Twenty-Four
TWENTY-FOUR
TAYLOR
R unning on the fragmented sleep he got on the plane and the three hours he got in his own bed back at his apartment, Taylor greets the sunrise from the sand on the beach. He dons his 4/3 wet suit and booties. His surfboard is cradled under his right arm.
When life goes wrong, the waves go right.
At least that’s how it’s worked in the past.
The onshore winds and wonky tide at Moonlight State Beach do nothing to deter him. Leaving his belongings in the sand, he wades into the surf. There’s a nippy chill to the water, even though the midfifties temperature of the air feels downright balmy compared to what he left behind in upstate New York.
Lying in wait, stomach flush to the waxy board, the present month comes to mind: April. Spring is a shitty time for SoCal surf, but early April especially. The short period and small swells make it nearly impossible to catch a ride.
Time passes interminably as Taylor rocks alone in the uncooperative waves with only his thoughts for company. Usually, surfing wipes his brain clean. Today, he’s waterlogged, literally and mentally.
He shuts his eyes against the sun and prays to some higher power for something, anything . When he opens them again, the less than ideal conditions have grown worse as a dense fog rolls in around him.
Discouraged and depressed, he heads back for shore. He’s not looking forward to his first full day of unemployment. What’s he supposed to do with himself? Look for new positions, surely, but he’s not ready to dive into that. And it’s not like Amy’s going to write him a glowing letter of recommendation, so he’s got limited options. Those limited options become a tsunami. If he has no job, he’ll have no steady pay, and he’ll have to move out of his place, and yup, that settles it, his life is over.
Except, maybe that higher power was listening to him before because there on the sand on a towel beside his stuff is Sasha. She’s dressed in a university hoodie, jeans and sandals. She holds up a greasy brown paper bag like it’s a trophy. “I brought breakfast!” she shouts over the wind whipping at his ears.
Taylor has never been more excited to see someone, or avocado toast for that matter. “How did you know I was here?”
“Went to your place and your roomies said you were out. This was literally the only other spot I could think of you being,” she says, passing him a paper container and a napkin that almost blows away. “Did you hang ten?”
Taylor rolls his eyes and licks a bit of stray avocado off his finger. “I was prepared to hang up my wet suit for good given how dismal the surf was. I was really hoping it would clear my mind, but instead my mind is as mushy as this avocado.” He takes a big, gooey bite. It’s the first decent sustenance he’s had in twelve hours.
“Would talking about it help?” she asks, ever the gold star sister. She wraps a towel around his shoulders as he eats.
Since their phone call in the airport barely scratched the surface of the situation, Taylor breathlessly provides the play-by-play.
“You are such a hard worker. I can’t believe she just canned you like that. Where in your employment contract did it say you couldn’t fool around with her ex-husband?” Sasha asks.
He nearly chokes on the multigrain toast. “I think some things are just, ya know, implied.”
“Well, still. It’s not like she should have a say over your love life, or Ethan’s for that matter.” She picks off a sliced cherry tomato with a rankled expression and sets it aside. “She sounds like a total bitch.”
“Amy’s not a bitch,” he quickly defends. “She just demands a certain level of professionalism and commitment. It’s what’s gotten her where she is today. Long story short, I failed her.”
Sasha sighs, but places a comforting hand on his closest knee. “If you still admire her so much, why don’t you start acting like her?”
Taylor bristles. “What’s that mean?”
She shrugs. “From the time you were eleven, you were changing diapers and reheating meals and making sure nobody got grievously hurt in our household. Then you went on to become a personal assistant and, I don’t know, your whole life became about other people’s lives. You’re allowed to have a life and a love of your own. She certainly lets herself have those privileges.”
“I don’t know,” Taylor says, mentally wrestling with the logic and truth. Selfishness still doesn’t sit right with him. He knows he’s allowed it, but in what quantity?
“What is there not to know? You said in your voicemail to me that you didn’t feel guilty for sleeping with Ethan. Is that still true?” she asks.
Taylor concludes, “I do feel guilt, just not over what I did. But more about how it went down and how I hurt people with my actions, with my selfishness.”
“Selfishness?” she asks.
“Like Owen,” Taylor says. Owen’s name—rarely spoken and missing entirely from the sibling group chat—twirls between them like a baton of resentment.
“Like Owen? What does this have to do with—” Sasha’s eyes widen. “How could you possibly think what you did compares to Owen practically disowning our family?”
“I always thought him abandoning us was the ultimate act of selfishness. I vowed to always put those I loved and cared about before myself because I never wanted anyone to hurt the way I did when Owen left me in a scramble,” he says.
Sasha sighs. “I’m studying to be a PT, right? I don’t know much about the brain and the emotional centers that live there, but I do know about injuries and injuries hurt, obviously. Hurt happens to all of us. It’s unavoidable. Sometimes we cause it and sometimes we receive it, but there’s no way to seal ourselves off from it unless we stop living. I promise, hurt heals with time and the right exercises.”
“That sounds too neat to be true,” he says.
She clicks her tongue at him. “It’s my client’s job to accept responsibility for their care, to show up to sessions and to want to get better. It doesn’t matter whose fault the accident was or where the pain started. I know Owen never apologized for leaving you to be the de facto parental figure in our family, and that sucks. But you’re not Owen. You know the value of an apology. And once you apologize fully for not being open about what was going on, it’s on Amy to do the work to figure out why she reacted the way she did and how she’s going to tend to herself in the future,” Sasha says, staring out at the ocean. “I’m not saying she’s required to forgive you. Just like you’re not required to forgive Owen. If Amy chooses to hold on to the hurt, that’s her prerogative. That’s her pain to carry, and you shouldn’t inflict more pain on yourself because of it.”
“I wish it were as simple as some exercises, though, to erase it all.” He sets his food aside, stomach no longer engaged or interested.
“Exercises don’t fully heal an injury. They retrain and strengthen the hurt muscles. Your heart hurts now. But that doesn’t mean it will forever. I listened to your voicemail again this morning and, I don’t know, it sounded like you really like Ethan. Is it possible you broke something that didn’t need breaking?” she asks.
Taylor digs his fingers into the sand and pulls up a shell, chipped at the edges. Still beautiful. Ethan’s voice is clear in his mind: “Peace isn’t a mural. It’s a mosaic . ” If he didn’t take on Amy’s pain and he forged ahead for a new job, could he and Ethan pick up the shards of what they had a week ago and glue them into something equally beautiful?
“Maybe,” he says contemplatively. “Maybe.”
She places a gentle hand on his knee. “Do the exercises. Take the steps. Want to be healthy, Taylor. Want something for yourself for once. You deserve it.”