Blue (15 page)

Surfing.

I wondered if I would ever discover how it felt to stand on a podium and be handed a surf trophy in front of screaming crowds, or to pose for photographs that surfers the world over would see.

I had to forget boys for a minute and admit that I had ambitions of my own. Competing professionally at surfing would be really hard and majorly head-bending, but it would be incredible too. Whatever happened with Zeke, I had my dream.

That night I dreamed about the time I was besties with Cass. We used to play this game down on the beach during the busiest days of the summer when Fistral was packed with a hundred thousand tourists. Cass created the game and it was called “Find My Figure.” We'd play it for literally hours, sizing up all the girls on the beach to see which of them looked the most like us in a bikini. Not that we ever wore bikinis. Both of us were heavier then. Cass hadn't started up with the bulimia and I was what some of the boys in my year liked to call a heifer. Of course they changed their minds when I took up surfing, lost a ton of weight and the sun streaked my hair blond, but back in the old days, me and Cass were sisters in loneliness. Kelly was abroad visiting her dad, who had a placement in a Thai school teaching English, which brought me and Cass even closer together.

Cass's betrayal was worse than Daniel's. Cass had known me forever. I had told her things that I would have never told a boy. Yet she was still ready to stab me in the back when she saw the opportunity. That always surprised me. How a girl could totally change her personality like that.

Cass changed. It took me a while to come to terms with it, to believe it. But that's what it came down to. I looked different, but on the inside I was still the same person. Cass wasn't. Either that or she'd never been who I'd thought she was in the first place. Both ideas were depressing.

In the dream we went from playing the figure-twin game to swimming in a sea full of dark fins. I woke up in a horrible sweat and saw that it was five fifty. I'd forgotten to set the alarm on my phone and had overslept. Zeke would be at my front door any minute.

I brushed my teeth and stepped into the shower. Late or not, I wasn't going on a date with Zeke with greasy hair, so I lathered up quickly, rinsed and then stepped into my clothes, still damp. I didn't have time to blow-dry my hair so I toweled it, scrunched it a bit and left it to air-dry while I put on some waterproof mascara and waited.

Six o'clock passed. He was definitely coming. He was just late. Six thirty came around with no knock at the door, and then seven. At seven o'clock he was still coming. Something had delayed him but there was no way he was standing me up. Not Zeke.

Every dead palm frond that blew across the pavement outside my window was him walking up the garden path, every swish of the cherry tree was the rustle of his board shorts, and every
creaking branch was the swinging of the garden gate. It was always him, but still he didn't appear.

It surprised me how my brain fought his no-show. My mind just couldn't seem to accept that he wasn't coming. Not for an hour and a half.

Then it sunk in deep.

Zeke had invited me out for our first ever real date and had failed to show up. My phone was blank, no new calls or messages. No emails, except one from ASOS giving me twenty percent off city shorts for one day only. Big whoop.

Facebook was dead, with hardly any of my friends online, and the only interesting thing I could see on Twitter was a conversation between Kelly Slater and Koby Abberton about a surfer who had broken his back at Cyclops.

I would drive myself crazy, I knew, if I waited around the house. I could surf better than most people twice my age, and in the last week I had got off my butt and really pushed my fitness limits. I was not going to wait around for some sex-addict surfrat to give me validation.

In other words, I was raging.

And how many girls had Zeke slept with anyway? In two years of touring, even if it was just one a month, the list would have over twenty names on it. And it was bound to be more than one a month. It could be one a day, for all I knew. Two a day even. It could be like a thousand girls. No, that was just silly. Realistically, it was probably like thirty. But no way was I being number thirty-one.

At seven forty, I put on my running shoes and took off along the cliffs. I ran the entire Pentire Headland, turned back and ran
through sleepy suburban streets down to the mansions overlooking the Gannel River, which was in full flood. I followed the curve of the river from the path running next to the sky-high garden walls of millionaire second-homers.

Hitting the steep steps carefully, I ran down to the sands. The tide was in and with the turquoise water and the reflected mansions, it could have been the French Riviera. My face turned toward the sea, which glistened a half-mile away between the riverbanks. Then I walked to the river's edge, knelt and splashed my face and wrists with its ice-cold water. What was Zeke playing at? Was it fair to get a girl's hopes up like this, only to dash them? What was the point of it? What could he get out of it? An ego boost, yeah, but as a top surfer, wouldn't he be able to get that anywhere with a hundred different girls on any given day? Why me?

I walked for a few minutes, breathing hard and trying to clear my mind. I turned away from the plate-glass river and crossed the road, sweat dripping from my head. Not ready to throw in the towel, I ran a couple of laps of the boating lake and then up Trenance Hill to town. A few cars were around now, just locals on the way to work. The flashy cars of tourists were still tucked outside fancy hotels, their owners enjoying luxurious lie-ins on hundred-fifty-dollar sheets.

At the crest of the hill I turned left toward Towan Beach and ran down through the side streets until I was standing outside the Blue Reef Aquarium, which was just opening up. I popped in to grab a swig from the drinking fountain and then ran on down to the sea. There was no surf at all. It was the flattest I'd ever seen it. Something to do with the supermoon and a
super-high tide. The sun was getting higher in the sky and I could already feel its strength. The beach was still empty so I walked in up to my knees, thinking I'd stop when the water reached my shorts. I didn't. I kept going until the water was lapping at my belly button and then I struck out and swam.

After about five minutes, what looked like a gigantic dog stuck its head out of the water just in front of me.

It was just one of the harbor seals giving me the once-over. They were friendly enough, but it was disconcerting to see one so close. I hadn't even sensed another animal around me.

I swam back to shore and collapsed on the beach, the exertion of the run and swim finally catching up with me. I lay flat on my back and stretched out, arms over my head, toes pointed, and just let myself settle there, sand caked in my hair and fingers of saltwater creeping around the edges of my body.

This was where I'd stay. This was where I could relax.

Even with my eyes closed, I felt the shadow cross my face.

How was it that he seemed to find me everywhere?

I squinted to see him and noticed that the zip pull of his Adidas jacket was flashing like a lighthouse, spinning on its metal ring in the bright morning sunshine.

“Mermaid alert,” he said, smiling down at me.

“Daniel,” I said, scrambling up and brushing sand grains away from the sides of my face, which only succeeded in wiping on more sand, as my hands were covered.

“Spotted you from the harbor wall. Been helping with the catch. What you up to?”

“Not a lot.”

“Your boyfriend's on Fistral dragging a tree across the sand.”

“What?”

“Saw him earlier when I was walking the dog. Rope across his chest. Strength training, I suppose. He has about fifty cheerleaders, including that ginger chick with the weird name and the big boobs.”

So he'd ditched me to hang out with Saskia and his Fistral fan club?

“Great.”

“Walk with me.”

“What if someone sees? Kelly would be pissed. I promised her I was over you.”

“And you're not?”

“I didn't say that.”

“Come on. Just a walk.”

I sighed. “Where are we going?”

“You'll see.”

We walked along the beach and up the steps to the harbor. Daniel pointed at one of the small boats, called
Bite Me
.

“My uncle upgraded his fishing boat, and guess who's got the keys?”

“He's letting you take it out?”

“Why wouldn't he? I'm responsible,” he said, adding, “sometimes.”

He went to pick me up so I wouldn't have to walk through the oily harbor water, but I didn't let him. I could wade through a few feet of dirty water. I clambered up the boarding ladder and stood on the small deck.

“Have you ever driven a boat before?”

“Yeah, lots of times. I'm thinking of getting my own fishing boat in a few years. It's an all-right living. Yeah, I'll never be rich, but my family will never go hungry. So, you up for this?”

I thought about it. Zeke had stood me up. I had no plans for the whole of the day. Stuff it.

“Looks like it.”

Daniel steered the boat out of the harbor, almost grazing a wall, and then followed the buoys until, after an hour or so, the land was just a snake on the horizon. It was so peaceful out there. Bliss.

“What now?”

“Let's see what food we've got,” Daniel said, and went down into the galley to raid the cupboards.

I stretched out on deck and soaked up the sunshine. I was still angry with Zeke, but the longer I spent with Daniel the easier it was to forget Zeke. Who was he anyway? Just someone I hardly even knew. Someone who was used to turning the heads of girls and who probably had a different one, a different dozen of them, every place he went.

Stick with what you know
—that's what people from Cornwall say. Why dream of traveling the world with Zeke when I already had the awesomeness that was Newquay? We had stunning coastline, pumping surf and dozens of surf contests. Zeke would be gone in a week or two and then I'd have to face up to what was going on with Daniel, so why delay it? Why not just fix it now?

Daniel laid out some cookies, chips and cans of beer and we spent the next hour chatting, stuffing our faces and getting pleasantly tanked.

Then Daniel picked up the acoustic guitar that his uncle kept on the boat and started strumming. He was amazing on the guitar and he used to take it with him to the tribe's beach fires. It was something that had once worried me a bit because it made me go weak at the knees and I knew it would be having the same effect on other girls.

It was always the tourist girls I worried about. I thought they'd eye up Daniel when he was out in the waves teaching them to surf, and try to pull him afterward.

But I didn't need to worry about them at all. I should have been worrying about Cass and the lines she was spinning him behind my back. The lies and the promises she was whispering in his ear.

Daniel started singing. An old song that sounded vaguely familiar but I didn't know its name. He had it memorized by heart, not faltering or losing his way, and when he opened his eyes after the chorus, he looked straight into mine. His music was a spell he could cast over me.

When he finished the song, the atmosphere was embarrassingly heavy. I looked at my watch and saw that it was past four.

“We should get back,” I said. “Cass will be wondering where you are.”

Daniel leaned forward and kissed me very slowly on the mouth.

It was so tempting to just throw caution to the wind. So tempting to kiss him again like we had done so many times before. So tempting to forget Zeke and all the hassle that went with him. So tempting to get my own back on Cass.

But I knew how that felt. To be betrayed.

“Don't,” I said, pulling away. “We can't.”

He kissed me again, and this time I didn't stop him.

Even though I knew it was Daniel because I had kissed him hundreds of times, the person I could feel against my body was Zeke. I imagined it was Zeke touching me beneath my T-shirt and shorts, and Zeke's soft hair beneath my hands.

I felt a vibration coming from Daniel's back pocket. Somehow, way out here, his phone had got a signal and someone was calling him.

His hand snaked around to turn it off, but that was it, I'd come to my senses and it was over.

“What the hell am I doing?” I said, getting up and walking to the railing. I was suddenly faint and nauseous, and I nearly puked over the side of the boat.

I had just been kissing the moron who had put a good person in the hospital, almost killed him, and all because Zeke had committed the crime of having a life before meeting me.

I really, truly loathed myself.

Daniel came to ask if I was OK or if I needed a glass of water, but he could see by my face that I was a wreck. He went to the bridge, did something to the GPS and turned the boat.

He stayed there and I stayed where I was. I couldn't even bear to look at him. Not that I'd have been looking in any mirrors either.

Eventually we made it back to the harbor, Daniel steering past another cluster of seals.

I clambered out of the boat before he could have a last attempt at talking to me. I didn't want to see his face or hear him try to make it all better. I just wanted to be gone.

I looked across to the harbor beach, and flinched. Sitting on her yoga mat in the lotus position and looking directly at the boat was Saskia.

I'd have to walk right past her to reach the road leading out of the harbor. I nodded to her as I passed and she said, “Really, Iris? Again?”

“What?”

“Hanging out with the lowlife who stabbed Zeke.”

“It's not like that,” I said.

“You haven't just spent the day on a fishing boat with your ex-boyfriend?”

“Yes, but . . .”

“Is that a love bite on your shoulder?”

I looked down, horrified. “No.”

It was only an insect bite that I'd been absentmindedly scratching. The idea of Daniel leaving a love bite on me was too awful, but it was only dumb luck that he hadn't. “It's a mosquito bite,” I said.

“Zeke is my friend. What are you playing at? Are you trying to make him jealous?”

“No, of course not.”

“So what
are
you doing?”

“Things are complicated.”

“Uncomplicate them.”

“It's not that easy. I've known Daniel a long time. I can't never see him again.”

“Perhaps you could start by not going on dates with him?”

Ouch.

I wanted to beg her not to tell Zeke what she'd seen, to tell her that I regretted it more than anything. I wanted to explain about Daniel; tell her why he was so screwed-up; make her understand that I would always care about Daniel because we had so much history, but that I wanted to be with Zeke. But instead I said, “You just don't get it.”

“You're right,” she said. “I absolutely don't.”