Chasing Swells

by Nikki Godwin

  “You make friends easily, I see,” I say, hoping my envy isn’t completely obvious. “Care to share some of those mad skills?”

  She rolls her eyes and walks past me, but I follow. If her dad is going to be my coach for my career, she’s going to have to deal with me. The sooner she accepts that and attempts to get along with me, the better. She doesn’t have to be my friend. But we have to do better than what we’re doing right now.

  “You have friends,” she spits over her shoulder. She doesn’t look at me, though. “I’ve seen the pictures of your wild party. All of those people were there to welcome you back home.”

  That’s where she’s wrong.

  “They came for the beer,” I correct her. “I know for a fact that Kale was there for the beer. He hated me. Colby Taylor only showed up because he was pissed at his parents and wanted to blow off steam. His friends showed up to keep tabs on things and make sure I wasn’t bashing Drenaline Surf, which I wouldn’t have. And everyone else? Beer. All about the beer.”

  She storms down the pier toward the bungalow like she’s going to rip the thatched roof off of it when she gets there. I keep up with her pace, but I’ve never seen anyone walk this fast in flip flops.

  “At least you have the money to buy acquaintances,” she snaps. “As long as people believe you have friends, that’s all that matters. Everything’s about image in your world, right?”

  I stop in front of Bungalow 5, but Kaia jolts forward, oblivious to the fact that I’ve stopped following her. There’s nothing I can say at this point. She’s convinced that I’m a spoiled rich kid who can buy his way into anything. There was a time when I believed that too. As long as I had my dad’s credit card and bank account information, I had the world at my disposal.

  But that changed when Miles beat me in that competition. That day changed everything. If I could go back, I would’ve congratulated him. I would’ve paddled in with him and helped Topher chair him up the beach. I would’ve smiled when the photographers took our picture on the podium rather than evil eyeing the world like I was entitled.

  I can’t change that day, though. I can’t change how the aftermath of it. I can’t go back.

  Kaia spins around at the door and looks at me. “Look, I’m not trying to hate on you, but you’re the reason my entire summer has been rerouted,” she says. “I’m not here to hang out with you. I’ll tolerate you for my dad, but even that seems unfair because I’m not spending any time with my dad because he’s training you. So I’m sorry if my ‘attitude’ is a problem, but you’re not in your world anymore. This is mine.”

  I don’t stop pedaling until my calves burn. Even then, I push myself forward with the rhythm of the music coming through my earbuds. The fiery gates of Hell wrap my legs in them, almost making me regret my decision to work out. I exhale and slow down until my calves throb in pain. I pray I won’t collapse on the floor when I get off of the stationary bike.

  There’s no point in using the gym shower since I’m staying just outside of the resort. My muscle shirt is drenched in sweat, so I pull it off as soon as I step onto the sand. Tiki lights illuminate the pier as I make my way back toward Bungalow 3. An orange sunset slips down into the water, leaving a smooth haze across its surface.

  I’m almost to the door when I see Kaia sitting on the edge of the dock between our house and the one next to us. She stares off in the distance, quiet and alone. I keep my head down as I walk toward the front door.

  “Hey,” she calls out.

  I glance over, waiting for her to launch another verbal attack on me. She motions me toward her with her hand. I hesitate, but the house is dark. Glenn is probably already in bed.

  “I didn’t mean to snap on you earlier,” she says. “You’re not the problem. Well, you’re kind of the problem because you uprooted my summer, but you’re not the reason I’m angry. You’re just easy to take it out on.”

  I point to the spot on the pier next to her. “May I?”

  She nods, and I sort of wish I’d left the shirt on. I mean, yeah, it was drenched in sweat and probably smelled like a locker room – I probably don’t smell much better right now – but at least I wouldn’t look like some cocky douchebag walking down the pier shirtless.

  “I know it’s none of my business, but do you want to talk about why you’re angry?” I ask.

  She glances at me, but then she looks away, like she’s not quite sure if I’m the person she wants to talk to. “It’s stupid,” she finally says.

  “If it’s upset you this much, it doesn’t really matter if you think it’s stupid,” I say. “It’s obviously affecting you, so as trivial as it may be, it’s still important.”

  She laughs. “Trivial. I never imagined you’d use the word trivial.”

  I shrug. “Believe it or not, I have had an education,” I tell her. “An expensive one, at that. But I fucked it up. I had to drop out because I was flunking. Contrary to popular rumors, I actually quit before it killed my GPA. I didn’t flunk out. The dumb thing is that I could’ve aced all of those classes. I was just being stupid.”

  “Contrary,” she says, as if she’s still impressed that I know words outside of surf lingo.

  “Okay, no more making fun of my vocabulary,” I say. “This is about you, not me.”

  She sighs like she’s being forced to surrender against her will. “You can’t judge me,” she says. “At least not out loud.”

  I shake my head and hold up my hands in my own surrender. “I have no place.”

  She exhales. “So my mom and stepdad just had a new baby, right? And for the last year, that’s all anyone has talked about,” she says. “I get it. It’s his first child. It’s her first with him. It’s a new baby, and everyone gets all stupid happy over babies. But it was also my senior year.”

  I can’t imagine either of my parents having another baby at this point. Cassie is definitely still young enough to have kids of her own, but she’s treated my sister and me like we were always hers anyway. It was never a problem unless someone thought she was my older sister rather than my stepmom. Then things just got weird fast. She’s more supportive of my surf career than my actual mom is, though. Cassie believes in dreams. Mom believes in soul-sucking day jobs.

  “I’m okay with them having a baby. Yeah, it’s awkward because we’re eighteen years apart, but I feel like you live for senior year. That’s the endgame for your entire childhood,” she says. “And it’s not just about the parties and sneaking out and who has the best fake ID. The formal stuff matters too.”

  I think Kaia might’ve actually had a better high school experience than I did. Hanging out with the Hooligans was great, but they were in school at Horn Island and I was at Crescent Cove. They were rough and gritty, and I still had to uphold the Richardson name. Well, I tried to anyway. That was a bust. It was like trying to live a double life, and I eventually ruined both.

  “When we had senior class night, my dad and I sat there awkwardly poking at salads while everyone else gushed over mom’s belly and her due date and what she was going to name the baby,” she continues. “I was so afraid she’d go into labor at my graduation, and I was thankful that I’m an Anderson so I’d be toward the front of the line.”

  She looks across the water, at the red remnants sinking below the horizon. It reflects in her eyes, like a streak of fire across the darkness.

  “I was so ready to get back to my dad’s because I knew it wouldn’t be about the baby or their happy little family that I don’t fit in anymore,” she says. “It would just be dad and me, like it always was, and I wouldn’t be tossed aside. I’d sort of been left to fend for myself back home, and now it’s like I’m doing it all over again.”

  I actually feel like dirty seaweed for hijacking her summer. It’s like sitting a kid in front of the TV all day while you do the things you want to do instead. This island is her TV, and her dad is too busy with my career to do the dad thing for her. She needs him more than I do right now.

  “Yo
u know what? We should just reschedule this,” I suggest. “You deserve to spend time with your dad, and I can train back home. The competition I want to surf in is in Crescent Cove anyway, so that’s probably where I need to be. My dad can fly us back out here another time.”

  Kaia immediately shakes her head and turns toward me. “No, you can’t cancel this,” she says. “My dad needs it. When Neil retired, my dad’s world just sort of stopped spinning. He’s alive again, and it’s because he’s coaching you. This is his passion. It’s his livelihood. We have to stay.”

  The bright blue water beneath us slowly fades to darker hues, like a storm has rolled in and taken away the color, when really it’s just nightfall embracing the island. The tiki torches seem brighter now.

  “I never thought I’d be working with Neil Harper’s coach,” I say.

  “Neil was great,” she says. “I’ve known him my whole life. When his first son was born, Dad thought maybe he’d hang up the jersey, but they popped out a baby every two years and he stayed on tour. I think it took Willow for him to finally stop. Maybe because she was his first daughter after three boys.”

  I remember seeing the birth announcement on Instagram a few months back. I thought Willow Harper sounded like a good surfer name. Then again, so do his other kids, Wolf, Jett, and Reef. It’s weird to think they’re the next generation of possible surf legends.

  I turn toward Kaia. “Did your mom have a boy or girl? You just refer to it as ‘the baby.’”

  She laughs. “Madeline,” she says. “I wonder if Neil would just let me take Willow in as my baby sister instead. I feel like she’d be the better deal.”

  “Probably would be,” I admit.

  She narrows her eyes at me. “That’s sort of harsh, even if I am trash talking Mom’s new baby,” she says.

  I shrug. “I’m just being honest. I don’t believe in saying something if it’s not ingenuous.”

  “Ingenuous,” she repeats. Then she laughs.

  It could just be the island getting to her, but I think Kaia may finally be warming up to me.

  Chapter Five – Kaia

  “How do you have a talk like that and still have your guard up?” Sloane asks, lowering her sunglasses to stare me down properly. “It’s like a rom-com movie breakthrough, that moment when your heroine finally realizes that maybe the jerkoff hero isn’t such a jerkoff and may actually have a heart.”

  I lean forward, resting my head against the giant flamingo float in Sloane’s swimming pool. I breathe in the plastic smell of the pink bird, relishing the way it mixes in the air with the scent of chlorine and sunscreen. It smells like summer, and for half a second, it’s like being at Dad’s house rather than thousands of miles away.

  “Kaia, why won’t you just accept that you’re the heroine and he’s the hero and this is all meant to be?” she continues. “It’s literally written in the stars and strung together with twinkle lights. It’s so bright and beautiful, and you just keep turning off the light.”

  Sloane doesn’t live in the real world. I think she’s probably the best thing I could’ve found on this island, but my God, she’s clueless. I’m sure she spends a lot of time hanging out in her big house watching movies where everyone falls in love and gets their happily ever after. She’s on an island separated from the rest of the world. She probably thinks the rest of the planet lives on a movie set, and now she has a front row seat to the filming of my movie.

  But this isn’t a rom-com or even a romance in general. This is summer with my dad, chasing swells, living on an island, escaping all the things that haunt me back home.

  “You should let me meet him,” she says.

  “What?” I hook my arm around the flamingo’s neck immediately, trying to keep my balance. “You’re not meeting him. You’ll try to put in a good word for me or something. I know how girls like you operate.”

  She bursts into laughter, which echoes around us. “I’d be cool about it,” she retorts. “I know girl code. He wouldn’t even know that I was putting in a good word. It’d just seep into his subconscious, and later, he’d realize that you were pretty amazing and wonder why he never saw it before.”

  I’m not sure if Hollywood is in the market for new writers, but they should definitely fly out here and talk to Sloane about her daydreams of chick flicks and rom-coms. The girl has them down to an art – so much so that she’s trying to turn my life into one.

  “I want to show you somewhere today. It’s my favorite place on the island,” she says, slipping off of her unicorn float and paddling toward me. “It’ll take your mind off of the boy for a little bit.”

  She ducks under water and swims away before I can object that my mind isn’t on the boy. But she knows better and so do I. He was supposed to be my punching bag for the summer, someone I could use to channel my anger toward, but all I can think about is how perfect his silhouette looked against the backdrop of the bleeding sky last night. The way his jaw line curved sharply around his face was like a beautiful mountain resting against the sunset.

  Ugh. Why couldn’t my dad find someone who wasn’t so beautiful to take under his wing? Regardless of how gorgeous he is, he has a reputation, and just because he’s trying to redeem himself doesn’t mean he won’t slip back into his old habits. Those things are hard to break. Who knows what a sponsorship and few trophies might do to his ego?

  I push myself off of the flamingo into the cool water and swim over to the edge, where Sloane is sitting with her legs dangling into the pool. A towel drapes over her shoulders.

  “So, where’s your favorite place on the island?” I ask.

  “You’ll see when we get there,” she says.

  An hour later, the sun attempts to dry my hair as we walk toward the massive gates to Catalina Botanical Gardens. Bright pink and purple flowers pop out of the green leaves, as if they knew they were to grow in perfect placement for photo opportunities. Vines weave up the walls like they’re holding them in place to guard the plants behind them.

  “It’s my dream job to work here,” Sloane says before pressing a button to open the large gates. The iron creaks as it pulls back, allowing us to enter. “I’m going to major in botany and hopefully work here after college or maybe even during if I can get in.”

  She points toward a mossy bridge, so I proceed in that direction. Purple and blue hydrangeas hang like grapevines from the arch of the overpass. Small yellow flowers line the edges of the walkway. Ahead of us is a giant horse made solely from driftwood. It stands tall, rearing back as if about to charge into battle.

  “This is pretty elaborate,” I say. I’ve never been to any type of garden, much less one of this extreme. “Did they grow all of this here?”

  Sloane nods. “Everything was grown locally. Some plants didn’t survive here, but they’ve spent decades studying them and preserving what they can to keep certain plants from extinction,” she explains. “I’ve always loved the flowers. I like to watch them grow. It amazes me how a little seed turns into something this beautiful.”

  She spins around, like she’s absorbing all of the colors of the flowers around us, inhaling her own rainbow of petals and leaves. I envy that freedom, that ability to dream for something so big without fears of reality creeping in. I feel my chest tighten every time someone asks what my plans are for college or what I want to do with my life. A few weeks ago, I had to have permission and a hall pass just to go pee, and now everyone acts like I’m supposed to know my life’s path and have a solid plan to accomplish it.

  I start to voice these thoughts, even though I know it’d burst her carefree bubble, but the expression on her face already says that everything isn’t all rainbows and flower crowns. She stops spinning in the breeze and quickly turns her back on our path.

  “What’s wrong?” I whisper, stepping closer toward her.

  “My ex-boyfriend...and his new girlfriend,” she whispers back.

  I casually glimpse around, hoping I can figure out at a glance which guy she’s
referring to. It’s pretty easy, though. We’re surrounded by employees, senior citizens, and married couples with children. Spotting a cute guy with a girl clinging to his arm isn’t hard.

  “Let’s go this way,” she says, walking away quickly before I can interject.

  “What’s the story?” I ask, catching up to her.

  I try to keep an open mind because it could’ve been a terrible break up. Maybe he’s a cheating asshole. Maybe he broke her heart. Sloane is definitely softer than I am because I would’ve made a point to be seen, even with wet hair and smelling like chlorine. If you hurt me, I’m going to be a thorn in your side, like it or not. Even if it breaks me, I won’t let you know I’m broken. That’s probably why Dad says that I come across as harsh. I live in defense mode, but it’s safer with these walls around my heart.

  “His name is Clark,” she whispers before glancing back to make sure he’s out of earshot. Then she speaks normally. “I’ve known him my whole life. We dated for the last year and a half, but he broke up with me the day after graduation. He said he needed to be single for a little while to make sure he knew what he really wanted out of life.”

  Oh, I hope she didn’t believe that. This guy sounds like a snobbish jerk. If I wasn’t surrounded by trees with purple leaves, I’d probably be more pissed at this guy, but it’s hard to be in fight mode when you have stargazers and birds of paradise growing around you.

  “It was so dumb,” she continues, relieving my worries that she bought into it. “He said he was being forced to make all of these ‘adult decisions’ all of a sudden, and they’d follow him for the rest of his life, and he needed a clear head for it. He didn’t want a girlfriend because he didn’t want that to influence him. He was dating Naomi a week later. That’s her.”

  “Yet it didn’t kill your desire for a happily ever after?” I ask.

  By the way this girl was talking in the pool, you’d never guess she just endured a horrible break up with a guy full of bullshit and lies. She’s like a literal butterfly, floating through a garden, free and optimistic that the right caterpillar is out there brewing just for her.