Rookie Mistake (25 page)

My skin feels tight. It’s sticky from the dried salt water of the sea, burning from the heat of the afternoon sun that touches on every inch of bare skin it can find. My swimsuit will smell like the ocean for days. I won’t wash it. I’ll take it with me to Boston and I’ll let it smell like California. I’ll let it remind me of today. Of my last day.

“They’re setting up a bonfire,” Katy comments.

I roll my head to the side, squinting one eye open to see the group of six guys gathering firewood down the beach. It’s the surfer crowd. The ones who get here at dawn and don’t leave until well after dark. They live here because they live for the ocean. For the waves and the crash and the ride. Their bodies are toned from the sport, browned by the sun, their hair bleached out with natural highlights that most of the girls out here would pay a fortune in the salon for. There’s a handful of them, all hot and smiling, but one stands out. One always stands out, no matter where he goes.

“Do you wanna stay?”

I close my eye and point my face up to the fading sun. “I don’t know,” I mumble to Katy.

“Do you still need to pack?”

“I’ve been packed for over a week.”

“That eager to leave, huh?” she chuckles, but she doesn’t think it’s funny.

Neither do I.

“Yeah, I guess.”

I’ve lived my entire life in Southern California. I was born and raised in the small coastal town of Isla Azul parked about an hour up the shoreline from Malibu. Katy and I have lived next door to each other since we were born. I’ve been going to college at Santa Barbara twenty minutes to the north, and when I graduated high school I went with Katy and three other girls to Mexico to celebrate. It was the farthest from home I’ve ever been.

That will change tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll get on a plane that will take me over halfway across the country to Boston, Massachusetts where I’ll study music at the New England Conservatory. It’s a huge deal. It made the front page of Isla Azul’s tiny little paper. My dad framed it and hung it on the wall so we could see it every day. So I could be reminded of where I was going.

Of the ticking clock running out on the life I’ve always known.

“We should stay then,” Katy tells me decidedly. She lays back down on her towel next me, fanning her long brown hair out above her head. “We’ll soak up the last of the sun. Send your butt to Boston looking tan and hot. Give those pasty white east coast girls something to be jealous of. Show ‘em what a real true California blond looks like.”

I smile, but I don’t respond. I close my eyes, listen to the sound of the waves, embrace the burn of the sun, and I reach out my hand until it brushes against hers. Until she lifts her pinky, wraps it around mine, and I lock them together tightly.

It’s another ten minutes before I can’t take the heat anymore. The sun is going down but the summer is just getting started, just heating up, and that warmth is embedded in my skin. It’s getting dark but there’s enough light for one last swim. One last kiss of the crisp ocean cool before I say goodbye to it for an entire year.

Katy stays on shore, opting to go mingle with the surfers and scope out who’s here. I know who she’s looking for. They do too, and even though she’s not going to find him or get any information about him, they welcome her with open arms. As I walk down to the water I see Baker hug her firmly, draping his arm over her shoulder while holding a beer loosely by the neck in his other hand. The other guys offer her a beer, nod in greeting, but I frown when I realize someone is missing. Just as much as Lawson Daniel’s presence stands out, his absence does as well.

It shouldn’t surprise me to find him out in the water. He’s nothing but a dot on the darkening horizon, bobbing on his board with his legs dangling in the water, but I know what he looks like. Every girl in a hundred mile radius knows what Lawson looks like.

Sex and sun.

Golden brown hair and sea green eyes.

Sly smiles and broken hearts.

I’ve known him as long as I’ve known Katy and I’m more proud of the fact that I’ve never tangled with him than the fact that I got into the NEC. I’m in the minority in both respects. Exceptional. Smart. Skilled.

Alone.

There’s no one else in the surf when I step inside the waves. The white foam curls up frothing and eager over my feet, and I sigh as my body instantly starts to cool from the touch. Everyone else has gone up to the shore to find beer and food and other bodies. Everyone but Lawson and me. As I wade into the water I watch him sit patiently, waiting for the next big wave. The last one of the night. But unlike me, I know he’ll do this again tomorrow. And the day after that. And the day after that. He and that board are as constant as the tide, as sure as the sun, and I envy him that. I wish more than anything I could have one more day. One last summer.

When I’m in far enough I dive down. I face a wave head on and I slip expertly beneath it, kicking hard to go farther and deeper. My skin aches with a burn I won’t see until the morning when I’m getting ready to get on the plane. My flight will leave LAX before dawn and I bite down hard on a sob that tries to escape my throat as I realize I’ve seen the last of the California sun for an entire year. I won’t come back at Christmas or Thanksgiving. My family can’t afford it. Once I’m in Boston I’ll be locked in. No room for doubts or reservations. No retreat.

I kick toward the surface, my lungs screaming for air, but once I give them what they want I go under again. Then again. It’s not until I come up that third time that I realize I’ve gone farther out than I planned.

A wave crashes into my face, sending me down again, but I don’t panic. I’ve been swimming this ocean since I was a toddler. I can handle it. I can take a wave to the face or a long swim back to shore. The key is to stay calm.

When I break the surface again I’m in the clear. The water is calm around me and I watch as the wave curls back toward the beach, lazily furling forward. I glance around, wondering if Lawson is still out here or if he took the wave. I’m surprised to find him paddling furiously toward me.

“Rachel!” he shouts, his voice barely audible over the distance between us. Over the rush of the wind and water. “Swim toward me!”

I frown. “What?!”

“Swim toward me! Now! Go!”

I shake my head, completely confused.

Lawson has spoken to me all of four times in my life. Once in elementary school to tell me I had a booger hanging out of my nose, once in middle school to say I looked good with boobs, once in high school to tell me he door dinged my car, and now out in the open ocean he’s screaming at me to swim to him. His handsome face is pinched with anxiety and exertion as his arms dig hard into the water, propelling his body laid flat on his surfboard.

“What are you talking—“

Something brushes my leg roughly. I spin around, looking at the water to see what it was, but it’s getting too dark. The glare of the setting sun is blinding me, making the surface like a mirror I can’t look beyond. My heart races in my chest but I will it to calm.

It’s probably one of his stupid friends,
I tell myself.
They’re probably playing a prank to scare you.

Another touch. This time it hurts, like sandpaper dragging across my sensitive skin.

“Rachel!” Katy cries faintly from the shore.

I look back to find her standing knee deep in the water. Baker is holding onto her, holding her back from coming any farther in, and the look of sheer panic on her face tells me instantly that this is no prank. This is real.

I’m in trouble.

I turn toward Lawson and start swimming as hard as I can. I dig deep, pull hard, but he’s so far. I wonder if I shouldn’t have gone for the shore instead. It’s too late now, though. All I can do is swim as fast as I can, hope he’s doing the same, and maybe I can make it up onto his board with him before—

I go under. Something takes hold of my leg and yanks me down. The horizon disappears from my view in one sharp snap that brings my world to cool darkness.

Just as quickly as it takes hold of me it lets me go. I scream under the water, bubbles bursting from my mouth up over my face and into my hair as I struggle to get to the surface. I’m kicking hard and suddenly I ache in my right leg as my vision goes white around the edges.

My hands find air, leaving the water, but then I’m going under again. I’m going down and it’s colder and darker than before, and even though my blood is screaming through my veins and in my ears, it’s eerily silent.

Something takes hold of me under my arms. It pulls me in tight, pinning me to a mass behind me and I thrash and fight until I realize it’s an arm. My hands find the hard corded muscle of a forearm across my breasts and I hold onto it tightly, desperately, as it pulls me upward. We find the surface and I gasp for air, pulling in water and oxygen and hope in big, heaving gasps that make my lungs ache in my chest.

My vision comes back to me in strange shades. The light is too bright, the shadows too dark. Everything is washed out and somehow too vivid at the same time. The sky is blood red, the water pitch black. The white surfboard phosphorescent bone.

“Grab hold of it,” Lawson says breathlessly in my ear. “Can you lift yourself up?”

I reach for the board and I’m grateful when my body complies. I take hold of the opposite side and with the force of Lawson’s hand on my hip shoving me upward I’m able to pull myself up until I can roll my body onto the board.

“Grip the front tight. Hold on.”

I nod in agreement, my fingers hesitantly dipping back into the water just enough to wrap them around the gentle roll of the front of the board. Lawson’s head disappears from my peripheral. It sends a jolt of panic through my body and I’m just about to sit up to look for him under the water when the board lurches forward. He’s behind me, holding on to the tail end and kicking us back to shore.

I don’t breathe the entire way. I’m watching for that iconic, telltale triangle to appear on the top of the water. I’m waiting for Lawson’s strength to disappear below the surface. I’m waiting for the agonizing crush of mouth and teeth and nature to take hold of both the board and me, and drag us under again.

It can’t take us more than a two minutes to reach the shore but it’s the longest two minutes of my life. Lawson is relentless, his body unfailing as it wills us out of the water. Once he can stand he’s running with me, his powerful legs plowing through the water. Thrashing loudly as people shout and he hollers back. Someone is calling 911. Someone else is getting a blanket. Lawson is calling for a knife.

The surfboard rolls and rocks in the water as he pushes me in. A wave crests and crashes over us. It jostles me. It nearly knocks me off the board but he’s there, Lawson is there, his hands on me with hard certainty that keeps me afloat and pulls me back up onto the board. I grab hold of one of his hands with mine as my vision swims dangerously. The ocean, the sky, the sand, the sun, the stars – they swirl together in a sickening dance until I don’t know up from down anymore. All I know is the hot pain in my leg and the gentle warmth of Lawson’s hand.

“Stay with me, Rach,” he says sternly. “Eyes on me, you hear me? Stay with me.”

We’ve reached the beach. I’m on my back on the board, wet sand clinging to my face along with my blond hair. He brushes it aside so I can see him. So I can find him and his eyes, and I latch onto them as the world spins faster and faster.

“Is she alive?” Katy asks tremulously.

“Stay with me,” Lawson repeats calmly, ignoring Katy. “Rachel.”

“Stay with me,” I whisper, my eyes full of his face.

He grins, relieved. “That’s right. I need you to stay with me. Help is coming. They’ll get you out of here.”

I hold his hand tightly, afraid to let go. Afraid the tide will take me and I’ll slip back into the water. Back into the darkness. If he leaves me I’ll die. I can feel it.

I look at him in open terror, my heart in my throat. “Stay,” I plead.

His grin fades as he nods seriously. “Okay. I’ll stay with you. I promise.”

I nod, feeling relieved.

Then sick.

I turn my head and vomit on the golden sand. It’s all water. All ocean and fear that mingles in the foam of the surf and fades out into the ocean.

It fades to black.

END PREVIEW

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About the Author

I was born in Eugene, Oregon and studied English Literature at the University of Oregon (Go Ducks!) It was there that I discovered why Latin is a dead language and that being an English teacher was not actually what I wanted to do with my life.

My husband, my son and my 80lbs pitbull who thinks he's a lapdog are my world.

Visit my website for more information on upcoming releases,
Tracey Ward