I hear my mom in the hallway and prepare the smile I will put on when she pops her head into my room to make sure I’m up. She’s weirdly cheerful and helicopter-like and overenthusiastic these days, which is yet another thing that’s different. I don’t have the heart (no pun intended) to tell her I’m not all that excited to get out of bed. That I don’t want to take another handful of pills, or write my AP English essay about symbolic turtles, or start dealing with the college acceptances stacked on my desk, which, due to my “special circumstances,” can be deferred a semester while I complete the credits I need to graduate. That I feel like a stranger in my own skin.
In fact, though I haven’t mentioned this to her or my dad or anybody else, I’m not all that excited about anything these days — except for one thing: at three o’clock, I surf.
A slimy piece of seaweed tangles around my ankle and I shake it off, simultaneously shaking some feeling back into my numb toes. Even with the wetsuit on, the coldness of the water is always a shock at first — the ocean spray like tiny needles pelting my face. Paddling my board over the swells, I keep my eyes on Kai’s head bobbing up and down about ten yards ahead of me and try to forget the fact that most of my weight is resting on a breastbone that not so long ago was sawed in half. It almost feels like the scar is tingling beneath my suit.
My parents would freak if they knew I was out here, putting my recently restored life into the hands of this guy I barely know. I SPECIALIZE IN BEGINNERS read the ad I found pinned to a bulletin board in a nearby surf shop a few weeks ago — a shop I had finally ventured into after spending more than a few afternoons surveying all the action from the beach.
Initially, I’d been hanging out there to escape Senior Week. To avoid everyone trying to convince me to come to the senior picnic and the senior-faculty dodgeball game and the night where all the seniors spray-paint their names on the Wall — a cement barrier that holds up the hill behind campus. I was invited to everything, of course, even though I wasn’t officially graduating. But feigning excitement about my classmates’ upcoming parties and travel plans and college start dates when I was days away from reporting to summer school? Hard pass. So instead, I got in my car, which lately is one of the few things that makes my brain stop buzzing, and I drove until I reached the coast. Watching the waves, alone, with my feet buried in the cool sand, was so much better than attending Senior Pajama Day. And once I started studying the surfers paddling out and gliding like water gods over the waves, I couldn’t stop. Had I really never noticed how mesmerizing they are before? I guess not, because if you had told “before Chloe” that she’d be attempting to surf, she would have said you were dreaming. She’d have warned you that the waves here are too powerful. The water is too cold. That there are sharks lurking nearby that might mistake you for a seal.
The truth is that, until I first connected with Kai, I’d never more than waded into the water north of the Golden Gate. But now . . . now I’d much rather be freezing my butt off and paddling like a madwoman than be safe on solid ground. Even if my arms feel like rubber and my last attempt to stand up on the board left me struggling through the shallows, tossed around like an empty bottle sucked up from the shore. Strangely, my usual cautionary reflex seems to have malfunctioned. I’m not worried that I might drown, or break a limb, or get eaten by a great white. I only want to skim across the top of the water effortlessly, like Kai. And I’m going to keep eating sand until I find the wave that will take me out of my head and make me more at home with this new heart. If only for a minute.
Kai doesn’t know about my heart transplant, of course. The full wetsuit covers my scar. The only thing he knows about me at all is that I want to learn to surf. And I don’t know a whole lot about him, aside from the fact that he seems like he was born riding a wave. He doesn’t talk much.
After I catch up to him, we float on our boards and wait.
And wait. It’s a sunless day. The sky above is milky white, covered by a thick layer of fog, and the water is a hard steel gray. The wind whips at my face, its scent sharp with salt and brine.
“Heads up,” he says, as a promising wave rolls toward us.
I position myself on my board — not too far forward, not too far back — and start paddling into the wave like he’s taught me, my arms burning from the effort. It feels like I’m going nowhere. Then I remember how he’s always warning me about beginners wasting energy by paddling too shallow, and with all my strength, I reach into the water as deeply as I can.
Right, left. Right, left. Right, left. My board rises with the wave. I can’t see where Kai is at the moment, but I hear him yell, “Pop up!” as it starts to break. The heart in my chest is pounding. We’ve practiced pop-ups a bunch of times on the sand, but I haven’t yet managed to stay standing on the water. Will today be the day?
Kai’s advice echoes in my head. Don’t grab the rails. I place my hands under my chest and push up. Back foot first. I slide my back foot out from under me and then launch my front foot forward. Make sure your knees are bent. I twist sideways as I come up to standing, knees still bent, aaaaannnd . . . pitch forward, headfirst, into the ocean.
Damn it!
I surface as the wave rushes past, its momentum roaring in my ears, pulling me and my board with it. Damn it, damn it, damn it. Our hour is almost up today. Which means there won’t be time for me to try to catch another wave. About ten seconds later, I see Kai passing by on the next one, riding it all the way in and hopping off with ease. Great. Now I also get to struggle out of the water like a flopping sea lion while he watches.
He’s standing in the sand with his board planted next to him, his black hair dripping, as I trudge out of the surf.
“You looked at your feet,” he says.
I nod, still breathing hard.
“You need to look ahead, in the direction you want to go,” he explains. “It’ll help you keep your balance. Also —”
“I was leaning too far forward.”
“Uh . . . yeah. You were leaning.”
He only has a lot to say when it’s about technique.
We make eye contact and my face warms up, which is equal parts embarrassing and annoying. Sometimes I wish I had found an instructor who was less “surfer.” I mean, I know this is kind of a cliché and all, but guys who surf are very, very . . . fit. Kai included. He also has nice lips. It’s a little distracting.
“Okay,” I say, sighing. “Look ahead, don’t lean forward. Anything else I’m messing up?”
Kai leans down on one knee and detaches me from the ankle leash.
“Don’t get so frustrated,” he says as he pulls at the Velcro on the cuff, which I really didn’t need help with because it comes off super easy. “You’re doing great for someone who’s never surfed before. A lot of people quit as soon as they have a bad wipeout.”
So far, bad wipeouts are my middle name.
“Well, I’m not going to quit, but I do have sand in places where I never thought I’d have sand,” I say. “How does that even happen if I’m wearing a wetsuit?”
Kai ignores my question and looks up at me. “Where’d you get this leash?”