Page 50 of The Kiss Principle

Igz was fussing again, so I got her out of her swing and held her against my chest. Zé reached over to play with her hand, teasing her fingers with one of his. He wasn’t looking at me.

“But you had surgery,” I said. “And didn’t you have money saved, or—I don’t know.”

His mouth moved, but it wasn’t a smile. “I’ve had three surgeries, actually. And every time I get out on the water, pop. I had some money saved, but you wouldn’t believe how fast it goes, especially when—” He stopped, swallowed, and whatever he’d been about to say, he replaced with a shrug. “I had to give up my apartment. I sold my car and bought, well, that junker. I sold my boards.” He stopped. His throat moved when he swallowed. “I have zero skills because all I’ve done is surf since I was ten. I can’t even get a job teaching kids to surf because of my stupid knee. I didn’t graduate high school—my parents made me take the GED so I wouldn’t have to be in school.” He had nice hands, big hands with strong fingers, and he rubbed one of them gently over the down on Igz’s head. “It was like I had a disease. People I’d known for years, people who’d been my friends for years, they didn’t want anything to do with me. At the beginning, I tried. I heard about this beach party. It’s not like anyone invited me, but I heard anyway. I made my way down there on crutches. I—” He shook his head and closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again, they were glossy. “I was so dumb. People pretended not to see me. If they saw me coming, they moved away. I guess a few of them took pity on me and tried to talk, but what do you talk about when the only thing in your life is surfing, and the guy standing in front of you is everybody’s horror story.”

“Zé, God. That’s fucking terrible.”

He shrugged. “I was angry about it for a long time. I think—I don’t think it helps, being angry. And if it had been me on the other side, I don’t know if I’d be any different.”

“Of course you would have. You’re the kindest person I know. Fuck those giant sacks of dogshit.”

“I’m not a particularly nice person. I’m trying to be better, I guess. I…I didn’t like who I was. Not for a long time. So, I’m trying not to be that person anymore.”

Some of his hair had fallen into his eyes, and I caught myself the moment before I reached up to brush it away. Instead, my voice gravelly, I asked, “What about your family?”

His hand fell away from Igz. He straightened her onesie, and then he sat back. He had one arm low across his belly, and a part of me recognized the instinctive defensiveness of the pose. But when he spoke, his voice had a reined-in quality, like he was holding it tight.

“You said I didn’t act like a professional surfer.”

“I didn’t mean it that way. I don’t know what I meant, I guess.”

“God, Fernando, of course you do.” But a smile opened on his face for a moment, and he touched my arm. “Did you know that people talk about surfing like it’s an addiction?” I didn’t say anything, and he spoke into my silence. “I don’t know if there’s any science behind it, but that’s how people talk about it. And it makes sense. It’s all about that rush. A great wave. A great sesh. It’s dopamine. It’s better than sex.” Then his mouth curved. “Better than any sex I’ve had in a long time, anyway. Part of it’s the uncertainty, wanting that big wave, but maybe the whole session is mediocre. It’s like gambling. You don’t know if you’re going to score big or bust or whatever you’re supposed to say. And, as with any addiction, you build up a tolerance to the thing that gets you high. The best waves don’t hit the same way. You’ve got this itch you can’t quite scratch.”

He was silent for so long that I didn’t recognize my own voice when I said, “What are you trying to tell me?”

Something flickered on Zé’s face. But all he said was “That there’s this toxic culture in surfing, and the higher you get, the worse it becomes. Even at a casual session, people are always talking trash, making fun of each other, trying to tear each other down. Most people have this picture of surfing like it’s a bunch of long-haired beach bums chilling like they’re in a beach commercial, but the reality—at least, my reality—was that it was a lot of middle-school bullshit. I know professional surfing isn’t on the same level as other sports. I know it doesn’t get the same attention as the Super Bowl. Nobody’s wearing jerseys with our names on them. But when you’re doing it, when you’re living in that tiny bubble, you’re a big fish in a small pond, and it feels like every eye in the world is on you. You have to play the part. You have to look the part. You have to be a surfer.” He played with Igz’s foot, and something softened in his face. “You can’t play the xylophone with a baby.”

Then I understood. “You weren’t out.”

He shook his head.

“At all?” I asked.

“Nope. I wanted endorsements. I wanted to be a star. I wanted all of it. And I don’t know how much you know about surfing culture, but there is so much toxic masculinity, so much homophobia. It’s kind of crazy, you know? And it’s not what anyone thinks about when they imagine surfing.” He released Igz’s foot and flexed his fingers like they ached. “So, I played the part.”

I gave him a look.

He burst out laughing. “Yes, Fernando. To answer your question—”

“I didn’t say anything.”

His smile flowered again. “—I did manage to hook up with guys occasionally. But it was always a huge risk, and I always hated myself after. I hated myself all the time, actually, if I’mbeing honest. I was killing myself. And I didn’t know how to stop.” He cleared his throat. “So, I try to be grateful about it. My ACL, I mean. Because I’d still be there, still be drinking poison every day, if I hadn’t had that accident. After that, I had to face some hard truths. My friends weren’t my friends. All the things I’d thought I wanted in life were bullshit. And I’d been living a lie. That was a lot to process.”

“What about your family?”

“My loving, devoted family, who gave up everything so I could pursue my dream—and who were happy to help themselves to my money—weren’t happy when the surfing was gone, when the money dried up, and when they found out I was gay. They’re super Catholic, and not the tolerant kind, and you want to talk about toxic masculinity—my dad and brothers practically invented it. Never mind that they’d been living on my winnings for years. Never mind that they hadn’t done jack to ‘manage’ my career. I wasn’t valuable to them anymore, so they left me. Literally, Fernando. In a hospital room. I had to get an Uber back to my apartment when I was discharged.”

“Fuck that. But, I mean, you had to have known that’s how they were going to react when you came out to them, right?”

“I didn’t come out to them,” Zé said, and a hint of color rose in his cheeks. “They walked in on me getting jerked off by a patient tech.”

The laugh exploded out of me. It startled Igz, and she began to cry, but even as I soothed her, I couldn’t stop laughing. Zé made a face, but he was smiling, and his cheeks were redder than ever.

“God, talk about trauma,” I said when I’d finally recovered.

“You have no idea,” Zé said. He was blushing even harder, but his voice was dry. “At this point, I might as well become a monk.”

“Come on, you didn’t get out there and hump everything with a dick?”

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