Page 106 of Between the Lines

Grabbing my new board from the top of the car, I march over the small dunes to the beach. Red riptide warning flags flap angrily in the wind, the ocean capped with white waves.

It doesn’t deter me though. I need rough waters, I need something to beat the shit out of me.

Just as I expected coming this early, there are few people in the water and barely anyone on the beach. Even the lifeguard stations are empty.

With my ankle strapped in, I grab my board and rush towards the blue-gray water without so much as a warmup. Not that it would make a difference, my body has been in knots for the last twenty-four hours, both inside and out.

The look on Fia’s face is burned into my skull, and it does nothing but make my stomach clench harder, my chest ache more.

I fucked up, doing what I thought was the right thing.

As the cool water hits my calves, sending a shock to my body, a guy a bit younger than me trudges out, breathing hard. He flips his hair back and nods at the turbulent waters in front of me.

“It’s fucking rough out there, man. Be careful.”

I wave my fingers with a tight smile.

“Perfect,” I mumble to myself and run straight into the cold water, hoping it consumes me fully. Hoping that for one hour I can stop thinking about how stupid I was to believe I could have it all.

Maybe everyone was right, maybe I am like my father in one way . . . a man who tries to use money to patch everything, placate people. A man who forgets about boundaries.

Is that who I led Fia to believe I was?

There’s no time to ruminate in self-loathing; the riptide yanks me out further. My knuckles are white against my brand-new surfboard, and I pull myself up, straddling it, trying to gain balance.

The four hours of sleep I got aren’t helping me, but nonetheless, I wipe the salt water from my face and paddle quickly, determined to catch this next wave.

Fuck being patient.

“Can you hear me, sir? Can you hear me?” A soft female voice rings in my ears.

I open my eyes, one at a time, but everything is blurry. Sand digs into my back, and my ankle pulses along with my face. I reach up to touch my throbbing head, and grimace, pulling my hand back quickly. There’s bright red blood on my fingers.

The girl kneeling next to me winces.

A red lifeguard jacket hangs loosely over her slender shoulders, and she stares at me with her brows pulled taut. “Sir, please don’t touch your face,” she begs, signaling to someone I can’t see.

I attempt to turn my head but she grabs my face. “No, don’t move, they are on their way.”

“What? Who?” I ask, but my voice is muffled like I’m underwater.

Two guys, appearing to be EMS, rush over with a neck brace in hand. My stomach drops and I sit up immediately, much to the distress of the young lifeguard next to me.

She shrieks.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” I groan, though my face feels like it got smashed in by a brick, and the entire beach is spinning around me.

“Sir, we need you to remain calm,” one guy says as he kneels in the sand next to me. “We’re going to put this neck brace on you as a precaution.”

My vision goes in and out of focus as they wrap the brace around my neck. But then I notice the ambulance parked right over the dunes. Next to my Jeep. And of course, a bunch of people fucking watching me.

“Where’s my board?” I ask, my voice hoarse, head pounding.

“It washed up down the shore, but I’ll take it to the station and when you’re able to, you can come pick it up,” the lifeguard relays to me, but her eyes are wide.

I can’t even imagine how I look. I realize then that I can’t breathe out of my nose.

“My nose is broken, isn’t it?” I ask her, and she nods.