Page 28 of Reckless Roses
He’s not wrong about that part. “Linger” by The Cranberries is one of my long-time favorites. My dad introduced me to it himself. He exclusively plays music made before the year two thousand in the garage he owns, and, having spent most of my afternoons at Ramos Automotive as a kid, I have a pretty well-rounded knowledge of it all.
My dad has this thing he loves to do. If he hears a song he feels like dancing to, he just dances. He doesn't care where he is or who’s watching. I’ve seen him get down everywhere, from the airport terminal, grocery store aisles, to the DMV. My mom entertains it, my brother thinks it’s funny, and I’m highly embarrassed about it, but it’s really my only complaint about the guy. He’s a perfect father in all other aspects, including a lack of shitty dad-jokes, which I appreciate.
Everett and I had lunch with our parents at the Seaside Sunset, a restaurant at the end of the pier. We’re all so busy now between Everett’s shifts at the garage, Leo meeting with agents and scouts, my new job at Harbor Coffee, and the three of us finishing up our senior year of high school, we don’t have dinner much as a family anymore.
Once a week, we do our best to sit down with our parents for a couple of hours and eat together, though today, Leo was invited to train with an Olympian surfer from Los Angeles, and he couldn’t turn down the opportunity.
Sometimes, it feels like the whole world is waiting for my brother to turn eighteen in May so they can descend on him like a pack of wolves. I know he’s going to do amazing things.He’s already setting records and making a name for himself in professional surfing, but I fear he’ll get taken advantage of, and the worst part about all of it is, he doesn’t seem to care if he does.
Everett and I give our parents hugs as we take a left off the pier down to the water, and they take a right toward the Boardwalk where they parked the car. We navigate down the beach until we find where Leo left our stuff. As we reach the neon-green umbrella and the towels laid out below it, I scan the horizon for my brother’s orange surfboard. I find it, along with his mop of blond hair, sitting out beyond the break with two other figures I can tell are August and Zach.
“Are you coming out, or do you want to stay back and read?” Everett asks, slipping off his shirt. His arms are slowly being filled in with various tattoos August has given him over the last year, though his chest remains bare.
“I think I want to go out today.” I don’t surf often, but there is a blue board in the garage reserved for me. It hangs right between Leo’s orange one and Everett’s green one.
When it’s just Leo, Everett, or Zach, I typically opt to stay on shore and read or write, or simply watch them. Leo, especially, is transcendent out there, and I never get tired of looking at him on the waves. When I surf with them, I mostly feel like I’m slowing them down. The only person somewhat capable of keeping up with Leo is Everett, and Leo needs his competition to keep himself fierce. Zach surfs like he’s fighting the waves—he lives his entire life like he’s fighting something, like it’s an opponent he has to overcome.
It makes sense in the other sports he plays—football, basketball, baseball. What he fails to realize with surfing is that the water is your teammate, not your competitor. Zach doesn’t understand that, and he moves aggressively through the water. It defeats the purpose of what surfing is supposed to be.
Surfing is simple for me. It has to be; it’s the only way I can enjoy it. I don’t have a competitive bone in my body, and I have no desire to be an expert or a champion at it. If I did, I would’ve lost interest long ago. The only person I want to compete with in my life is myself, and I think maybe that’s why I like writing so much.
I can’t put myself up against any other writer, because only I am capable of writing the story I want to tell. It’s impossible for someone to create the exact same idea that exists inside my mind, and knowing that, whether it’s good or bad, I’m still the only person in the world who can write the words flowing through my brain is comforting.
I love paddling beyond the break, love the movement of the ocean beneath my board, the wind in my hair when I glide through the water, but that’s where it ends for me. The only person who seems to understand the way I feel about it—as something freeing and relaxing and easy—is August. So, I only like to surf when he’s out there, too.
I shimmy out of my clothes and down to the bikini I’m wearing beneath them. I toss my hair into a loose bun atop my head before Everett and I zip up each other’s wetsuits and head toward the waves.
I carry my board until I’m about hip-deep in the water, as it rises and crests against my thighs. My brother saddles up beside me, nodding before we both lie down and begin paddling toward the rest of our crew. It’s sunny today, but the water’s still cold since it’s so early in the season. It’s particularly windy too, whipping at my face and causing me to work twice as hard to make it past the break. Most days, the morning is the best time to surf; once the wind picks up, the waves turn choppy, which is both dangerous and annoying. Fortunately, I don’t plan on doing much of anything besides floating today anyway.
I watch Leo paddle toward a swell creeping up in front of us. He pops up as it begins to crest, and just as I reach Zach, Leo swarms past me, riding it out.
“Hey, baby,” Zach says, grabbing the front of my board and pulling me toward him. “What’re you doing out here?”
Everett’s already ahead of me, looking to catch the next suitable swell.
“Thought I’d come hang out today.”
He smiles, soft brown eyes squinting in the afternoon sun as he reaches across our boards and grabs the nape of my neck, tugging me into him. “You look so fucking hot on a board.” He kisses me hard, causing my heart to crash against my ribs like the whitecaps around us. “Wish you’d come out more often.”
“Guess today is your lucky day,” I respond breathlessly.
Zach pulls back, a soft smile on his face. He’s in a good mood today. He loves me today.
Not every day is like this. In fact, most days aren’t, especially in the year since he graduated high school. He’s distant, and we’re secretive. He’s insecure about the fact that he still lives at home, his closest friends still in school. He has been working for a temp agency, mostly doing manual labor jobs around the area while he figures himself out.
If I thought I was Zach Hayes’ dirty little secret before, that was nothing in comparison to how this last year has felt for us. Every other week, we’re reduced to shouting voices and choking on tears. I’m begging him for something more, he’s telling me I expect too much. We don’t speak for long periods of time, only to realize we’re so goddamn used to each other’s touch, we’re not sure how to cope without it, and he ends up in my bed or I end up in his.
Rinse and repeat.
I know the only way I’m ever going to move on is to quit him cold turkey, but so long as he’s around my brothers and living inmy town, I can’t let him go. He’s too familiar, a battle I’ve been fighting for what feels like my whole life, and when I lay down my weapons, I can’t remember who I am without them. Without him.
It’s a toxic, raging, explosive kind of love. It’s fierce, but it’s fatal, and I know I’m not supposed to live my whole life like this. Just because it’s the only love I’ve ever experienced doesn’t mean it’s the love that’s worth the battle, but there are small slivers of me refusing to give up hope. Until those pieces of me can face the fact that this love is terminal, I can’t break this cycle with him.
But today is a good day, at least.
Zach smiles at me in a way that makes my chest seize and my stomach hurt, like my body can’t decide if it wants to lean into him and kiss him again or run away and spare my soul. I do the former. I always do the fucking former.
“I’m going to go chase down your brothers and kick their asses,” he says as he pulls away.
