Blue

by Lisa Glass

  ‘Elijah told Kelly about me?’

  ‘No, but he talked about his boyfriend and then Kelly noticed you two hanging out and she put it all together. I promise I won’t say anything to anyone, OK?’

  ‘OK. Thanks, I guess.’

  ‘Do not thank me. I am a total moron.’

  ‘No, you’re not,’ he said, breaking into a rare smile. ‘But maybe I am for trying to keep Elijah a secret. We’re gonna get busted someday. I feel like I’m at this crossroads, and I need to pick a direction, especially since Elijah’s roommate just moved out, leaving him with a ton of utility bills and rent arrears. He seriously needs someone to move in, like yesterday, or he’ll lose the place and have to go live in Truro with his parents.’

  ‘Elijah wants you to be his new flatmate?’ I said, wondering if that would be the thing that made Zeke realize the truth about Elijah and Wes, or if he’d just shrug it off as two bros splitting bills in a bachelor pad.

  ‘Uh-huh, and I said yes.’

  ‘What about your folks? Will you tell them the truth?’

  ‘Elijah is really bugging me to. But I just can’t even—’

  ‘Zeke can handle it.’

  ‘He can? And you’ve known Zeke how long?’

  ‘OK, not very. But I know he loves you. He talks about you and Garrett loads. Even if it’s weird at first, he’ll be fine in the end.’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not. Garrett is gonna flip out big-style.’

  ‘So he’ll just have to get over it.’

  ‘He’ll never speak to me again, and he’ll probably kick the shit out of Elijah. That would kill me.’

  ‘You love Elijah?’

  ‘Maybe … It blows. This would be so much easier if it was just physical.’

  ‘And Elijah totally wants you to come out?’

  ‘Yeah. He thinks I’m ashamed of him. Plus, he’s majoring in psychology with a minor in gender studies, so he’s all amped up on queer theory. He figures I’m betraying the gay community by not coming out. Says that every queer person who stays in the closet is making it harder for the people who are out.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘Gay visibility. Making gay guys seem like a smaller minority than they actually are. We are. Whatever.’

  ‘Wow, that’s rough.’

  ‘He’s just so much cooler than I am. He like totally knows who he is, and he’s not afraid of anything, or anyone.’

  ‘You’re pretty cool yourself, you know?’

  Wes sighed and said, ‘I’m so the dorky Francis brother.’

  ‘Which is still ten times cooler than most of the other guys in this town.’

  He grinned. ‘I mean, so yeah, I do have a hydrofoil surfboard.’

  ‘Why, yes you do. Don’t worry, you’ll figure this out, and you can talk to me whenever. Or I could talk to Elijah for you? Try to get him to take the pressure off? Actually, maybe Kelly could. They get on really well; they keep going out for mocktails and pancakes at Cafe Irie.’

  ‘Appreciate it, but I don’t wanna drag anyone else into this jam, and it’d suck if I messed up their friendship, especially as Elijah doesn’t have so many chick friends.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Besides,’ he said, ‘you have your own problems.’

  chapter twenty-five

  I looked into Wes’s eyes, which were so similar to Zeke’s, and my gut clenched. How could I tell Zeke that I still had feelings for Daniel? That I’d gone out to sea with him and let him kiss me?

  A shadow came across Wes’s face, as if he was deciding whether or not to say something he was supposed to keep to himself.

  ‘Zeke’s been through a lot.’

  Had he? It seemed to me like Zeke had practically walked on water for the past two years. Win after win, culminating in his epic storming of the Pipe Masters contest in Hawaii, and zillions of girls and sponsors wanting a piece of him. But maybe it was more complicated than that.

  Zeke looked up, saw us and jogged over.

  Zeke and Wes did their usual forearm-to-forearm handshake and Wes walked back to the others to rejoin the game.

  ‘Wes OK?’ he said.

  ‘Yeah, just saying hey.’

  ‘Glad it’s not awkward for you guys after that whole Spin-the-Bottle thing.’

  ‘We’re fine now.’

  ‘So, you wanna play some ball?’ he said.

  There were no other girls playing, but any other day I would’ve given it a go.

  I shook my head. ‘But when you’re finished, can we go for a dip?’

  *

  We walked down to the swimmers’ section of the beach, which tended to be less busy in the evenings as it wasn’t as good for surfing, and Zeke slung his T-shirt on the sand above the tideline and we piled our shoes on top of it. I already had my bikini on under my boardies, so once I ditched my flip-flops, I was good to go.

  We swam out in the channel between sandbanks, letting the weak rip take us into the deeper, calmer water.

  ‘Part of my training has been underwater work,’ Zeke said. ‘Anders has me grab a rock so that I don’t cork back up to the surface, and then I walk with it a little way across the ocean floor. Not too deep, just say fifteen or twenty feet down. But it’s really helping with the wipeouts. I figure if I can hold my breath for longer, then the risks get smaller.’

  ‘Wow, that’s hardcore.’

  ‘It’s working. I’m definitely not freaking out as much when I’m held down.’

  ‘Do you think that you should maybe move into surfing normal-sized waves?’

  ‘There’s nothing like the endorphin rush of riding the heavies. If you win the contest, you’ll get to ride some of the big wave spots and you’ll see what I mean.’

  ‘Come on, Zeke. Be real.’

  ‘That’s OK. You don’t believe yet. But you will.’

  Before I could answer, he grinned at me and said, ‘Race ya.’ He took off, swimming really fast overarm.

  He was quick, but he wasn’t quicker than me. I was right on his tail and within a minute, I was able to grab his foot. He swung round, smiling, and I released him. He grabbed me around the waist and kissed me lightly on the mouth. My lips tingled. I knew he was about to go in for another, deeper kiss and I had to stop him. We’d waited this long, and our first proper kiss couldn’t be messed up by my incredibly crappy judgement.

  ‘I want you to know something,’ I said.

  Bad choice of words. I could see by his embarrassed expression that he thought I was going for the ‘I love you’. Shit. I’d screwed this up on top of all the other screw-ups.

  ‘I’m so sorry. I’ve really messed up,’ I said. ‘When you didn’t turn up the other day, and after that horrible conversation we had, I went out on a boat with Daniel and he, aah, kissed me.’

  He flinched. He’d had no idea. I could tell I’d totally shocked him. He spat some sea snot over his shoulder. When he looked back at me, his eyes had a look I hadn’t seen there before. Confusion.

  ‘What do you mean, “kissed you”? Like a peck on the cheek?’

  ‘More than that.’ This was torture. I wanted a wave to come and wash me to the moon. ‘I sort of let him get off with me.’

  ‘Get off with you? What the hell does that mean?’

  ‘You know, a, um, French kiss.’

  ‘This is fucking bullshit,’ he said. ‘Why would you do that? Just because I banged some chicks before I even knew you?’

  I shrugged, which in hindsight was not the best thing to do.

  ‘I’ve not been with anyone since I met you, Iris. And there’ve been tons of girls throwing themselves at me the past few weeks. We haven’t even said what we are yet. But OK, I like you, so I’ve been waiting to figure out what this is. Then you go running back to your scumbag ex?’

  Zeke shook his head like he couldn’t believe what I was telling him, and then he said, ‘I’m outta here,’ and he dived down under the water and disappeared. He swam underwater all the way to shore. I was still bobbing in
the calm waters beyond the break when I saw him reappear out of the surf and walk up the beach. I followed him, my face burning with every slow stroke of my arms.

  I let a wave carry me through the last of the impact zone, and when I stood up on unsteady legs I saw Zeke sitting cross-legged on the sand, watching for me. When he saw I’d swum back to shore safely, he got to his feet and walked away. I saw him go past his brothers, but his head was down and he didn’t answer their calls.

  Garrett put down his baseball bat and followed him. Wes and Nils were right behind. The game went on without them. I saw Garrett catch up with Zeke and put his arm across the shoulders of his younger brother. Then Garrett looked back at me with this surprised look on his face. Wes caught up with them, turned to nod at me and together they disappeared into Fistral Blu Beach Bar, a swarm of starstruck girls following.

  I’d really, truly blown it.

  chapter twenty-six

  OK, so I’d blown it, but that didn’t mean I had to be silent for evermore. There were things I had to say to Zeke. Even if I never saw him again, there was stuff I needed to get off my chest. I texted him.

  ‘I am so, so sorry.’

  My phone began to ring, belting out the special ringtone I’d picked for Zeke, which was ‘Fly’ by Rihanna and Nicki Minaj. It just seemed right for him. What he did, racing down the curl of a wave, was pretty close to flying. For Daniel I had the chorus of Radiohead’s ‘Creep’.

  I answered, but the line was silent and at first I thought he’d hung up. I spoke, in case.

  ‘Daniel is damaged. I know that. I know I can’t fix him. But I feel bad for him. Something happened with his dad and it messed him up.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Daniel’s dad was an alcoholic who went on a drinking bender one day and drove home. He ran over two boys. They both died.’

  ‘No way. That’s horrible.’

  ‘Yeah, and that’s not even all of it. A few years after that, his dad got drunk again and committed suicide. Daniel was with his mum when she found the body. Daniel blames himself. Thinks he drove his dad to drink because he was such a naughty little kid.’

  ‘He really believes that?’

  ‘Yeah. Obviously it isn’t his fault, but he thinks it is. His dad’s death affected him in all kinds of ways. Plus, it’s the reason he won’t let anyone call him Dan any more. That’s what his old man used to call him. I don’t think Daniel will ever be OK again. But for a long time I thought I could help him, and even though I realize now I was wrong about that, I’ll always care about him.’

  ‘OK, I get it,’ he said.

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Yeah, and I’m coming over.’

  We’d been here before.

  ‘In the morning, yeah?’

  ‘Now.’

  ‘All right.’

  I used the light from my phone to put on some dark-red lipstick and black eyeliner and I picked out the clothes I’d worn to the bars with Kelly and redressed in them. Cold or not, I wasn’t going down to see Zeke looking like a slob. Not this time. He’d seen enough of me looking a state. Let him see me in a miniskirt for a change.

  I waited in the garden for two minutes in that denim miniskirt before I went in to get my parka and some jeans. It was bloody freezing, worse than the rookie mistake I used to make of winter surfing in a summer wetsuit, when it takes your feet forever to feel warm again, and you can’t even speak without slurring because your lips are so frozen and numb.

  When Zeke appeared, he was carrying a bunch of wilted flowers that looked as if he’d torn them from some hedgerow. It was a nice gesture though.

  ‘My mom says wildflowers are the prettiest,’ he said, looking up at the window of my mum’s bedroom.

  He took my hand, and without saying anything more we walked out of the dark garden and towards the esplanade. Even blindfolded, we could have found our way. The pound of the waves was a constant, getting louder and louder as we got closer.

  Zeke and I sat down with the wildflowers between us.

  ‘It’s not all your fault,’ he said. ‘I know I’ve been giving you mixed signals.’

  ‘So where were you the other morning? I know you apologized, but you never actually told me why you stood me up.’

  ‘I’m really sorry. I choked.’

  ‘So you just left me hanging? Like all day?’

  ‘I got myself into a state and I choked. It happened to me in the Waikiki Pro. And once at Pipeline too.’

  ‘You choked?’

  ‘I know, I know. But it was like a panic attack or something. I let myself really feel it, you know? What was going on between us? I let myself feel what you mean to me. Suddenly I couldn’t breathe and I didn’t know what to do.’

  ‘You could have maybe called. Saved me waiting for you all morning.’

  ‘I couldn’t speak to you.’

  ‘Text message, Facebook, Twitter?’

  ‘But what would I say? I didn’t know how to explain it. I thought it would come to me, but it didn’t. I called you that night a bunch of times, but you never picked up.’

  ‘Yeah, I wasn’t in a great place either.’ I thought about the long, horrible night of shame after my boat trip with Daniel.

  ‘What were we gonna do that morning, anyway?’ I said. ‘What was the big plan?’

  ‘Garrett’s bought stakes in a couple local businesses. One of them is this insane Tough Mudder-style, SAS-designed obstacle course, which is like eight miles long and has electric shocks and fire. It looks awesome, but don’t worry, it wasn’t that! Not exactly first-date stuff. But he also bought into this other local business and he talked me into booking one of their rides. It cost like six hundred bucks, but when I thought about it, I worried you might think it was corny.’

  ‘Er, what kind of ride costs six hundred bucks?’ I said.

  ‘Hot-air balloon. They go out at sunrise and sunset, and travel real low along the coast. They’ve seen whales and dolphins out there, and I thought we could look for some new surf breaks.’

  ‘That sounds wicked,’ I said. ‘I would have loved that.’

  ‘Sorry I messed up,’ he said.

  I sighed.

  Then he said something that brought a small smile to my face:

  ‘So you want to date me, right?’

  This was not exactly the way I’d have put it. For one thing, it would have been a lot nicer if he’d phrased it like it was something he wanted too.

  He followed it with, ‘Because I really want to date you.’

  I looked at him and he was looking at me really earnestly, but there was a sadness in his eyes.

  ‘Sounds like there’s a “but” coming up.’

  ‘There is.’

  ‘Don’t tell me, you have a girlfriend in every stop on the surf circuit?’

  ‘No.’ He laughed, as if he found the idea genuinely funny. ‘No, definitely not that. But I can’t stay in Newquay forever.’

  ‘You have contests abroad. I know that.’

  ‘Yeah, I do. Indo, Hawaii, Chopes, Huntington Beach. And I have training weeks lined up in Dungeons in South Africa, Belharra in France, Puerto Escondido in Mexico, Outer Reef in Australia, El Buey in Chile. More tow-in big-wave training at Peahi in Maui. Anders wants me to settle on one specialism, but I can’t seem to do that: I’m on the QS, but I also take off whenever I can to ride the code-red swells with the big-wave surfers. And I wanna keep making surf movies, so their publicity tours will take me pretty much everywhere else in the world. I’m gonna be homeless for the next five years at least.’

  He pulled out a cigarette but put it away when he saw the look on my face and said, ‘I’m quitting.’

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘So this thing has an expiry date. I can live with that. I knew that it wouldn’t last forever the moment I found out who you were.’

  An expiry date. Gross.

  ‘It doesn’t have to.’

  ‘You’re totally not going to give up your career for me. You’re too ta
lented. People would think you were mental. You’re winning pretty much every contest you enter, and you stop? For a girl? You’d be sectioned. Plus, the last thing I want is a boyfriend who hates me for standing in the way of his dreams.’

  He nodded and looked me straight in the eyes. ‘I couldn’t give up pro-surfing, even if I wanted to. I’m tied into contracts with my sponsors, and it’s the only thing I’ve ever been any good at. I could never work in an office or something, and I’d be hopeless at college. I’d ditch my exams if the surf was good. So this is it for me. It’s not just what I do. It’s who I am. There’s something else too, and it’s bad.’

  ‘I promise I won’t judge,’ I said, thinking guiltily about the last time Zeke had confided in me.

  ‘That night at the surfboard launch party? When Anders asked me if I’d taken anything?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘He wasn’t worried about some marijuana joint.’

  ‘OK. So why did he ask you that?’

  ‘Because this time last year I was pumped up on meth.’

  ‘Huh?’ I said, completely shocked. ‘You can’t surf and do drugs.’

  ‘Yeah, you can. There’s a reason the contests don’t screen for drugs: too many guys would fail. Crystal meth gave me more energy, more stamina and more confidence. And it almost ruined my life.’

  ‘Seriously? You were a juice-head?’

  He nodded. ‘At first it was small stuff. I got high and made an ass of myself in a few interviews: bragging about how I was gonna be World Champ by the time I was twenty, bitching about contest judges, throwing shade on the other guys on tour. One time a reporter asked me this super-obnoxious question about Andy Irons on the anniversary of Andy’s death, and I pushed the guy into a pool. He had to be rescued by his photographer, cos he couldn’t swim.’

  Andy Irons was a really popular pro-surfer from Kauai in Hawaii. He was a contest machine, the star of the Billabong team and he’d won three World Championships. Everyone thought he’d keep winning forever, because as well as being a really nice guy, he was unbelievably talented and massively driven. Andy died in a hotel room from a cardiac arrest. He had drugs in his system.