Chapter 2
Max
I sit on my board and match my breathing to the steady rise and fall of the ocean, the horizon still pale with morning. My therapist’s voice threads through my head, steady and annoying in the way things are when the advice you didn’t want to take is working.
Five things I can see: The sun just breaking over the water. The dark line of the shore. A gull skimming low across the surface. The scratches on the nose of my board. The slow rise of the swell beneath me.
Four things I can feel: The board under me. The cold seep of the Pacific through my wetsuit. The tight pull in my shoulders from paddling too frantically at first. The steady thump of my heart, slowing.
Three things I can hear: Water lapping against fiberglass. The distant crash of a wave breaking. My own breath, even and measured.
Two things I can smell: Salt air. Neoprene.
One thing I can taste: Her.
The faint memory of whiskey and her lips against mine lingers longer than it has any right to.
And I didn’t get enough.
Not that she owes me anything. She doesn’t.
I could go to my grave, and the memory of her coming apart around my fingers would still rank among the best accomplishments of my life.
But it wasn’t enough. I want it again—the sharp little gasp she made, the way her hand tightened in my hair, the brief sting as she pulled just hard enough.
The way her body seemed to crave mine, leaning in, pulling mine closer.
The way it convulsed when she finally let go.
And then her damn phone rang.
She didn’t silence it.
Didn’t ignore it.
And definitely didn’t toss it into the toilet the way I silently begged her to.
She answered it.
She answered her phone with my fingers still slick with her pleasure.
Then she slid off the counter, smoothed her skirt, and kissed me so deeply while the phone was still pressed to her ear that I could hear the shouting from the other person.
And before I can process what’s happening, before I can stop her, she’s gone, disappearing out of the bathroom like maybe she does this all the time.
I didn’t even get her name.
What was I thinking? This is supposed to be my test. A controlled one.
A safe chance to see if I can dip a toe back into the working world without letting it swallow me whole.
To see if everything I’ve focused on over the last year and a half has actually stuck.
The therapy. The affirmations. The slow, painful work of peeling back the layers of how I broke—and how to put myself back together after… after everything.
A set rolls in on the horizon, darker water lifting in a slow, deliberate line.
I feel it before I really see it, the ocean drawing a breath.
It’s a good wave. Maybe more than one. The kind I would normally turn and paddle for without hesitation.
But I stay where I am, just beyond the break, letting it pass beneath me.
Since I started surfing again this year, this part has become just as important—maybe more—than catching the perfect wave.
The board rises, then settles, and I float in the quiet that follows.
Learning patience. Learning that not every opportunity needs to be seized, not every swell chased.
That disappointment doesn’t mean failure.
That’s what I’m supposed to be focused on. The steps of my recovery. Not letting old patterns dress themselves up as something new. Last night was impulsive. Exactly the kind of thing I’m supposed to avoid. I’m supposed to take three deep breaths before I say yes to anything.
But when she pressed her mouth to mine, or maybe when she tugged me into the bathroom, or hell, when she invited me to sit back down on the barstool—I knew I’d say yes to whatever she asked.
And that’s the problem.
That’s what got me here in the first place.
Why don’t you feel like you can say no, Max? My therapist had asked during one of my first sessions—back when I was still bitter and angry and raw.
Because you don’t get to the top by saying no.
You get there by being the one who always says yes.
The job. The marriage. It worked—right up until it broke me.
I hold my fist up to the thin strip of sky between the horizon and the newly risen sun. Six a.m.
I should head in. Shower. Get dressed.
Even if it’s just a favor for an old friend.
Even if it’s only three months.
Even if it’s nowhere near the level of what I used to do.
Not every swell needs to be chased.
I turn my board toward shore, already feeling the familiar pull of routine settling back into place.
I should be on time for my first day at my new job.