Page 75 of Riptide

“I know,” he says, pecking the side of my mouth. “I just thought it would be good to go there. You seemed to like theidea when Eugene brought it up. Plus, it means we can relax somewhere away from campus.”

Panic seizes my chest like a vise, and I cough to clear my throat. I blink at him, unsure what to say because I did like the idea, I do, it’s just…what if I lose it? “I haven’t…” I trail off, my thoughts careening somewhere I don’t want them to go. A hot sweat breaks out beneath my skin, and I think maybe I’ve stopped breathing. Shit, I’m about to start naming colors when his thumb brushes the edge of my jaw, bringing me back to him. “You don’t have to surf,” he says, reading me too well. “I wasn’t even thinking about that.”

“No, I know,” I say quickly and unconvincingly, my fingers fidgeting with the edge of his waistcoat. “It’s just… It’s been a while.” I inhale deeply, like that might steady the spinning in my chest. It does a little, but I still feel like a brisk wind might shove me over the internal cliff I’m dangling from.

He nods. “Okay. So maybe we go anyway. Just you and me. Walk around, eat something fried and greasy, maybe make out in a parking lot like teenagers.”

A laugh breaks free, rough around the edges, tinged with something else I can’t stop. I realize that my eyes feel a little watery, but I focus on him instead. “You trying to seduce me with fried food and awkward car sex?”

“Absolutely.” He grins, and it’s all assurance and sweetness. “Is it working?”

I hesitate. Not because I don’t want to go. I want to go places with him. But the idea of being near the water again... Hearing the waves crash like they did that day… I’m not sure what it’ll do to me. If I’ll feel grounded again. Or if it’ll splinter me wide open.

“I’ll think about it,” I say, quieter this time.

His fingers curl gently around mine. “That’s all I’m asking.”

***

Water swirls around me, endless and cold. I kick harder, but it’s like swimming through cement. The blue deepens into black. My chest aches. Air escapes in silver bubbles, rising but leaving me behind. The pressure builds. My body screams.Then—

I wake up, gasping, lungs dragging in air until it burns. My hand flies to my chest, where my heart ferociously kicks against it. I’m alive. I’m safe.

“Shit,” I hiss, running my hand through my damp hair. My body feels heavy, wrung out. Pushing myself upright, I lean back against the cool wood of the headboard, sweat coating my skin. It’s been a while since a nightmare felt that vivid.

Dr. Hale said this might happen. I went home yesterday and thought about going to the beach, and I hated the idea that fear is stopping me still. But the issue is, my brain may react to a known trigger. She reminded me in our session this afternoon that my nightmares are just memories trying to work themselves out. That facing the water, in small steps, is how I start to take back things I’ve lost.

The edges of the dream still cling to me as I stand, my legs shaky beneath me, my limbs heavy like they’ve absorbed the weight of the ocean. I cross the room to my closet, not even sure what I’m doing until I’m pulling the old duffel out from the back. The one I shoved in there months ago without even looking. I’d come home and buried it like that would keep everything inside it forgotten. But every time I’ve pulled out clothes, I see it and choose to ignore it.

I lower it to the floor and kneel in front of it, pulling back the zipper.

The smell hits me first—salt and wax and that faint, almost metallic scent of wet neoprene that clings to the material even when it’s dry. I hesitate, my hands hovering over the opening, then take a deep breath and push the flap back.

Everything’s still here. My old wetsuit, balled up instead of folded. A tangled leash. A couple of fin keys, a crushed tube of zinc. My favorite tie-dye rash guard. And at the bottom, tucked between a towel I haven’t used since Sydney, is a bar of wax that isn’t mine.

My body lags as I reach down to pick it up. The edges are worn down, label peeling at the corners, and I know exactly who this belongs to.

Jared had lent it to me the morning of our last heat, tossing it my way with that stupid grin he always wore when he was riding a good streak. And he was always riding a good streak; the guy was insanely talented.

“Take the good luck bar,”he said, already half into his wetsuit, laser focused on the water.“I win every time I use it.”

I remember laughing. Rolling my eyes. But I took it.

I sit back on my heels and hold it in both hands, letting the rolling emotions approach me. The panic creeps in, like it always does. The pressure in my chest. That sharp little twist of guilt that says if I’d gotten to him faster, if I’d been watching more closely, if I’d—

I close my eyes.

Breathe.

In through my nose. Out slow. My fingers grip the wax to ground me.

Dr. Hale always tells me that if I can, then I should try to stay in the moment. That memories are allowed to show up. That I don’t have to shove them away to survive them.

So I don’t.

I let it come. The image of Jared on the beach, squinting into the sun, slathering zinc across his nose with no finesse whatsoever. The way he laughed when he ran away from me toward the water. The glint of pure excitement he’d get in his eyes when it was our turn to paddle out. There was nothingmore incredible than watching him catch a wave. He moved effortlessly with the water, almost making it yield to him.

I exhale, deep and slow, feeling that ache bloom behind my ribs, but not letting it drown me this time.

---