Hughie grins. “Each set has its own personality. Its own rhythm. Waves are funny. The whole world is made up of waves, you know. Not just the ocean.”
I nod, remembering something I learned in eleventh grade physics called wave theory. “I should’ve paid more attention in physics, but I always hated it.”
Hughie shakes his head. “I loved it.”
“You took physics?”
“I wasn’t always some degenerate living on the beach, you know.”
I blush. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
Hughie laughs. “I’m kidding, Wendy. Takes a lot more than that to offend me.”
I nod. “So what happened?”
“I had been living with the same foster family for about six months when one of my foster brothers brought me to Kensie, introduced me to Jas.” He pauses, looking out at the water. “And the rest, as they say, is history.”
“But why didn’t you go back? You know, now that you’re off of dust?”
Hughie shrugs. “This is my home now,” he says, gesturing to the beach, the cliffs. “Pete and Belle and the boys are my family, more than any of my old foster families ever were. Still,” he adds after a pause, “I kinda wish I’d had a chance to finish high school. I didn’t get bad grades, you know? I mean, not straight As like you did, but—”
“I didn’t get an A in physics,” I interrupt. “Damn near failed. Had to get a tutor just to keep my average up.”
“I could’ve helped you with that.”
“If only I’d known you then,” I say, laughing. “But if you really want to finish high school, maybe I can help you. Get your GED or something.”
“Really?” Hughie says. When he smiles, he looks like a little kid. Not like someone who’s been through all the things he’s been through.
I nod, smiling.
“There,” Hughie says suddenly, pointing. “Right there.”
“What?”
“That’s your set, Wendy.”
I look out at the waves; a set is building just in front of us, the waves growing from little lumps in the water. I shake my head. “I’m not sure—”
“I am,” Hughie says, giving my board a shove. “Now paddle.”
I lie flat on my board, stretching my arms into the water below. Behind me, I hear Hughie shouting: “Paddle! Paddle! Paddle!”
And so I do. I paddle with all my strength, until my arms feel like they weigh a thousand pounds, until I feel a wave building beneath me, until I feel my board settle in beneath the crest, as though there is some crevice built there just for surfboards to lock into. And I push myself up to stand, feeling my abdominal muscles scream in defiance, willing me to lie back down. I stand up, shaking, salt water dripping down my hair and into my eyes, and throw my arms out wide, trying to balance myself, just the way Pete holds his arms out when he surfs, so that it looks like he’s flying.
And then I am. Flying. Except not flying so much as falling. Into the water. Over a tiny little three-foot wave.
And then another tiny little three-foot wave is crashing down on top of me. And then another. Every time I try to swim, to reach for my board, tethered to my ankle by a nylon strap, a wave crashes on top of my head. I try to pull myself to the surface, but the waves keep crashing down over my head until my eyes sting with salt water, blinding me.
Then Hughie is grabbing my arm, pulling me up. I cough, wondering just how much water I swallowed. He drags me to shore, where I have to resist the urge to bend down and kiss the sand, solid and dry beneath my feet.
He slaps me on the back until I stop coughing. “Way to go, Wendy,” he says.
I blink the salt water out of my eyes and look up at him, expecting to see a sarcastic expression on his face.
But instead, he’s beaming.
“Hell of a job.”
“Seriously?” I say, my voice coming out as a croak, my throat feeling viciously raw.
Matt comes up from behind us. “Nice wave, Wendy,” he says.
Belle is lying down a few feet away from us, her head tilted up to the sun, her eyes deliberately closed. I’m sure she saw me fall, but now she’s acting as though she can’t hear a word we’re saying.
Matt laughs. “Don’t worry, your voice will be back to normal in a couple hours,” he says, grinning.
“I fell,” I say, wondering if somehow they just missed my spectacular splash into the ocean. “I crashed.”
“Yeah,” Hughie says. “But you stood up first.” He smiles, putting his arm around me. “You stood up first,” he repeats.
I nod, feeling warm in the sunlight, glancing back out at the ocean behind us. From here, the waves don’t look like itty-bitty three-foot waves. They look a whole lot bigger—six feet at least. Hughie tells me that’s because before I took off on my wave, I was looking at it from behind—waves are about half as tall from behind as they are when you’re facing them head-on. “Your wave,” he says, and I feel a flush of warm pride when he calls it mine, “was a good six-footer at least.”
“Wow,” I say softly, looking from the ocean back to the beach, surprised to see Pete standing at the foot of the stairs, his arms folded across his chest. He smiles at me, lifting his arms above his head as if to say Victory! And even though it feels silly after having fallen, I do the same.
My heart is still racing, a million beats per minute. Maybe my brothers felt what I am feeling right now: proud and exhilarated, even after falling down. And I smile, because I’ve just discovered that the invincible, hopeful feeling I got on the water my first day with Pete wasn’t unique to that day—I feel it again now, on land, even though my mouth is bitter with the taste of the ocean, my eyes stinging from the salt water. My jaw is beginning to ache from smiling so wide, and I dig my toes into the sand, hot in the afternoon sunlight beneath my feet. Suddenly, a mystical, magical feeling washes over me: I’m absolutely certain that my brothers felt exactly what I’m feeling—standing in this very same spot.
16
Every morning I wake up with the sunrise. I grab John’s board and run down to the water. Sometimes, Pete and the crew beat me out the door, but most mornings, I’m the first one there. Every day I get a little braver, paddling out with no one else in sight, going farther and deeper into the ocean, taking on bigger waves. At night, alone in my room with nothing but the moonlight to illuminate the page, I scribble down every detail of the day in my notebook, but there’s nothing that feels like it’s going to lead me to my brothers, not yet. Instead, I find myself writing about Hughie’s smile and Matt’s goofy sense of humor, Belle’s dirty looks and the shivers that go down my spine every time Pete is close to me. When I finally pull the covers up around me, I can still feel the sensation of the waves rocking me back and forth, like some kind of lullaby. I’ve never slept so well in my life.
New muscles sprout up on my arms and legs. My stomach aches as my abdominal muscles develop. But the truth is, it also aches with hunger. Pete and his friends did get food with the cash they made from the raid on the Brentway house, but it’s not exactly the most nourishing stuff. Since we don’t have electricity, they only buy things that can be eaten without being cooked, things that don’t go bad when left unrefrigerated. It’s a lot of cold cereal and energy bars.
There’s an enormous old grill on the back porch, abandoned by whoever lived here before Pete and the boys. Pete finds me studying it one afternoon, my hair still wet from the morning’s surf, my bathing suit still damp.
“Whatcha doing?” he says, coming up from behind me.
“Checking out the grill,” I answer. It’s not all that different from the one in my parents’ backyard. Before my brothers ran away, my father used to grill our dinner every Sunday night. Steak, chicken, hamburgers, hot dogs, corn on the cob—my mouth waters just thinking about it. I stood next to him while he cooked, every Sunday since I was five. He used to call me his sous-chef.