Blue (23 page)

At the apartment, I laid the board fragments against the wall and pressed the buzzer. When Garrett answered, I said, “Come down. It washed up.”

“Be right there. Just gotta find some clothes first.”

He appeared in the doorway, looking surf-sore and disheveled in crumpled jeans. He was rubbing his eyes and sand was splashed across one side of his face. He'd obviously gone straight from a set of waves into his bed. I watched as he pulled on a bright purple T-shirt.

“Dawn patrol, huh?”

“Best waves always roll in at 6 a.m.”

I nodded at the board fragments propped against the apartment block.

Garrett slid past me out into the fresh morning air to stare at Zeke's broken board. A gust of wind caught one of the pieces
and sent it flying. I went after it, and when I turned around I saw Garrett kicking the other half, leaving his own dents and scrapes in the fiberglass.

I didn't know what to say, and he must not have either, because we just looked at each other. His blue eyes were full of pain, and I guessed mine were too. I stood waiting for him to tell me what he wanted to do with the board, but he was silent.

I knew why: throwing the board away would be impossible. But the thought of keeping it was equally painful. In that moment I wanted to hug Garrett, or reach out and grab his hand, but I couldn't.

Then he snapped out of the trance, scooped up the orange board pieces and carried them up the stairs.

“Come on,” he said, over his shoulder. “There's a pot of coffee on the stove.”

Garrett hadn't blamed me for what happened. He could have; should have. Zeke had been trying to help my ex-boyfriend. If Zeke had never met me, he wouldn't have been on that cliff-edge. Garrett should have hated my guts, but since the accident he hadn't even raised his voice to me.

In the living room, the board pieces stuffed under his arm, Garrett paused. Then he made a clicking noise with his tongue, walked across the room and dropped the board on to the kitchen island, where it landed with a clatter.

He turned to the fridge, opened it, rooted inside, and then slammed its door shut.

“Gotta run to the store to get milk. Back in five.” He jangled his keys, put his head down and left the apartment.

My gaze drifted through the window to the waves beating against the shore, and then I watched Garrett jog barefoot toward the corner shop and I wondered how long he'd stay in Newquay. Sooner or later he'd return to Hawaii.

The noise of a door opening jolted me back to the present. He came out of the bathroom wearing gray pajama bottoms, a razor in one hand and a strip of bright white shaving foam across the right side of his jaw. Even shaving, he looked gorgeous.

“Hey, Iris.”

“Hey, yourself.”

“Wow, it finally came loose.”

“Yeah.”

He reached for the tail of the broken board, his fingers settling where the leash attached.

“
Creepy
,” he said.

I looked at Zeke, at the color back in his cheeks and the light in his eyes. “Feeling better?”

“Yeah,” he said, smiling. “That whole being-dead thing? I think that's outta the way now. For maybe fifty years, anyways.”

You're not dead until you're warm and dead.

There on the rocks, Garrett had punched his brother's chest. Blown into his brother's lungs and pushed down on his heart, over and over, counting aloud to get the timing right. The sight of Garrett's face is something I will never forget. Puffy blue eyes, ringed red. Nose streaming with snot. I stared at Garrett's face, then at Wes's, because I couldn't bear to look at Zeke's.

Over and over Garrett pushed down on Zeke's chest, and nothing. Just nothing. Until I sobbed with the pain of it all.

But Garrett kept his cool and carried on.

“Let me help,” Wes said, the knuckles of his fingers white around my hand.

Garrett said, “It's OK, bro. I got this,” and kept going, on and on, beating that heart to keep the oxygen moving, and breathing hard and fast. Two breaths, thirty compressions, again and
again. Hundreds of rounds of CPR. He kept on because it was the only thing in the world that mattered. And then came the sound. The best sound we had ever heard. A deep gurgle as Zeke threw up a belly's worth and two lungfuls of seawater.

In the days after the accident, the memory of it was like footage playing over and over in my mind. I remembered it all. Every second of it. It was with me every night and every morning when I woke up drenched in sweat.

In those dreams, I could never set him free. I would pull at that ankle leash and it wouldn't move a millimeter. Or Garrett couldn't bring him back. I would be slumped on the rocks with Wes as Garrett worked and worked on his younger brother, and nothing happened until the terror coursing through my body woke me up.

Standing in the light pool from his huge apartment windows, even while he was still taking in the sight of his broken board and the dazzle of a blue, blue sky, I jumped up, wrapped my arms around his neck, kissed him on the mouth and then rested my cheek against his shoulder and breathed in the smell of his shaving foam. Zeke picked me up, my legs wrapped around his waist, and he carried me into his room.

It seemed bizarre to think that in another universe I might never have got the chance to meet Zeke Francis, but thanks to Kelly dragging me to one little yoga class, somehow it had happened.

I couldn't stop touching him, like my brain kept needing to check in that he was actually there. And I was spending every spare second I had at his apartment, which was cool as Kelly was there visiting Garrett almost as much as I was there with Zeke.

Saskia popped in a couple of times and brought food baskets, embroidered silk cushions and scented candles as housewarming gifts. Zeke always seemed pleased to see her, and she was always polite to me, but we were just so different. Apart from 1) being female, 2) being surfers, and 3) Zeke, we had nothing in common.

Wes was sometimes around at the apartment too, playing video games with his brothers, and they seemed as close as ever. Elijah and Garrett still avoided each other though, and one of them generally left as soon as the other turned up, which was awkward.

So Zeke and I didn't get much privacy as, fair play, various members of Zeke's family kept popping in, including Dave, who insisted on taking Zeke and his brothers out on a long fishing trip, where Zeke threw back into the sea every single fish they caught.

Sephy was a regular feature too. She hadn't gone back to Hawaii and she was getting on great with Zeke's dad. In fact, they were getting on so great that it looked a lot like they were back together.

My sister, Lily, finally came home for a week and, appreciating the irony, she took Zeke to the new Wetherspoon pub that had opened up which had been named “The Cribbar.” She sprang for lunch and a few beers, just so she could scope him out, telling me afterward that Zeke was a nice dude, a bit out there, and did I know he was a vegetarian?

I couldn't help laughing. I remembered how odd Zeke had seemed to me when he first showed up, so chilled out and confident. No one could actually be that happy and relaxed, I'd
thought. And now I couldn't figure out why everybody wasn't like him. I wanted to be around that positive energy all the time.

I could feel myself changing too. As time passed, I began to sleep through a whole night, and one day I woke up just buzzing with the stoke of being alive.

It was, I thought, the Zeke Effect.

The rest of August was a blur of shifts at the Billabong shop and evenings spent at Zeke's. On one rainy day, Kelly and I got our GCSE results. Kelly checked hers first and was stoked that she'd done well enough to stay on for A levels. Mine were mainly Bs, with an A* in geography and an A in math. My mom was so pleased that she gave me a congratulations card and a check for three hundred dollars. My dad sent a card too, with one hundred dollars in cash. A day later, I owned a Flash Bomb, which was supposed to be the world's fastest-drying wetsuit as it had an inner lining that dried in twenty minutes. It took all my exam money to buy it, but it worked and was therefore worth every penny because it meant no more putting on a damp, ice-cold suit first thing in the morning.

Then it happened. We were sitting in front of Zeke's huge windows, watching the sun go down in a riot of gold, the
windows of the bay-side houses reflecting the sky, cuddling on his massive sofa and drawing warmth from each other. Lightly I touched the red knife line that Daniel had left on Zeke's thigh, and I traced my fingers along the old scars on Zeke's chest and shoulders. So many hidden reefs and rocks; so many near misses.

Zeke was too quiet.

“You thinking?” I said.

“Maybe we should talk about it tomorrow.”

I was filled with dread at that moment. I just knew he was going to tell me he was leaving.

“You're off?” I said.

The hesitation before answering was enough to send my heart into overdrive.

“Yeah, tell me tomorrow,” I said, suddenly not wanting, or needing, to know.

The next day, when he'd told me, I sat there numb.

After everything we'd been through. All the highs, all the pain, he had to go. No choice. And he was going in less than three weeks.

And, if I didn't win some stupid competition, I couldn't follow.

I didn't want to be one of those blond girls that trailed around the surf scene, just someone's girlfriend, some pro-surfer's groupie. Getting in the way. An embarrassment.

If I didn't earn my place, I'd have to stay in Newquay and do my A levels. It would break my heart and I could hardly bear to think about it, but it had to be that way.

It was all down to me. Compete and win, or stay at home. I'd barely been in the water since Zeke's near-death experience; I didn't even know if I still had an inner waterwoman.

It was like Zeke had told me before: he would never stop surfing. He had to get through the QS and qualify for the World Championship Tour. Not just for himself, but for all the family and friends that had helped him through his meth nightmare.

“I have to prove to them, and to myself, that I can do this without drugs.”

So, if I wanted to be with Zeke, I couldn't stop either. I would have to be as brave as he was. I would have to give it everything I had. And I would have to win.

September arrived, and with it Wavemasters.

Anders had officially entered me and Saskia for the Face of Billabong Showdown Contest, and another top surf agent had found a girl from Saunton Sands in North Devon, who could apparently carve so hard she'd been nicknamed Shank.

Billabong was trying something new and wanted a girl who could dominate on both shortboards
and
longboards, and since the first trial had been shortboards, this time we'd have to ride out on Malibus.

Whereas shortboarding was all about keeping fairly motionless and balanced on the board, longboarding involved much more movement. Longboard riders had more buoyancy to work with and could move back and forth along the board's wooden centerline or “stringer.” It was incredibly difficult, but I'd spent
my first year of surfing on a nine-foot Watershed longboard, so I could do some cool stuff.

Still, I had so much training to do, and only one week to prepare. I was already running and doing yoga every day, but I knew I'd have to add in beach circuits, gym sessions and sea swimming. I needed to be as fit and strong as possible. Most of all, I needed to stop being frightened of the sea.

The outcome of this final contest would determine whether I'd have a life of thrills, waves and Zeke, or a boring job in a shop and a life of regrets.

Zeke and I had battled life and death, and suddenly our future together depended on me catching some 6.0 or higher-scoring waves. I'd have laughed if it wasn't so painful.

September 7th came and, at eight o'clock I arrived at the beach. I made sure I was there early, before the other girls got there, so that I'd have time to look at the waves, just watching the swell rise and fall. Zeke had wanted to come with me, to feed me snacks and distract me from feeling nervous, but I hadn't let him. I needed two hours of pure concentration on my own, to prepare.

On the doorstep of his apartment he'd kissed me, wished me good luck and told me he'd be waterside for the buzzer at 10 a.m.

As a surfer, the stuff you did on the beach was almost as important as the stuff you did out in the waves, and I needed every bit of advantage I could get. I needed to see the pattern of the sets rolling in. Conditions were always changing but, if you spent sixty or even thirty minutes watching, you could get a feel for the ocean, an idea of how everything was developing.

None of it was totally predictable though. And if, during the few minutes I'd have to prove myself, the surf went totally flat; well, then, too bad. That was just the way it went. You couldn't complain, because it could happen to anyone. And anyway, bad surf was the best teacher. You learned to make the most of what you got. You learned patience.

I made my way past the council litter pickers and the old guys with metal detectors, and walked down to the water's edge.

It was going to be really shifty out there, first because a heavy rip current was sucking through the line-up, and second because the faces on these waves were steep, and with a longboard—which was slower and less responsive than a shortboard—the waves were going to be hard to handle.

I could feel myself losing the little bit of nerve I had left; could feel the brakes kicking in. And I knew I had to deal with that because, as all the surf lore tells you, if you feel uncomfortable, then you should get out of the water immediately, because the battle is as much mental as physical.

What was I doing? How did I think I could do this? I had hardly been in the water since Zeke had drowned and been brought back to life by Garrett. I had thought that was only because I was afraid, but I was beginning to realize that it was also because I was distracted. I couldn't concentrate enough to tune into the ocean and become part of it.

Nine a.m. arrived. I only had one hour left of my prep time in which to warm up. I turned to face the dunes, checking out the already heaving beach bar and the zillions of people waiting for Ed Sheeran to come play his set on the Wavemasters stage.

Fistral had never, ever been this busy.

I was panicked and stressed, my mind racing in a jumble of headbutting thoughts. If I was going to go out into the water and show my best stuff, I had to stop the wheels from spinning. I needed one minute when I was totally calm.

I practiced some breathing techniques and then tried to channel my yoga-class teachers. Stuff anybody watching. I needed to A) chill out, and B) stretch my muscles so that I didn't injure myself.

I threw a few shapes on the sand, easing into a downward dog and then moving through a sun salutation.

Then I crouched into a ball, tipped on to my forearms and held my whole weight there in crow pose. I dipped forward, touching the top of my head to the ground. With my hands on either side and a little way back from my head, I pulled myself up slowly, one centimeter at a time into a tripod headstand.

I held that headstand for a minute and forever.

And, when I came down, I was ready to shred.