The rain thumps against the thatched roof, a rhythmic drumming behind the sound of my alarm. I silence my phone and sit up immediately so I won’t drift back off to sleep. There’s a sliver of daylight outside, a mild hue of gray, but it’s definitely not surfing weather.
I step onto the wooden floor and stagger toward the door. I crack it open, but there’s no hint of black coffee brewing, which means Glenn isn’t up yet. I’m careful not to be too loud because I don’t want to wake Kaia, so I tiptoe to the front door. I crack it open. The ocean is hidden under the misty rain.
“Go back to sleep,” Glenn says from behind me.
I jump upon hearing his voice.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you,” he says. “I say let’s take a day off. There’s no training to be done in this kind of weather. You deserve a break, and I wouldn’t mind one myself.”
I push the front door shut before the wind can sling rain into the living area of the bungalow. Glenn starts brewing his coffee, but I make my way back to bed to sleep in just a little longer. Maybe my boards will be in today, and I can stop using this pathetic excuse of a board out here. Training seems pointless when you don’t have proper equipment.
Maybe I can spend some time in the gym today. Or I can catch up on what’s happening with the world tour and the title race. It’d be cool to get out and take some pictures of the island since Cassie complains that I never update Instagram or send enough pictures back home. She says if I’m going to see the world, she deserves to live vicariously through me. If I ever make the world tour, I’m going to make sure she gets to see some of these places. Dad can stay home if he wants, but my stepmom deserves that chance. She’s helped me get this far. It’s the least I could do.
I make my way back to my room, reset my alarm, and fall back into the sheets.
Glenn is at the gym when I wake up later in the morning. Kaia sits in the living room, holding her phone out with her arm, probably trying to get a decent connection.
“You know the resort has Wi-Fi,” I remind her.
She nods. “I’m not walking down there just to get this text to go through.”
I pour a glass of orange juice and linger behind the kitchen counter instead of joining her. We haven’t talked much since the other night when she told me about her mom’s new baby and how badly her dad needed to be coaching again. I’m not sure if that brought the walls down or not, but I don’t want to overstep my boundaries.
“This is ridiculous.” Kaia groans. “I think I’m going to just get ready and go down to the resort. Sloane will know I’m going with her when she sees me there.”
I don’t overstep, but I decide to push the boundary and see if she lets me cross. “Where are you going?”
She doesn’t look up from her phone. She stays curled up in the chair, staring at the device in her hand like if she gives it the evil eye long enough, it’ll grant her wishes.
“Some place with waterfalls,” she says. She dares to look up now. “Jumping off waterfalls, actually. Pretty dangerous stuff. My dad wouldn’t approve.”
I take another swig from my glass before pouring the rest down the drain and leaving the glass in the sink. Then I walk around toward the living room.
“So you do have a bit of an adrenaline junkie in you,” I state. I fold my arms over my chest, but I instantly realize that this smug grin is going to rub her the wrong way. I don’t know how to undo it either.
“I’m not some kind of thrill chaser,” she says. Then she shrugs like it’s no big deal. “It’s something to do. Better than sitting around here all day.”
She’s right about that. Live streaming surf clips is probably out of the question without setting up in the resort lobby. Definitely can’t do it from my bed with this hit-and-miss connection.
“You want to come?” she asks.
I guess that’s one way to undo the smug grin and cocky chest puff. I’m completely off guard, and I’m sure my face shows it. I don’t know how to recover.
“You sure?” I ask, trying to downplay it. I don’t want her to know that I really want to go. “I don’t want to hijack your day. I’ve done enough damage already.”
She brings her phone down and studies me for a moment. “No, I’m sure,” she says. “I think you should tag along. We’ll see if you’re as brave in the water without a surfboard as you are when you’re on one.”
I’ve never met this girl Sloane who Kaia keeps talking about hanging out with, but the moment she walks into the St. Catalina Resort, I’m certain it’s her. She’s already in a bikini with a towel around her waist. Kaia said this girl was a real life mermaid with a dash of unicorn and a hint of rainbow, and seeing her now, that description – as crazy as it was – makes sense.
She rushes over to Kaia and hugs her. I’ve never understood how girls can go from strangers to best friends in a matter of hours, but it’s just weird to see them hug like they’ve known each other forever. Sloane looks at me next.
“You must be the surfer guy,” she assumes, even though I’d bet money that she knows my name and has already seen my picture.
I may not be fluent in girl speak or girl code, but there’s no way she doesn’t know who I am. Even if Kaia has lowered her pitchfork, there was a moment when she wanted to ram it through me, and I’m pretty sure she told Sloane all about how I’d ruined her summer.
“Dominic,” I clarify before reaching out to shake her hand. “But yeah, I’m the surfer guy.”
She introduces herself and the linebacker of a guy behind her, her brother Will. I almost ask him if he plays football, but I don’t know if they even have football here. To them, ‘football’ may be soccer, like other places around the world. I decide not to ask about sports to keep from embarrassing either of us.
“I’m not sure if Kaia told you,” Sloane says, tugging at her beach bag. “But we’re going to Serenity Falls today. It’s about thirty minutes from here. It used to be pretty popular with tourists, but most people don’t want to leave the resort area now. Don’t wanna be away from their phones too long.”
I don’t throw Kaia under the bus, even though the thought crosses my mind. She probably wouldn’t appreciate it if I mentioned how she huffed around the bungalow all morning, waving her arms in the air because she couldn’t get a signal. I’m used to spending time away from my phone. I’d rather be literally surfing than web surfing anyway.
“So, this whole waterfall jumping thing – I’m guessing you guys have done it before?” I ask.
“Oh yeah,” Will says, his voice as deep as I expected it to be. “I go out there all the time with my friends. Sloane’s only been doing it for about a year, but she’s pretty much a pro now.”
Kaia heaves her bag onto her shoulder and rolls her eyes. “Don’t worry,” she says, annoyance in her voice. “You won’t break your face. You’ll still be able to pose for surf magazines.”
“I’m not worried about my face,” I snap back. “I’d prefer not to break my legs. Can’t exactly surf without those.”
So much for warming up to me. I wish I could convince myself that she only said it to look like a badass in front of her new friends, but I think deep down, she probably meant it. Sloane and Will head through the lobby, leaving Kaia and me to follow.
Kaia looks back at me once they’re out of earshot. “Hey, if you’re scared, I’ll hold your hand,” she teases.
She smiles when she says it – a real smile rather than the fake one she gave me when we met in the airport. And honestly, I’m only more confused now than I was before.
For the last thirty minutes, Kaia and Sloane have been texting in the backseat, sometimes even passing their phones back and forth when cell service drops. Will has talked about sports (football is soccer here), how he didn’t realize surfing was a popular thing, and then he asked me about multiple places in the USA that I’ve never visited. Until recently, I rarely left California. I thought Hawaii was an adventure. I didn’t know I’d be jetting across the globe eventually.
Even though he’s done his part to keep the conversation moving along, I’m much more interested in what’s being said behind my back. I’m sure I’m oblivious to a lot of things, but I’m not naïve enough to believe that they’re not talking about me. Then again, if they’re genuinely talking about something else, I’d feel like a pretentious asshole for assuming they were talking about me. This is probably why Kaia still doesn’t like me.
“Here we are,” Will says, steering off of the road onto a dirt path.
A sign on the road reads Serenity Falls with a painted waterfall behind the words, but I don’t think this is the path that’s meant for tourists. Once the tree limbs begin to slap his truck, I know this isn’t where we’re supposed to be.
“You come this way often?” I ask, cringing as another limb snaps outside of the truck.
Will laughs. “I’m not walking a mile down the trails to get there when we’re jumping in the water anyway. This is a shortcut. It’s worth it if you don’t mind the tree damage.”
Sloane huffs in the backseat, so I turn back to look at her and Kaia. Neither says a word, but Sloane is definitely not happy with her brother.
“There are other places you could’ve parked,” she says. “You know I don’t like it when you do this.”
“The trees are fine!” Will yells, looking up at her in the rearview mirror. “If anything is damaged, it’s my truck, but I can live with the scratch marks. Storms do worse damage to trees than I do. They’re made to weather through these things.”
He pulls into a clearing, and I bet there’s one hell of a story behind how he and his friends discovered it. Tire marks slice through dirt and grass. He warns us that he’s leaving his truck unlocked, so anything that’s left behind is not his liability. I really doubt we’ll get robbed out here, so I take my chances. I pull my shirt off and leave it in the passenger seat. I throw my towel over my shoulder and exchange a glance with Kaia who seems all too unimpressed.
We trudge through the trees down a path that Will has probably traveled more times than even his sister knows. The sound of rushing water grows louder as we step over a few fallen limbs. My heart races as we draw nearer. I’ve jumped off piers before, but this is much more extreme. The more I think about it, the more I realize that Kaia was right – this is really dangerous. It only makes my heart thump harder.
Will stops in his tracks and spins around. “You only get this moment once,” he shouts over the sound of the water. “When you step through here, you’ll see her in all her glory. The waterfall Kiagwa.”
I don’t know if it’s common practice to name a waterfall, but at this point, I don’t really care if it’s normal or not. My inner thrill seeker is about to burst out of my skin. Will motions his arm ahead, like a butler greeting someone in a fancy mansion, and I don’t bother to hold myself back. I push through the trees to the opening.
She pours over the cliffs, a natural beauty right here hidden away on St. Catalina Island. A light mist floats around her, ghostly and serene, as she plunges into a massive bright blue natural pool of water. She roars at us, somewhat inviting but also taunting. She knows she could destroy us, but she also wants us to revel in her magnificence.
“Whoa,” Kaia says, easing up next to me.
I look down at her. “You’re really going to do this?”
She shrugs it off like it’s no big deal. “Yeah, are you?”
“Definitely.”