I wait in the resort lobby for Kaia to change clothes. The bungalow is literally just down the pier, but she said if she goes back there to change, the day is officially over, and she’s not ready to end it just yet. I guess seeing your parent does kind of put the adventure on pause. So I wait.
Sloane and Will already left to attend a dinner party with their parents. Will seemed annoyed by it, but Sloane said he always overreacts and the parties are never as horrible as he imagines they’ll be. Will said he has to wear a tie, and that alone is horrible. I’ve been dragged to plenty of events and parties to stand next to my dad and smile. I have to take Will’s side on this one.
Kaia walks over to me from the restroom, back in her tank top and cut off shorts.
“Where to?” I ask, hoping she has a plan. She’s seen more of the island than I have.
But she shrugs. “I figured we could just walk down the beach,” she says. “I haven’t been much further than around the resort, except when I go somewhere with Sloane.”
We exit the lobby, and I’m instantly more relaxed the minute my feet touch the sand. There are moments when fancy hotel lobbies feel normal because of my dad and the lifestyle we’ve had with him, but being on the beach is where I feel at home. There’s nothing better than sand, salt water, and a sunset.
Kaia doesn’t say much as we stroll past tourists with giant umbrellas and people playing volleyball. A hot dog truck is parked near the sand’s edge with a lengthy line that wraps into the parking lot. If I bought food from a food truck, it’d definitely have to be something better than hot dogs.
“You like frozen yogurt?” Kaia asks, drawing my attention back to her. She points ahead. “I think I’m going to get some.”
We walk over to the small building. It looks like a surf shack, minus the surfboards and wetsuits. Clear Christmas lights hang from the roof, and the menu is listed on a chalkboard outside in girly handwriting.
The girl behind the counter leads forward. “Hey, what can I get for you guys?” she asks.
I motion for Kaia to order first. She debates the cup or cone for a moment before deciding on the cup. She immediately chooses cotton candy flavor. It’s a bright pink and blue swirl with a touch of purple, which feels pretty appropriate. I order a cup of toasted marshmallow, which Kaia curls her nose upon hearing.
“I’ve got it,” I say, handing over the credit card Dad sent with me.
I actually wish I had cash on me right now because the credit card looks haughty. Then again, if I walked around flashing hundred dollar bills on the regular, that would look pretty pretentious too. I don’t know if I’ll ever shake that image. The world may view me as a snobbish jerk for the rest of my life just because I was brought up in a well-off family. It used to work in my favor, but it’s apparently changing with the tides.
She thanks me before we find a quiet spot in the sand away from the crowd of tourists and squealing kids. The water sloshes back and forth against the shoreline, gently swaying against the columns that hold up the pier and bungalows. I spread my extra towel out on the sand for us to sit on.
“I’m sorry about your friend,” she says, handing my cup of toasted marshmallow frozen yogurt back to me. “Both of them really.”
“Thanks,” I say. “But Theo’s not my friend anymore. None of my old friends are part of my life now.”
It stings to say those words out loud. I think of the Hooligans often, how they were my crew in and out of the water, but it’s a lot easier to think of them as a whole rather than the individual parts. When I refer to them by their names, by their stories, it digs the knife so much deeper.
Kaia scoops up a spoonful from the pink side of her cup. “What happened?”
“I fucked up,” I say. There’s no other way around it. “I acted like I was better than them. I was entitled. I know you have this idea of who I am, the spoiled rich kid who always gets his way and only has to make a phone call to his dad to make something happen. A lot of people see me that way, and I get why they do. That’s who I was. But then I was knocked off my high horse...a few times actually...and it was a rude awakening.”
She pokes her spoon into the creamy blue in her cup. “What’s the real story?” she asks.
The coldness in my mouth leaves me longing for a bonfire with real s’mores and toasted marshmallows. The last time I was at a bonfire on the beach, I was pretty drunk, and A.J. Gonzalez threatened to bust a beer bottle over my head again. That was last summer, but it feels like years ago. A lifetime ago.
“What do you mean?” I ask. There’s no telling which story she’s referring to.
“The last year of your life,” she says before angling her body to face me. “You had a falling out with your friends. Dropped out of school. And now you’re here. Fill in the gaps for me. All I have to go on is tabloid fodder.”
“Fodder,” I repeat.
“Hey, I know a few words,” she counters. “I may not have your fancy rich boy education, but when it comes to tabloids, I’ve got you beat any day.”
I scoop up a spoonful and savor the taste before the garbage story of my past comes out of my mouth. I know that deep down, she already thinks the worst of me, even if she’s trying to give me the benefit of doubt right now.
“I used to live in this place called Horn Island,” I begin. “It’s pretty ghetto. Dirty beaches. Not somewhere you want to raise a family. When my parents divorced, my dad remarried pretty quickly, and he fought for my sister and me to live with him because Crescent Cove was safer, had a better school system, and so on. He eventually won.”
I decide it’s probably better to leave out the part where my dad married someone fifteen years younger than him and purchased the biggest house Crescent Cove had to offer at the time.
“My childhood friends were some of the guys I ended up surfing with. They were pretty territorial about their waves, so we started our own surf gang,” I say. “The West Coast Hooligans. We were like eleven, but that didn’t stop us from trying to take people down.”
She laughs, and I wish I could too, but the empty piece of me that’s shaped like Horn Island won’t let me laugh. I know where this story goes. I tell her about Shark McAllister and how he had this lifelong dream to open his own surf shop. He eventually did – Drenaline Surf. We all saw it as our opportunity to take surfing to the next level, to be superstars of the sport, and we’d have someone behind us to support us.
“When he died, his best friend inherited the store. Vin Brooks is the last person you would ever imagine in the surf business. Dude wears tennis shoes on the beach. He’s not into it at all,” I explain. “But he’s one hell of a businessman. Drenaline Surf is doing better than ever before, and I credit Vin for it. He may not like the ocean, but he knows the surf world and how to work it.”
I hesitate before continuing because I don’t like going back to that day. I don’t like going back to that competition. I don’t like going back to Miles Garrett.
“Of all the guys, Miles was my polar opposite,” I say. “He lived in a trailer park. His mom didn’t do right by him or his little brother. His dad wasn’t around. He was rough around every edge. Quickest to throw a punch but also the quickest to doubt himself. Survival is all he ever knew, and that’s what he did. Success was nothing because he just wanted to make it through the day. I, on the other hand, wanted to be ten steps ahead of everyone else at the end of the day.”
Putting those words into the island air feels like I’m spraying the land with horrific graffiti and slurs. Miles deserved better than how I acted. He fought like hell in that event. He surfed like a freak in that final. He won that event fair and square, and I never even told him congratulations. If I thought he’d actually talk to me, I’d text him right now and apologize for everything that happened that day and since then. But my number is probably blocked.
“We were both competing for a sponsorship, and Miles had a history of choking under pressure,” I say. “He never wanted to make the world tour or travel the world. He just wanted to be a local legend and get paid to surf. It seemed unfair to me. I wanted the big leagues, but surf dreams are surf dreams, big or small. I couldn’t grasp that back then.”
“Back then? It wasn’t that long ago,” Kaia reminds me.
“Feels like it,” I say, stretching my legs out over the sand. “He won that day, and he deserved it. But I was entitled. I ran my mouth a lot, saying how he always chokes and how he only won because his best friend is Vin’s brother. I said it was rigged. I called him white trash. Believe me, if it could be said, I said it. It’s not something I’m proud of, but I never lost. I got everything I wanted. Then all of a sudden, I didn’t.”
Of all the things I regret in my life, what happened with Miles is at the top of the list. He’s the one person I owe an apology to more than anyone else. If I died tomorrow in a free surf, I’d be left to roam the earth seeking a medium who could visit Miles and relay my unfinished business.
“Would it really be that hard to text him and tell him you’re sorry?” Kaia asks. “Obviously you’re not going to let go of this. It was what, a year ago? Maybe you just need to swallow your pride and text him. DM him on Instagram. Mail a letter to his house. Even if he never responds, at least you’ll know you said what you needed to say.”
I wish it was that easy. I could type the words and hit ‘send’ any time, but I always told Cassie it was too impersonal, that I needed to say it to his face so he’d know I really meant it. Honestly, though, the reason I haven’t apologized is because I’m afraid he wouldn’t accept it.
“That’s the thing,” I say. “I could apologize, but…” I hesitate to say the words. “I’m still that entitled jackass who wants something out of it. I want redemption. I want him to forgive me. I want my friends back. It’s selfish, yeah, but I just want to go back home.”
Kaia scrapes the bottom of her cup, trying to salvage the last bit of frozen yogurt. Mine has mostly melted in the cup while I told her about Miles and the Hooligans and how I’m pretty sure I’ve messed things up forever.
“You are entitled,” she confirms. “And you’re a spoiled rich kid. But you’re not as awful as I thought you’d be.”
I tilt my head back to drink my melted toasted marshmallow. “Wow. Thanks,” I mumble when I pull the cup away from my mouth.
“I wasn’t finished, jerk,” she snaps. “I was going to say, before you so rudely interrupted me, that I think you can find redemption. I think you can still go back home, back to your crew and your dirty beaches and even to this Drenaline Surf place that you’re stuck on.”
“And how am I going to accomplish this?” I ask.
She looks me directly in the eye, and my heart falters. Her face is softer than usual, void of that harsh glare she gives me across the dinner table. For once, she looks as though she cares, as if she’s finally cracked that wall she’s been hiding behind and is thinking about stepping outside to let the daylight shine on her. The sunset casts a golden hue across her summer tan, making her glow better than any bronzer she could buy in a store.
Then she smiles. “With my help,” she says.
I lean closer to her, close enough to smell the little bit of coconut shampoo that Kiagwa didn’t wash away. “And how exactly do you plan on helping me?”
“Like this,” she whispers.
Her hand reaches for my cheek and her thumb drags along my jaw line. The streak of golden sun between us closes into darkness as she leans toward me, pressing her soft lips against mine. I close my eyes and sink into her, tangling my hand in her still-damp hair, pulling me closer to me.
And just as quickly as the moment happened, she pulls away. Her face is consumed with instant regret. I’d know that look anywhere, even though I don’t want to admit that’s what I’m seeing.
“Kaia, wait. What’s wrong?” I reach for her hand, but she stands, grabbing her bag and distancing herself from me.
“My dad’s your coach,” she says. “This was a mistake. I’m so stupid.”
I scramble to my feet, but she hurries away, leaving me with two empty cups, two plastic spoons, and a beach towel in the sand.