33. Jace
Jace
The sea is calm. Small, clean waves roll in steady sets, no wind to break them up, no chop on the surface. One of those mornings when you paddle, you stand, and the board takes off almost on its own.
Summer should’ve picked a morning like this one. Not yesterday.
I shake my head and paddle for the next wave.
Kai sits on his board a few yards from me, hair loose over his shoulders. He watches the horizon like he can read what the waves will do half an hour from now. With him, that’s possible. Evan’s between us, sitting straight on his board. Even in the water, he doesn’t waste a motion.
An easy wave comes through. I stand… and I fall.
Not a wipeout—a slip. Back foot sliding, body pitching forward, board shooting out from under me.
I come up spitting water.
“You’re not focused,” Kai says.
He hasn’t even turned his head.
“Doesn’t matter. I don’t compete anymore. My sister’s the only one in the family who still does.”
“How’d it go last Friday?”
“She won,” I say, smiling.
I watched her heat on a video call with Mom. The screen shook—she was filming from the beach, cheering. Avery came out of the water with her fist in the air. Sixteen, and she surfs better than I did at her age.
Kai nods.
“Good.”
Evan gives a thumbs-up, says nothing. He takes off on the next wave, rides it all the way in, then paddles back into position.
I settle back onto my board. The sun’s still low, raking across everything, carving long shadows on the sand. My eyes drift toward the beach.
Flip’s asleep on the sand, muzzle resting on his paws. But he’s not the one I’m watching for.
It’s Summer—just to make sure she’s not doing something stupid.
Like yesterday.
Yesterday I was more scared than the day of my accident. And that day, I watched myself die.
She was underwater. Four waves in a row. I watched her disappear, and for a second I thought it was over. That the ocean was going to take Summer from me, after everything else.
Even if she walked out on me. Even if she cut me off after our night together. Even if she never came to see me after my accident. Six years, and I still care about this girl.
Pathetic.
I paddle out toward open water so I’ll stop looking at the beach.
“That your brother over there?” Evan says.
I turn around. Noah’s standing on the sand in front of the surf school, in shorts and a T-shirt. He’s staring at the water, not moving.
He’s up early…
I don’t go in. If I paddle toward him, he’ll turn around and leave. It’s been like this for years—I come closer, he backs off.
Noah goes into the gear room. He comes back out two minutes later with a foam longboard under his arm and a wetsuit pulled up to his waist. I stare at him, not believing it.
On the beach, he sets the board down and works the wetsuit the rest of the way up, fumbling with it. One sleeve twists, the zipper sticks. Then he grabs the board, walks into the water, and starts paddling out.
“The hell’s he doing?” Evan says.
“He hasn’t surfed since Dad’s paddle-out,” I say, my voice rough. Fourteen years.
Noah paddles toward us—badly. Too far back on the board, lifting his arms too high out of the water, paddling crooked and drifting to the left. When a small wave comes at him head-on, he almost flips.
Kai and Evan watch him in silence.
Flip’s on his feet now. His tail’s whipping back and forth. He takes three steps toward the water, stops, sits, and waits.
Finally Noah reaches us, red-faced, out of breath.
“You’re even worse than Summer…” I say.
“Shut up.”
It’s harsh. But it still sounds like us.
I smile at him.
“I’m glad you’re here.”
Noah blinks. He looks away and grips his board a little tighter.
We stay like that for a while. Four guys sitting on their boards, rising and falling with the swell. Evan catches two waves, comes back. Kai catches one, a long one, and paddles back to his spot.
Noah doesn’t catch anything. He doesn’t try. He’s here, and that’s already huge.
Noah on a board, in the water, for the first time since Dad died. And he came out for me. Not to surf, not for fun—to paddle out here and sit down next to me.
“I know you blame me,” I say.
It comes out on its own. He doesn’t deny it, doesn’t confirm it.
“It’s because of me you didn’t go to college,” I go on. “Your dream—medicine, all of it—I’m the one who took it from you.”
His college money swallowed up by the helicopter, the hospital, the transfusions, the rehab… By everything that came after the accident.
“Jace…” Noah breathes.
“And all of it for what? A stupid-ass bet.”
Kai stares at me. I sigh.
“Miles and I bet a hundred bucks with some loudmouths passing through that we’d surf at dawn under the Star Park cliffs.”
Kai straightens up on his board.
“At The Last Ride? You guys are idiots. You could’ve smashed yourselves on the rocks.”
I shrug.
“Didn’t happen. Well… I still almost didn’t make it.”
Nobody answers. The water rises and falls under our boards. I let out a humorless laugh.
“A hundred dollars. That’s why you didn’t go pre-med. Because two morons wanted to play hero in front of surfers they didn’t even know.”
I stare at my hands on my board.
“Sometimes I think if I hadn’t made it, it would’ve been simpler for everyone.”
Noah stays silent. Then he explodes.
“Goddamn it, Jace! What are you talking about?”
His voice cracks.
“Are you serious right now? You think I’d rather lost you?”
“I—”
“Of course I’m glad you’re still here, for God’s sake! Of course if I had it to do over, I’d give that money again! Ten times, a hundred times over!”
He smacks the water, splashing himself.
“That’s not the problem. It’s not the money. It’s the way it happened.”
He catches his breath.
“Mom calling me in tears to tell me you’re in the hospital and you might die. Three days of waiting. Three days without sleep. And when you’re finally out of danger, she follows it up with: there’s no money left for college.”
Eyes red, he looks at me.
“I was sixteen, Jace. My brother almost dies, and the second I start breathing again, I’m told my future’s gone. And nobody asks if I’m okay.”
“I know you’re not okay,” I say, my voice rough.
Noah shakes his head.
“I’m depressed, damn it!”
The swell lifts us, sets us back down.
“It’s been years, and I don’t even know anymore if it’s because of you, or college, or Dad, or me. I’m not doing anything with my life, and it’s not your fault, but it’s still tied to all of it, and I don’t know how…”
His voice breaks.
Without a word, Kai puts a hand on Noah’s shoulder, then takes it away.
“We’re here, man,” Evan says.
I don’t say anything.
I look at the horizon, fingers clamped on the rail of my board. Noah just said out loud what I’ve known for a long time but never dared to bring up with him.
Eventually, Evan gives us a nod, catches a wave, and heads back up the beach—he has to start his shift soon.
And I still haven’t asked…
“Noah… what did you want to talk to me about?”
He blinks.
“What?”
“When you got here… You looked like you had something to tell me.”
Noah takes a little too long to answer. His gaze slips away and comes back, less sure.
“It’s… about you and Summer.”
“There’s nothing left between her and me,” I shoot back.
“Jace, listen to me…”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Noah stares at me. He opens his mouth, closes it again.
I don’t push. If I push, I’ll have to talk about what I still feel for her, and I’m not ready.
“Come surf with us again, okay?” I say.
Noah manages a half-smile, the first of the morning—the first in a long time.
“We’ll see.”
“Look,” Kai says.
On the beach, Summer pushes her pink beach cruiser through the sand.
The bike’s overloaded—paint cans wedged in the front basket, a bag hanging off the handlebars, a rolled-up tarp balanced against the frame.
Everything’s tilting, everything’s about to fall.
The bike sinks into the sand. She drags it forward.
The bag slips. She catches it without missing a beat, tucks it under her arm, and keeps going.
Flip gets up and trots over to her. Traitor.
Summer stops and bends down to pet him. Flip goes wild, jumps up on her, then presses against her leg, tail going a mile a minute. She takes the handlebars again and wheels it into the yard of the Hayes house.
The gate swings shut.