55. Jace
Jace
THURSDAY
One week later…
Grinning ear to ear, Mateo hands me his wetsuit and his foam board.
“See you tomorrow, Coach!”
“See you tomorrow, Mateo.”
I take his stuff and give him back the smile—the one I’ve been plastering on my face for seven days.
The kid heads up the path toward the parking lot where his dad’s waiting. My smile drops.
I turn back to the yard. Boards lie in the sand near the rack, wetsuits turned inside out beside them.
I grab the first board, prop it against the wall.
I turn on the spigot, uncoil the hose. Fresh water washes the sand away.
I flip the board, rinse it down, slide it into the rack. I grab the next one.
I could do it with my eyes closed. Same motions for fifteen years.
One week.
One week since I’ve slept more than three hours straight.
One week of typing Summer’s name into every search engine, plus anything that might lead me to her.
Columbia. New York. Economics. Marketing.
Restaurant. I combed social media. I looked for internships.
I tried to track down her old friends from high school or college, without even knowing their names.
What I found: a private Instagram account with a profile picture that looks old. A LinkedIn with no current job listed.
And videos of her on the ice.
Competitions, galas—dozens of them. She spins, she jumps, she lands. She’s brilliant. Until she turned seventeen, I’d watched everything I could. After that summer, I stopped watching. I never saw her skate again.
The other day, I came across the accident.
Twenty years old. Red sequined dress on the ice.
She’s stunning. A missed jump, landing on the blade at a bad angle—I don’t know the sport, but I can tell it’s bad.
She’s laid out, one hand clamped around her right skate, dead still.
She stares at the ceiling, her face tight with pain.
Tears run silently down her temples. A stretcher comes. Hands lift her. Her career’s over.
I watched that video three times.
For six years, I never looked. Yumi mentioned once that she’d ended her career after an injury. I let it go. Miles told me about the fracture two weeks ago, and I didn’t dig. I didn’t want to.
I don’t know where she lives or where she works. I don’t even know the name of her subway stop.
I didn’t ask questions. Not one. I thought we had time. I thought she’d tell me. I thought so many things.
I set the last board in the rack and turn off the spigot. The water finishes draining into the sand, and then nothing.
I head up to the trailer and sit on the steps, elbows on my knees, head in my hands. I let out a breath. I hear voices somewhere on the beach, carried off by the wind.
I lift my head.
Elena.
Summer’s half-sister. She came to Coral Bay for a few days one summer, when she was still a kid. We saw each other two or three times, but not enough to really know each other.
I rush into the trailer and grab my phone off the counter.
I open Instagram and type “Elena Novak.”
She comes up at the top, a blue check next to her name. She’s on the ice in a fitted burgundy dress, back arched. She’s got over a hundred thousand followers.
I tap send a message and stop.
This is stupid. I’m about to message a girl who probably doesn’t even remember me.
She lives in Canada, and I don’t even know what city.
She’s got no reason to answer me. I’m going to ask her for her half-sister’s address when they barely talk.
I’m going to come off like a lunatic. Or I’ll come off as exactly what I am: a guy at the end of his rope, out of places to look.
Screw it.
I breathe in and tap the mic.
“Hey, Elena. It’s Jace Walker. I don’t know if you remember me.
I’m a childhood friend of Summer’s. You came to Coral Bay once, you were maybe ten or eleven…
Look. I screwed up. She went back to New York and I don’t even know where she lives.
I need to talk to her. I love her, and I didn’t get the chance to tell her.
If you can help—an address, a contact, a lead, I’ll take it. Thanks.”
I send it before I can chicken out. I set the phone on the counter. My hands are shaking a little.
I drop onto the bed, arms spread, eyes on the ceiling. There’s nothing left to try.
My eyes close. I drift, half asleep.
The phone buzzes. I jolt up, lunge for it. Incoming Instagram call.
Elena.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Jace.”
Her voice isn’t hostile. That’s something.
“Thanks for calling back—”
“Yeah, I remember you. Well… mostly I remember Summer glued to you.”
She laughs for a second. I don’t know what to say.
“I’m listening,” she goes on. “What happened with Summer?”
I lay it out, no real order. The bet that wasn’t a bet, my accident, the misunderstanding that held for six years, her coming back, almost three weeks of circling the truth, what I figured out too late. I don’t tell her everything. I tell her enough.
“Jace, I’d like to help you,” Elena says when I’m done. “But I don’t have her address either. I still have her number, but I haven’t talked to her in three years. A text on her birthday, one on mine, that’s it. I don’t even know if she’ll answer me.”
She exhales and adds, lower.
“When she cut ties with our mother, I disappeared right along with her.”
I close my eyes. When Summer cuts someone off, she doesn’t pick and choose. Noah’s collateral damage. So is Elena.
“She watches all your competitions online,” I say.
A long silence on the other end.
“She told you that?” she finally asks.
“Yeah. And I could tell she misses you.”
She keeps it together, but I hear her breathing.
“I’m not promising anything, but I’ll try,” she says. “I’ll call her. And I’ll keep you posted.”
“Thanks, Elena.”
“Jace… Go easy, okay? She seems tough, and she is. But she’s got her limits.”
And she hangs up.
Dazed, I slip the phone into my shorts pocket and step outside. I cross the yard to the beach, to the line on the sand where the water rises and pulls back. I stop there.
I don’t want to go in the water.
I love this ocean. I’ve loved it since the day I was born. It almost killed me at eighteen. It put Summer back in my path this summer—first when she almost drowned, then with that goddamn video of the attack that should’ve stayed buried.
And that same ocean took her from me. If I hadn’t gone surfing under the cliffs that morning, maybe we’d be together.
I don’t know if that’s true. It’s what I tell myself when I’m tired.
The phone buzzes in my pocket.
Elena
Lucky Star Diner. Delancey Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
Tomorrow night, shift until 10 p.m.
Good luck, Jace.
I read it three times.
I know where she is.
I want to scream. Instead, I run to the trailer and open my messages before I’ve even shut the door behind me.
New group chat. I add the names one after another. Avery, Noah, Luke, Miles, Evan, Sierra, Maya, Kai, Mom.
Emergency meeting. Lodge front desk in an hour. I need everyone.
The confirmations come pouring in. No questions.
Maya
Sí, jefe
Miles
Luke
I’ll bring stuff.
Noah
OK
Evan
I’m off tonight.
Mom calls right after. I pick up, sum it up in two sentences. She’s in Carmel with Avery for a meeting with a sponsor.
“We’ll be there in an hour,” she says.
I splash water on my face, change my T-shirt, and head out. Flip trots after me, his nose against my thigh.
“Let’s go, big guy.”