And higher.
And higher.
Too high.
There’s a surfing term for what happens when the lip of a wave crashes beneath you. It’s called “going over the falls.”
I imagine it in slow motion, but really it’s only milliseconds before I’m tossed from water to air. My board slips out from under me, my foot yanked with it by my new (and hopefully improved) ankle leash. Unlike last week’s tumble, I come down hard and fast with this wave. The ocean alternately muffles sound and then roars around me as I surface, briefly, only to be pushed back under. I struggle up again, gasping for breath. As I do, my head hits something hard. Or something hard hits my head. I can’t tell which.
And suddenly, the death dream is all I can think about. The one where my head smashes into the pavement and my skull cracks. The world, huge and wide and open just seconds ago, is closing in, confusing my senses. It’s dead quiet. The water feels thick and heavy, so thick that I am caught, suspended like a specimen in a jar, unable to move my limbs. I can’t tell up from down, right from left. As the metallic taste of blood fills my mouth, along with what seems like gallons of salt water, I frantically try to conjure up Kai’s words of advice for when you are pinned under a wave: stay calm.
Stay calm.
I force myself to open my eyes so I can try to get my bearings. But what I see doesn’t make any sense. Instead of murky water, I see a silver-gray pit bull with a scar above its eye. I see a different beach, a different break, and clear water lit up by the sun. I see a woman lying in a hospital bed, tubes everywhere. Is she the woman I remember? The one wearing the knit cap? I see a cypress tree, a porch swing, an EKG. I see the tunnel from my dream, the motorcycle crash, blood washing over my eyes. Then everything goes blank.
“Chloe.”
A dark silhouette moves into my view, encircled by a white halo of light. I wonder if I’m in the hospital again. Or maybe I never left in the first place. Maybe I never made it to the top of the list and there never was a heart. Maybe I’m dead and all the surfing lessons are just a figment of my disjointed, oxygen-deprived imagination.
“Chloe,” the silhouette says, louder this time, moving in. The blurred edges start to come into focus and a familiar face emerges. Hazel eyes. Black hair dangling, wet, over warm brown skin. Lips dusted with sand. This is no Angel of Death. It’s Kai. And this time, he looks more than a little anxious.
I stare at him.
“Are you okay?” he asks. “God, I feel like an asshole.”
“What? Why?” I push up to my elbows and Kai sits back on his heels next to me. I look out toward the pounding surf, watch the edge of the water bubble up over the coarse sand and then retreat. It’s cold and windy and I’m shivering, but I am on the beach and very much alive. How did I even get here? I wonder.
“Your board,” he says, frowning. “You got cracked really hard by your board. Maybe we should call —”
“No!” I say, louder than I mean to. We are not calling anybody. No professionals. No hospital. The last thing I want is for my parents to get wind of what I’ve been up to these last few Wednesday afternoons, when they think I’ve been at the library catching up on summer school assignments. So far they know nothing about my new and dangerous hobby. And, for now, I want to keep it that way.
My tongue throbs and I realize I must have bitten it, but otherwise I feel all right. Heart is beating. Head is . . . the same. But something seems strange in an out-of-sequence kind of way, like this movie I watched with my dad one afternoon in the hospital, about a guy with a weird amnesia condition who has to write everything that happens to him on Post-it notes. Was there a dog on the beach with us? If there was, it’s gone now. Who was that woman in the hospital? Is she the same one that I’m sure I know but can’t remember?
“I’m okay.” I shut the weirdness out of my mind and focus my eyes on Kai, who looks relieved that I’m at least speaking and moving and hopefully not about to ruin his surf lesson business. “Why do you feel like an asshole?”
He frowns again. “I probably shouldn’t have taken you out there with the waves so big.”
“But I wanted . . . ” I say. It’s not his fault that I nearly got knocked out by my board. I forgot one vital piece of his advice: cover your head when you come up.
“She okay?”
I look over and see two other surfers hovering nearby, packing up their gear. The tall one is talking to Kai.
“I’m okay,” I answer instead, pushing all the way up to sitting to emphasize my absolute okay-ness.
“I think she’s good,” Kai calls back. “Thanks for the help.”
The help? Now I’m wondering just how many people out here witnessed my latest epic wipeout.
“We’ve all been there!” the surfer says to me. “Sucks to get pinned under. That was a sweet ride before you bit it, though.”
“Uh, thanks,” I say, still confused about how I made it back to the beach. I don’t remember anything between being underwater and seeing people and pit bulls and places I don’t recognize, and staring up into Kai’s very pretty eyes, which are again studying me with caution.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asks. “You were kind of out of it when I caught up to you. Those dudes said you were talking about a dog or something, and you said you were going to take a nap. You could have a concussion.”
“I’m good. Really. I think I just got a little freaked out when I was held under, but I feel okay now.” Just shake it off, I tell myself. Shake it off. I manage a smile despite the fact that my tongue is swelling up. “So when are we catching the next one?”
And unexpectedly, the serious look on his face is transformed by a truly genuine smile. “It was pretty awesome, huh?”
This is the first time I’ve seen Kai smile, aside from the time a small fish had brushed against my foot and I screamed and tumbled off my board in surprise. As I was trying, without much grace, to climb back on in the choppy water, I thought I saw the corners of his mouth turn up. Briefly. But not like this. When he smiles full-on, he has dimples.
“Yeah,” I say. “It’s like . . .”
“Flying.”
“Yeah.”
“I was six when I caught my first wave,” he says. “Felt like a superhero.”
“Which one?” I ask.
“Which what?”
“Which superhero?”
“Batman.”
“Batman?” I laugh, imagining a pint-size Kai surfing in a full-body bat suit, black cape flying. “No Silver Surfer?”
He shakes his head. “C’mon. When you’re six, superhero means either Batman or Spider-Man. Maybe the Hulk.”
Batman. I’ve learned more about Kai in the last three minutes than I probably have in the last three weeks.
I make a move to stand. Too quickly, I realize, because I feel dizzy and sit back down in the sand. It’s fine. Shake it off. Take a deep breath. I look at Kai. “Let’s go back out.”
And now I even get a laugh. With the dimples again. It’s like he’s a different person.
“Slow down there, boss,” he says. “Maybe we should call it a day and give your head a rest.”