You’re alive, you’re alive. Fucking hell, you’re alive,” Theo says, heaving the words out.
Kale’s muscles relax as Theo yells at Topher to “cough it up” repeatedly. The flashing red lights blind me as the ambulance bounds through the Horn Island sand. Two EMTs rush over, and Theo screams at them to pump Topher’s lungs.
Jace tries to pull Theo back as the EMTs do what they can to stabilize our Hooligan and get him into the ambulance for transport.
“He’s losing consciousness,” Theo says. “You’ve gotta pump his fucking lungs or he’ll die. He can’t fucking die. We can’t lose him too!”
They ask him to step back and say they’ll do all they can “to help your friend.” Jace physically shoves Theo back, mumbling something about letting them to their job and how he can’t do any more at this point. The EMTs lift Topher onto a stretcher and move him toward the ambulance at record speed.
“I have to go with him,” Miles says, hobbling toward the ambulance. “You can’t take him without me.”
One of the guys hesitates. “Um, only immediate family is allowed to ride with him.”
“I’m his brother,” Miles says. “Don’t you need his personal information and all that shit? Trust me, if he could talk, he’d tell you to take me with you.”
Jace nods, although I’m not sure if he’s agreeing about Topher or implying that Miles really is Topher’s brother. Either way, they let the broken Hooligan onboard and speed away to save Topher’s life.
Once the red lights fade out of view and the piercing howls of the sirens sound like they’re a million light years away, Emily says we have to get to the hospital. She tells me to ride with her, so I give Topher’s keys to Kale so he can follow us. Jace tells Theo to kill his car and leave it for the night because he’s not stable enough to drive.
Theo walks over to his vehicle, kills the engine, and takes the keys from the ignition. He slams the door, but he doesn’t walk back over to us. Instead, he collapses to his knees.
Jace dashes to him, drops onto the sand, and wraps Theo up in a hug, talking him through the tears and reassuring him that Topher will be okay. Kale follows suit and kneels down next to them, telling Theo over and over that he saved Topher and it was different this time.
I can’t even imagine what he’s going through – reliving the worst moment of his life but this time, it was Topher, not just some random person from the beach. It scares me to see the Hooligans so vulnerable – Miles barely walking, Topher nearly drowning, and now, Kale and Jace sitting in the Horn Island sand while Theo cries in their arms. Seeing them so broken makes me feel like crumbling myself.
Chapter Twenty
A.J., Alston, and Reed show up at the hospital just minutes before Kale, Theo, and Jace. Emily updates the guys on what Miles has told her while I find a restroom to change out of my wet shorts and tank top. I’m thankful I still had clothes packed from Sunrise Valley because it’d have been terribly embarrassing to have A.J. dig through my underwear drawer for a bra. I’d have just called Alston in that case. It’d still have sucked, but it wouldn’t have been as humiliating.
A.J. volunteers to take my bag back down to the car once I meet back up with everyone in the waiting area. He says something about needing a cigarette, and Jace goes with him, stating that he only smokes when his anxiety is too high to handle. I settle in next to Reed, away from the others.
“I called Vin,” he says. “I didn’t figure anyone else would want to, so I volunteered. He was livid. I’m sure he’ll drive like a maniac to get back here.”
Great. The last person I want to see right now is Vin. I haven’t seen him since the day he fired me and
we broke up…in not so many words. The last thing Topher needs right now is more tension, more anger, and more accusations. Yes, it was stupid to go night surfing in rough waters, but tonight isn’t the night to blast him for it. We’ll all curse him out later for scaring us. Tonight, he just needs to breathe again.
“You okay?” Reed asks, leaning in and staring at me.
I nod, shaking away my concerns about Vin and what he may say or do to Topher. “Yeah, I’m fine,” I say, pretty unconvincingly. “I’m much better than Theo.”
“Yeah,” Reed says. “I can’t believe he had to go through this all over again.”
“At least the outcome was different this time,” I say, resting my head back against the wall.
We sit quietly for the next few minutes while the lady on CNN talks about global warming and how we need to go green. I wonder how offended the rest of the hospital would be if I muted her or just turned her off. I don’t give a damn about the environment tonight. The environment tried to kill Topher. Mother Nature is not my friend.
“I was there that day,” Reed says, breaking my thoughts and interrupting the CNN woman.
“What day?” I ask.
He nods toward Theo. “The day he fell apart. I was too young to actually have a job, but my dad let me work at the store anyway. I was counting the front register for him. It was just after sunset.”
Reed stares directly ahead, like he’s not really here telling me this story. He’s in another place, another time. He’s back there on the day that Theo couldn’t save a life.
“It’s crazy how I remember the exact colors of the sky,” he says. “It was so red – a sailor’s sky. It was like something tragic was meant to happen, like the universe knew it was time.”
He looks at the floor, closes his eyes for a few seconds, and then shakes his head. He opens his eyes just before he turns to me.
