Chapter Five #3
Lea flinched—barely—but Rowan saw it. The muscles in Lea’s forearms tightened, tendons jumping.
“I was there after,” Lea said. “I was on your porch with malasadas and that crappy coffee you like. I sat on your steps until the mosquitoes ate me alive, and you didn’t come out.
I was there in texts and messages that got left unread.
” Her voice grew hoarse. “I tried. You didn’t. ”
Rowan’s spine stiffened. “I needed space.”
“You built a fortress.” Lea’s teeth flashed but it wasn’t a smile. “And now a kid wanders into your orbit with that wild, hungry look you used to have, and you tell her no because you’re afraid you might feel something?”
“It’s not about fear.”
“Then what is it?” Lea leaned in, face close. “Because if it’s your knee, we deal. You don’t have to go out on a heavy day. You stand in waist-deep and push a foamie. You don’t have to chase glory. You just have to get wet.”
“It’ll never be the same!” The words burst out of her. “I can do PT till I collapse, but I’m not guaranteed I can compete on the level I was used to. How am I supposed to be okay with that?”
The air around them felt charged, like the moment before a thunderhead cracked. “Rowan. You can’t hide from the ocean forever. It’s who you are. What would your father say?”
The words hit something precarious inside Rowan, something she’d stuffed in the back of a drawer and slammed shut.
For a flash, she saw herself standing in the white water, sun on her shoulders, the hum under her feet when the board found the pocket.
The sheer, stupid joy of it. Then the flash snuffed out, like wind blowing a candle.
The image of her dad, face creased with intent; shouting encouragement and directions from the WaveRunner; the joyous smile when they walked into the house together, bodies wrung out, skin encrusted with salt and sand, souls empty and full at the same time—all of it hit her full force and drove away her breath.
A gull screamed overhead. Rowan stomped out the mess of emotion and relished the familiar numbness. “You don’t know who I am anymore, Lea. Stop pretending you do.”
Lea’s breath caught audibly. The hurt slid over her face so fast Rowan almost reached out by instinct, but she curled her fingers into a fist instead. Lea blinked it away and straightened. The muscle in her cheek jumped. “You’re right,” she said softly, and the softness made it worse.
Rowan realized her nails were carving little moons into her palms.
Lea looked at the ocean, then back at Rowan.
Something in her gaze was still pleading, even under the anger.
“I’m not your enemy,” she said. “I know it’s easier to pretend you don’t care about surfing, or your friends.
We all want you back. You owe your father’s memory more, Ro.
It’d break his heart to see you stop fighting, but I can’t keep paddling for both of us. ”
Rowan swallowed. Her tongue felt thick. She wanted to say something that would ease the line between Lea’s brows. She wanted to crack a joke. She wanted to say yes. She wanted to ask how to do it without dissolving.
The words didn’t come. The only thing that came was the armor she’d polished for months. “Good night, Lea.”
Lea stared at her for a few seconds like she was trying to see through fog. Then she nodded once. Not acceptance. A cut. “Good night,” she said, and the warmth of her voice was gone.
She turned and walked up the beach. The way she moved, long and unapologetic, always made Rowan think of clean lines on a wave.
Lea grabbed her sandals from under a drift log, slapped them onto her feet, and didn’t look back.
The night swallowed her in pieces—first the hair, then the shoulders, then the flash of a hand as she pushed away a strand blown into her mouth.
The wind picked up. Rowan hugged her arms tighter.
In the faint glow from the lanterns, the ocean’s surface shifted.
If she closed her eyes, she could map the break by sound alone.
She could tell where the inside got choppy.
She could point to the channel where it would be easiest to paddle out without getting pounded. She could do it half asleep.
She hated that she still knew.
Voices drifted nearer. Tino called to someone about folding chairs.
Rowan turned into the noise and the small relief of tasks.
The place inside her that Lea had named—hunger—gnawed.
Rowan pressed her teeth together until her jaw clicked, the way she did when a set rose and she didn’t have position, when all she could do was brace and take it.
Lea was wrong. People outgrew things. Bodies betrayed. People died. What was wrong with making yourself small to fit the new space? It was calm there. Safe.
She bent to pick up a discarded lei, the flowers bruised brown at the edges, and the smell of them hit her—sweet and sad. She carried it to the trash. Her knee pulled tight, reminding her of everything she had buried.
The night went on. The tide kept falling. She told herself she was fine. She told herself she could hold her breath for as long as it took.