Cinderella in the Surf (14 page)

"No chance I'm backing out now," he says as if he's reading my mind. He gets to his feet and picks up the board.

"Those are so bright," I say, unable to ignore the neon hot pink swim trunks he's wearing.

"You love them, right?" he teases, swishing from side to side as if he's a model on the catwalk. "Don't they just flatter my figure so perfectly?"

"They're definitely one-of-a-kind," I reply. "At least I won't be able to miss you in the waves."
 

He follows me down the beach to the water. Before we get in, I have him strap the board's leash to his ankle.

The last time Alex and I tried to teach someone new how to surf, we ended up spending more time trying to track down her board in the waves than we did keeping her upright on it.

"Okay," he says with a big cheesy grin, the board tucked under his left arm. "I'm ready, Captain. Now what?"

I raise an eyebrow. "Captain?"

He shrugs. "It felt right in the moment."
 

"No more of that," I say. "We'll walk out until you're about waist deep in the water and then you'll paddle the rest of the way."
 

"The rest of the way to where? The ocean goes for a long time, right? Like all the way to the North Pole or something."

Now I know he's just being goofy to try to make me laugh. To ease me in. "Something like that."

Walker wades into the ocean first. I stand back, letting the incoming waves lap at my ankles and pool around my feet for a few seconds. And I guess he realizes I'm not right behind him because he turns around and calls out to me.

"Thanks a lot," he says with a grin. "I was just having a conversation with myself."
 

I swallow hard and try to return his smile, even though I'm sure it looks anything but reassuring. "Sorry," I say, and I'm embarrassed to admit my voice shakes. "Just...working up my nerve, I guess."
 

He takes a few steps back toward me and holds out his hand. "Come on, you got this."
 

It's probably going to take me about ten steps to get to where he's standing now.

And it's crazy how hard it is for me to work up the courage to take them. Something that was once so easy for me just
isn't
anymore; there's no other way to say it.
 

As much as I'd rather turn around and run up the sand back home, I know if I do that, I'm turning my back on my college dreams, too, and I'm not wild about that idea, either.

So I do the only thing I can: I squeeze my eyes shut as tight as I can manage and walk into the ocean.

***

It's not so bad.

The water is cold, colder than I remember it being, and colder than it probably should be on a summer afternoon in California, but I'm in it and that's all that counts right now.

I reach out and grab Walker's hand, and he beams down at me.
 

"See?" he says happily. "Did that suck?"
 

I glance down as the water swirls around my calves. "Maybe not that much."

"And now the hard part's over. Let's go, I wanna surf."

"We should probably practice on the beach first," I say. "You know, how to get down on the board and get up and shift your balance around when you're catching a wave and all that."

But Walker just shakes his head and smiles. "Where's the fun in that?"

"It's the smart thing to do."

"I'd rather just get out there."

Apparently smart doesn't interest Walker.

It makes me a little uneasy, taking him out into the water for the first time after what happened to Alex, but I know he's right. I don't want to -- and probably can't -- do it alone, and who else do I have? I'm going to have to do this on his terms.

We wander out until we're about waist deep in the water, and that's when I tell Walker to put the board down and lie across it on his stomach.
 

"You want to paddle the rest of the way out there," I tell him, and he immediately flings himself down on the board and promptly rolls right off.

I slap my hand over my mouth to try to hide my laughter, but it's not working so great when his head pops back up above the water.

"What the heck," he sputters, wiping droplets out of his eyes. Walker looks over and reaches out to playfully swat at me. "Hey, stop laughing! This isn't funny."

I feel tears prickling at the corners of my eyes and for the first time in a
looong
time, they're not threatening to spill over because I'm sad.
 

"Yeah," I manage to choke out between chuckles. "Yeah, it is."

He shakes his head and corrals the board that's currently bobbing around in the surf. "Now I see why you wanted me to chain myself to this thing."

"Want to try that again?"

He hoists himself back onto the surfboard, a bit more slowly this time, and turns back to look at me with a satisfied smile when he wobbles but doesn't tip.

"Now you paddle." I show him how I cup my hands into scoops and propel them through the water to move forward.

"And how far out am I going?"

"Until you get to Santa's workshop," I say, and he laughs. "We're going to the lineup. It's the point past where the waves break. Usually you'll see some other surfers but I guess there aren't any around today. Lucky for you, I don't have to teach you the rules right now."
 

He makes the mistake of looking back at me as I follow his board through the water and tips slightly but regains his balance. "The rules?"

"It's like etiquette of the water, I guess. You know, who gets to catch what wave and paddling around the break instead of right into it and stuff."
 

"Never would've thought of that," he says.

I nod. "Yeah, well, you're not alone. Most people don't, not even the ones who have been surfing forever."

We're coming up on a breaking wave; usually, I'd just dive under and pop back up on the other side like nothing ever happened, but these aren't usual circumstances.
 

I stare at the quickly-approaching wave and make a last-second decision to turn my back to it, feeling its power and strength plow into me, but I stay on my feet.

 
That's gotta be a good sign, right?

I glance around for Walker. Oops. I see the board first, then his head bobbing just above the water. Wipeout.

"Seriously?" he calls, struggling to his feet and tugging on the board's leash. "This is ridiculous."

"Sorry," I say, and I mean it this time. It's my fault he fell off; I didn't warn him in time about how to get around the breaking wave with a surfboard because I'd been too worried about how I was going to handle it. "My bad."

Even from fifteen feet away, I can see him roll his eyes. "No kidding," he grumbles, getting back down on the board. He starts paddling again. "Any more surprises?"
 

I shrug. "That's what I used to love about surfing. You never know what you're going to run into."

I'm not thinking about Alex when I say this, but my mind immediately turns to thoughts of him and how unpredictable it all was. How's that for irony? The one thing that made surfing great somehow managed to ruin it for me, too.
 

Walker and I make it out to the lineup without running into any more waves trying to knock him off the board, and I'm starting to feel a little bit better about all of this.

I push my feet off the bottom and stretch out, floating on my back, staring up at the blue sky dotted with hundreds of white puffy clouds. A small, quiet sigh makes its way out of me; this doesn't feel wrong now, letting the water carry me, hold me up, the way it's done all my life.

Maybe I really can handle this.

"Rach? Rachel?"

Walker's voice worms its way into my ears and I snap to attention and stop floating.

"What am I doing here?" he asks, and I realize I've left him floating belly-down on his surfboard in the middle of the ocean.
 

"Oh," I say. "Right. You can stop laying down now." He shakily manages to bring himself to a sitting position and starts to use his hands to turn around and face the shore. "No, no. Stay how you are. You want to be looking at the horizon."

He wrinkles his nose. "Isn't that backwards?"

"How else are you gonna know when the wave is coming?"

Walker pauses. "Okay, you win that one. So, what, I see the wave, then turn around and go?"

I nod. "Pretty much. You've gotta paddle, too." I explain when he's supposed to start paddling and how fast. "Don't stand up this time, though. Just see if you can catch the wave first."
 

He pouts. "You take all the fun out of things, Rachel."
 

I know he's only kidding and that this is how -- or maybe who -- Walker is, but I'm lying if I say his words don't sting me just a little.
 

Maybe because it reminds me of what Alex said right before he died.

But I decide to just play along. "Oh yeah? You think you can stand up on the board without my help? Let's see it"
 

Walker wiggles his eyebrows and grins. "Challenge accepted." He looks out over the horizon and his eyes grow wide. "How about this one?"

I check out the wave that's slowly building maybe twenty feet away and nod. "Yeah, go for it."
 

He starts turning around, waiting for the wave to approach, and I study him, sure he's going to flinch or look back nervously over his shoulder as the wall of water gets taller and taller, closer and closer.

But he doesn't, and it looks as if he's some kind of seasoned pro out here. I've never seen anyone look so comfy in the waves their first time before, and maybe that's what bothers me the most.

It's not supposed to be this easy for him.

It's supposed to be this easy for me.

It
was
this easy for me, and not all that long ago, either.
 

I'm not paying attention to what's going on around me, and that's when the wave slams into me. It knocks me down, and I'm spluttering around, trying to break the surface, but it's nothing like the last time I was lost under the sea.

It takes an extra second or two before my head pops up and I suck in some air. I look around for Walker, bile rising in my throat, hoping this isn't going to be a repeat of the worst day of my life, but relief floods through me when I see him standing in ankle-deep water, smiling broadly, surfboard tucked harmlessly under his arm.

"Woohoo!" Walker yells out. Whatever he says next is drowned out by the sounds of the ocean and the distance between us.
 

He starts walking back out into the surf toward me, and I watch as he makes it in up to his waist then drops back down onto the board, just like I taught him.

"That was awesome," he says when he's finally close to me again. "I can't believe I've never done this before."
 

"It's not exactly easy to learn when you live in a landlocked state."

He smirks. "Suppose so. You sure you don't want to -- "

I cut him off with a glare that could fry eggs. "You promised," I hiss, knowing full well what he's about to suggest.

"Yeah, I know, sorry. That was crappy of me," he agrees. "Lost my head."

I mash my lips together, but I know what he means. It's easy to get swept up by the magic of the waves. "It's fine," I say, but my voice sounds strained. "How'd you like it?"

He grins, and I notice for the first time that the tail of his left eyebrow twitches ever so slightly when he smiles.
 

"It's sweet. I thought I was gonna fall off a bunch but man," he says, shaking his head. A few droplets of water fly off his hair. "It's something else. I see why you loved it."

"Just promise me you won't come out here alone yet," I say. The twinkle in his eyes is obvious and I'd know the look anywhere -- the look of someone who's falling in love with the sea.

He opens his mouth to respond when I notice that we're suddenly not alone anymore. I had seen a few surfers in the lineup maybe half a mile or so down the beach when we first got here, but figured they'd stay far away from us.

I wonder if maybe Walker did something to catch their attention without meaning to when I got knocked over.

Only then I see the blonde hair.

And it's like a cold chill sweeps over the water and I want to shiver, then scream and then maybe swim to the North Pole.
 

"Well, look at this! Isn't this something? Rachel West, back in the water."

If I didn't recognize the hair, I'd definitely know her by that horrible, screechy voice.

Piper Monaghan is paddling out toward us on a light blue surfboard with some kind of brown design all over it. I wrinkle my nose; it looks like a dog threw up on her board.
 

But before I can say anything to her, she turns her attention to Walker, who suddenly looks like he'd give up just about anything to be able to disappear.

"Www
alkerrr
!" she squeals, and it's all I can do to keep my morning bowl of cereal from coming back up. "How are you? I thought you told me you didn't surf!"

Walker glances at me before he says anything. "Uh, yeah, I don't. Rachel's teaching me."
 

Piper's upper lip curls slightly, but she still manages to plaster a smile on her face. "Well, that's just great! Surfing is lovely."

"Yeah, it's fun," Walker says nonchalantly.

Piper dramatically scans the ocean like she's keeping lookout for the
Titanic
. "Did you lose your board, Rachel?"

I suck in a breath and try to keep calm. "I'm not out here to surf."

Piper feigns shock and innocence, and really, it just makes me want to push her off her surfboard that much more. "But why? The Invitational isn't that far away, you know."
 

I grit my teeth. "I don't need to practice."

Piper doesn't hide her smirk fast enough. "Maybe you were, but did you really think I wouldn't hear what happened the last time you surfed? That total disaster?" She laughs. "Honey, if you think you're winning the Invitational, you're even more adorable than I thought."