Chapter 62
ALEJANDRA
con carino y con cuidado - Valeria Castro
She died of curiosity, needing to know what Mick Turner had left Callum and—me cago en la puta—Leonor Moreira, the legendary big-wave surfer who’d retired a couple of years ago to become an artist.
Leonor had surfed Nazaré and came out alive. If she remembered correctly, she had survived a couple of serious injuries. Maybe she could give her some tricks to calm her mind before going back into the water. She knew she had a series of very heavy wipe outs. Yeah, she would definitely ask her.
When she entered the Primrose Hill office, Carla smiled widely at her, took her in with a look that made her feel seen, and gave her a quick, warm hug.
Once they sat, Carla handed her a cup of tea.
“So, how are we doing today?” Carla asked, settling into her usual corner with her notebook on her lap, legs crossed, that same calmness radiating from her like always.
Alejandra took a sip before answering. “Good. Well. Not bad. Not amazing. Somewhere in the middle. I’m happy… but still processing everything that’s going on.”
“That’s still progress. That’s life, usually.”
Alejandra nodded, tugging at a loose thread on the sleeve of her jacket.
She quickly explained what had happened in Aberyswith.
The paddleboard session with Callum, what she had felt, and then her rescue of taid.
“It doesn’t mean that I have shaken off the fear.
It’s like it’s still sleeping in the back of my head.
Quiet, but present. I still wake up with nightmares… but it’s like…it’s better.”
“That’s okay. You’re not supposed to wake up one morning and be free of it.”
“It just felt like… when I jumped in the water to save taid… it clicked. Like I remembered who I was. But it didn’t erase the fear. It’s just… I did it anyway.”
Carla smiled gently. “That’s the difference, Alejandra. Courage isn’t the absence of fear. It’s doing the thing despite it.”
She looked down, nodded again, slower this time.
“Callum keeps saying I’m brave. That I saved his grandfather.
But I wasn’t thinking about bravery. I wasn’t thinking at all, maybe.
I just thought that if I let that man drown, I’d never forgive myself.
And also, maybe part of me needed to know if I could still do it.
I’ve spent my entire life rescuing people from my board at beaches around the world.
I thought maybe I could still prove to myself I had it in me.
That the ocean and I could be friends again. ”
“Did you prove it to yourself?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know. I did it, but it felt like a fluke. Like luck.”
“Or maybe it felt like something you’ll need to do again to trust it.”
“I feel..” She hesitated to formulate that thought.
Carla didn’t push her, offering her time.
“I feel…it’s not like before Pipeline I didn’t know the risks I took for surfing.
But it’s like…I’ve seen the consequences.
It wasn’t naivité or anything like that before.
I had seen people die because of surfing, so many injuries but…
until it happened to me…well, it didn’t seem a reality, a possibility. ”
“It’s called optimism bias,” Carla said gently. “Our brains are wired to believe tragedy happens to other people. Even when we know the risks intellectually, we still move through life assuming we’ll somehow escape them.”
Alejandra looked down at her hands. “So I was arrogant.”
“No. You were human.”
A shrug. “I don’t know, I feel a bit stupid.”
“No, it’s not stupid, Alejandra. You’ve been surfing since you were a kid, long before the part of your brain responsible for risk assessment was fully developed. When you grow up around danger, it becomes normal before you’re really capable of understanding the consequences emotionally.”
“And now I’m old…” she scrunched her nose.
Carla smiled softly. “No. Just wiser. And finally aware that you’re not indestructible.”
“I kinda liked that feeling though.” Alejandra chuckled, leaning back, letting the tea warm her hands. Carla followed in the chuckle.
“I spoke with Sofia—my best friend, the one who wrote the Blue Mind research you gave me.”
Carla looked impressed and nodded. “I didn’t know she was your friend. Doctor Moretti Gómez is a very well-known voice in the marine world.”
“I know. We’ve been friends since we were five, when the prefrontal cortex wasn’t developed.” Carla laughed. “We both love the ocean, and we pursued it in different ways. As I was confessing how I felt, she made a very good point.”
“Which was?”
“A very good point that I then had time to process on my own.”
Carla nodded, as if to say go on.
“I hate being stuck. I’ve traveled my whole life. Chasing waves. I bought my house in Conil just to have a base, but I’m a free spirit, you know?” Alejandra sighed.
“I can see that about you.”
“The thing is… in the ocean, I always felt free. No chains. I could ride a wave, do an aerial, and what was under was just a consequence of what I wanted to do. Yes, I could hurt myself, and in Pipeline, it wasn’t the first time I did.
A couple of years ago I hit my head at that very same spot. But this time… I got stuck.”
“But you freed yourself.”
“I did. But I could’ve not. And what if without my injury had led me to become like Mick Turner, Callum’s dad?”
“What about him?”
Alejandra exhaled sharply. “Fucking Mick Turner. That man was my idol. Everyone in the surf community looked up to him. He made me believe surfing could be mythic, you know? I wanted to be like him.”
“And now?”
“Now I know he was an amazing surfer… and apparently, a terrible human being. He overdosed a week after Callum found out he existed. He had two kids he never met. Two women he left behind. And he just… mailed checks. Like that’s enough.”
Carla nodded. “You sound angry.”
“I am,” she admitted. “Not just for Callum. But also, for me. Because I looked up to him. And now I think… What if I hadn’t gotten injured? Would I have just kept chasing that? Sponsorships. Photoshoots. A shiny name. A trophy.”
“That’s not what you want?”
“No.” She said it like a realization, her voice softer.
“I realized surfing only ever mattered because my family and my friends were there. Because I could come back to Carlos on the beach and cry when I lost. Because my parents danced flamenco the night before the Olympics. Because I could share trophies or losses with Ilias. Because I could call Sofia and tell her I surfed with dolphins. Because now, I could call Callum after I win.”
Tears streamed down her cheeks, because she realized now how good her life had been, even the injury. How much good it had brought her.
Carla smiled. “So, the injury didn’t just stop you. It changed your direction. It made you realize what truly matters in your life.”
“Maybe it saved me,” she whispered. “It forced me to slow down. To stop pretending I was okay. To ask for help. To fall in love again.”
“And now?”
“Now I want to go back in the water. But I want to do it on my terms. With the people I love watching from the beach. I don’t care if it’s a small wave in Conil or a rehab swim in a pool.
I just want to move again. But with them.
With Callum. With my brother. My mom. My dad.
Sofia. Ilias. The little baby in Sofia’s belly.
I don’t want trophies. I want to share the story.
It has always been about sharing the story with them. ”
Carla let the silence linger a moment, letting it settle. “That sounds like healing.”
“I hope it is.”
“It is.”
Alejandra smiled through the tears.
“Same time next week?” Carla asked.
Alejandra looked out the window. “Yeah. But soon, I might be back on the road. Maybe we could shift to online sessions.”
“Then we’ll reschedule around the tides.”
Alejandra chuckled. She had no idea she was going to say all those things, but now that she had put words to her inner turmoil, she felt a weight had lifted from her shoulders.
She loved winning, she loved trophies, but she loved even more the people she had found along the way, before medals were a thing, before sponsorships mattered.
It took her some time to understand how truly lucky she was, even with that injury, what had come out of it, how it had redirected her life.
She somehow knew, felt it inside of her, that she was going back to compete.
But now, she didn’t want to rush it. Money wasn’t a problem.
It never really was one in the first place.
She should have known better. What happened to Mick Turner made her understand that there was no way she was going to end up like him, surrounded by trophies and awards but alone.
No, she was Alejandra López Romero, she was going to redefine what true success meant to her.