36. Summer
Summer
WEDNESDAY
I haven’t slept all night. Yesterday plays on a loop—the run with Noah, the fall into Jace’s arms, his hand on my waist, his warm voice that…
Stop.
I get up, pull on leggings, a sports bra, a T-shirt. I tie up my hair, massage my right foot, lace up my sneakers. No need to think. The motions have been the same for years: move before my thoughts can drag me too far.
Outside, the lodge is empty. The sky is pale gray, the air cool. The solar lanterns along the path are still lit, small yellow smudges in the mist.
I pass Noah’s cabin.
This morning he’s not outside. The door is shut, the curtains drawn. Disappointed, I keep walking. Then I stop and double back.
I knock. Nothing. I knock again. Still nothing.
Just as I’m about to give up, I hear shuffling footsteps, a rustle, and the door opens.
Noah appears in his boxers, eyes puffy with sleep, one cheek creased from the pillow. His hair is flat on one side, a strand plastered to his temple. He blinks in the morning light.
“Run?” I say with my best smile.
“You’re kidding,” he mutters.
“Not even.”
He opens his mouth to protest, but the door has swung a little too wide and I can see inside.
The cabin is a disaster. Pizza boxes stacked on the little desk, beer cans lined up along the wall, crushed soda cans, an ashtray overflowing on the nightstand, clothes on the floor. The curtains are drawn. The air reeks of stale smoke, greasy cardboard, and sweat.
Noah follows my gaze and turns red all the way to his ears. He steps sideways to block the view. Too late.
“It’s…” he starts.
He closes his eyes, crosses his arms.
“Hey… It’s fine, Noah.”
I take a step forward, put my hand on his arm.
“It’s not a contest, but my room at college was way worse after my fracture. For a month it looked like a dump.”
My dad called every day, his voice too gentle. My mom had left for Montreal with Elena after our fight. I spent a month in a studio apartment where the floor disappeared under tissues and instant ramen wrappers.
Noah stares at me, then uncrosses his arms.
“Yeah,” he sighs. “Except for me it’s been more like four or five years.”
I don’t answer.
“I’ll get dressed,” he says, heading for the back of the cabin.
He digs through the pile of rumpled clothes on the floor, picks one up, pauses, looks for something else.
I hesitate on the threshold, then step inside.
I open the window and the air rushes in all at once. I gather the empty cans and drop them into the trash bag hanging from the closet handle. I grab three pizza boxes, close them up, and set them by the door. I’m not doing a deep clean. I’m just helping. No pushing, no comments.
As I lift one box, I catch sight of a yellowed cover.
The book’s title: Clinical Oncology: Principles and Practice.
I don’t touch it. Under the book, a form sticks out.
I can read the header: Monterey Peninsula College.
A coffee ring stains the top corner brown.
The first line is filled in—first name, last name, date of birth. The rest is blank.
I put the box back where it was.
Noah has pulled on shorts and a gray T-shirt. He looks at the open window, the cans in the bag, the stacked boxes. His jaw tightens. He doesn’t say thank you, but he doesn’t ask me to stop either.
“Summer… About what you told me yesterday about Jace, you need to know that—”
“No,” I cut in. “Not now.”
Noah shuts his mouth. What I read in his eyes looks like guilt—which makes no sense. It’s not his fault his brother is an asshole.
He nods. We head out.
The pier is a ten-minute run away. The sky is brightening in the east, pink and orange low on the horizon, gray everywhere else. The sand is firm underfoot, packed hard by the low tide. The waves roll on our right, long and steady—the background hum of Coral Bay, the one I hear even in my sleep.
Noah runs beside me. He’s breathing hard, his strides uneven. After five minutes he starts to lag, but he keeps up. We don’t talk.
We turn around at the end of the pier. Noah has his hands on his hips, breath short, T-shirt stuck between his shoulder blades.
“Want me to slow down?” I offer.
He flips me off without looking at me. I smile.
Heading back along the boardwalk, we pass the lodge and the surf school. The yard is empty; the VW bus is parked crooked, covered in dew. Out in the water, two still figures.
Maya and Jace, sitting on their boards, facing the open water.
The sun is starting to break through, the waves small and clean, and the light slides across the surface like a sheet of gold.
Maya turns toward the beach and waves us over.
“Hey!” she shouts. “You coming?”
I shoot Noah a questioning look.
“I don’t have a board,” he grumbles.
“There are thirty right over there,” I say, pointing at the racks.
We head inside. I pull a wetsuit off the rack. Noah grabs one too, pulls it on, fights with the zipper in the back.
“Hold on.”
I step behind him, pull it all the way up.
The wetsuit is a little too tight across his shoulders and chest, but he doesn’t say anything.
He takes a board from the rack—a white longboard, wide and stable. I take the yellow one. It’s where Harper put it after the wipeout, wedged between two shortboards. I never came back for it. I pull it free, tuck it under my arm, and don’t look at the tail.
From the water, Jace sees us coming. He paddles toward shore, Maya behind him. He smiles.
Not at me—at Noah. A brief smile, almost surprised. He doesn’t even look at me.
Noah stops at the water’s edge. He looks at the waves, the board, his feet.
“Now what?” he murmurs.
“You get wet,” Jace says.
Maya takes me, Jace takes Noah—makes sense.
Off to the right, Harper and Kai glide across bigger waves, in a world of their own.
Maya is a good coach. Calm, precise, encouraging without being condescending. She sets me up on the board, fixes the spacing between my hands, reminds me to keep my elbows tucked when I paddle.
“?Vamos!” she shouts, shoving the back of my board at the right moment.
I paddle, feel the wave lift me, and I pop up. The take-off is clean. My feet find their spot, my knees bend, and I glide. The wave runs out of steam and I jump off into the water.
When I climb back on the board, Maya gives me a thumbs-up.
“Good. Again.”
A little ways off, Jace is working with Noah. I watch them between waves, sitting on my board, my legs in the water.
Jace holds the rail of the board with one hand and steadies it while Noah tries to get into position. He pushes at the right moment, no hesitation—a motion done a thousand times. He doesn’t say much, gives short, direct instructions.
“Lower. Hands flat. Look ahead, not at your feet.”
Noah paddles badly—arms too wide, shoulders tight, water spraying everywhere. The wave passes under him. He swallows water, coughs.
“Again,” Jace says.
Noah paddles again. This time the wave takes him, he tries to stand—one knee, then the other—and falls. The board gets away from him, the leash snaps it back with a loud slap on the water. Noah surfaces, out of breath, hair plastered to his forehead.
“Shit,” he breathes.
“Again,” Jace repeats.
He barely talks. He repeats the motions, fixes the same mistakes, starts over.
I’m better than Noah, by a long shot. Fifteen years of training, a dozen summers of surfing—my body knows what balance is. Noah, on the other hand, is smart—brilliant, even—but he’s never been an athlete.
Maya pushes me onto a second wave. I take it, I ride it, I feel my footing lock in. It’s getting better and better.
The third wave is longer. I stand up early, set my feet, and glide. The water rushes by under the board, the wind pushes my hair back, and for a few seconds there’s nothing else. No house to sell, no loan to pay off, no stupid bet. Just the ocean.
I can still do this.
When I come back to the lineup, Jace is repositioning Noah on his board. But his eyes aren’t on his brother—they’re on me.
He looks away the second our eyes meet. Thirty seconds later he’s correcting Noah’s posture again, but his gaze comes back to me.
I pretend not to notice.
Maya guides me onto another wave. I paddle, I pop up, and just as I set my feet, Jace’s voice rings out:
“Your back foot—slide it back on the pad! And open up your shoulders!”
I glance over at him. He’s a few yards away, one hand on Noah’s board.
“Hey! That’s my student!” Maya calls out. “Summer, ignore him. You’re doing fine.”
But on the next wave, he does it again.
“You’re staying too square! Open your hips, follow the wave, don’t just shoot straight ahead!”
I don’t get what he means. I turn to Maya, who sighs.
“He’s not wrong… It’s the rotation. You keep your hips facing forward. In surfing, you have to open them up.”
I try again… and miss. Jace lets go of Noah’s board.
“Don’t move,” he tells his brother.
He closes the distance between us and comes up beside me, the water waist-deep. Up close, his eyes are greener in the morning light.
“Stand up,” he says.
I do as he says. Standing on the board, knees bent, I try to find my balance.
Jace moves closer. His hand settles on my hip. He corrects the angle of my hips with a press of his palm.
“There. Feel the difference?”
Mostly I feel his warm fingers through the neoprene. The rotation. Sure. Way down the list.
“Yes,” I manage.
Jace takes his hand away. He steps back.
“When you stand up, you pivot. Automatic. Got it?”
I nod. He goes back to Noah without another word.
Maya shoots me a look I don’t meet. I lie back down on the board, paddle out, and wait for the next wave.
It comes.
I paddle, I pop up, I think about the rotation. But mostly I think about the heat of Jace’s palm.
My back foot slips. My center of gravity tips… and I fall off the board with all the grace of a sandbag.
I surface. Maya bursts out laughing. Behind me, Noah shouts something I don’t catch. Even Harper, way outside, has turned around.
The wave had nothing to do with it.
The session goes on. The sun climbs, the waves stay small and steady. Maya has me work on the rotation, over and over. After a while, it comes back. My hips pivot, my shoulders follow, and the board responds better.
For his part, Noah keeps falling. He gets back up, falls again, paddles crooked, blows the timing, plants a knee where a foot should go. Jace doesn’t lose patience. He repositions, he pushes, he waits.
A small wave comes in, clean, even. Jace pushes Noah’s board at the perfect moment.
Noah paddles. For once, his arms are coordinated. The wave takes him. He plants his hands flat, pushes up, slides one foot under him, then the other.
He’s up.
He wobbles, arms flung out, knees too bent, back hunched. A technical disaster, but he’s standing. The board glides, Noah holds on.
“Fuck!”
He falls with a shout, head thrown back, and when he comes up he’s laughing. A real laugh—the first since I came back.
“?Eso es!” Maya yells, slapping the water with her palm.
Kai just raises a hand—he doesn’t waste a motion.
Jace watches his brother surface and just nods.
The lesson winds down on its own. Maya heads out to catch a few waves on her own. Noah stays near the shore, sitting on his board, spent but still smiling. I let myself drift on the yellow board, eyes on the horizon.
Jace sits just to my right, legs in the water, silent. We don’t look at each other. We wait.
The set comes in from the west, visible from a distance—a series of dark swells forming offshore and rolling toward us in tight rows.
The first wave passes too far out. The second pitches too fast.
The third is perfect. Maya spots it from farther out.
“That one!”
I lie down on my board and paddle. To my right, Jace does the same. We paddle in parallel, four or five yards of water between us, and the wave rises behind us.
It lifts us at the same time.
I pop up. My feet find their place without searching, my hips follow, the board responds.
I don’t think. I glide.
Jace is right there, on the same wave. His feet are anchored, his stance low and open, and he surfs the way he’s always surfed—with unfair ease.
He turns his head toward me. We exchange a look.
The wind whips my face, the water races under my board. For the length of one wave, we glide side by side.
The wave weakens. I bend my knees and dive. The ocean swallows me and everything turns blue, cold, and silent.
When I come up, Maya is yelling from out back:
“?Increíble!”
I laugh. Jace surfaces a short way off and shakes his hair out of his eyes. The ghost of a smile crosses his face. It’s not the one from earlier, the one meant for Noah: it’s softer—and more dangerous.
Noah claps from his board. Maya shouts louder than anyone.
I push my wet hair back off my forehead. Jace holds my gaze a second too long, then looks away and paddles out.