I hate not being good at things right away, but I also don’t like things getting the better of me, so I follow after Ethan and give it another go.
It’s on my fourth attempt that I finally manage it; I stand on the board, wobbling slightly, but I ride the wave back to shore, and Ethan is whooping and hollering at me the whole time. I can’t fight the grin on my face; it feels incredible. Like an intoxicating combination of adrenaline and total freedom. I want to do it again.
Hours pass, most of them spent floating on the water, waiting for a good wave to hit. Sometimes, we chat while we wait; other times, we sit quietly and enjoy the salty sea air filling our lungs.
It’s the best day I’ve had in what feels like years.
As we walk back up the beach towards the shack at the end of the day, Ethan asks, “The weather looks good again tomorrow if you fancy another day of it?”
“If you don’t mind? I’d love that. Today was… well, today was what I needed without even realising I needed it,” I reply.
“That’s how we lure you into the surf life.” Ethan winks at me, and I laugh. I can definitely see why he made this his job.
Once we’re returned to the shack, I get changed before saying bye to Ethan and making my way back to my temporary home for the week, feeling lighter than I can ever remember.
Today, the good waves are few and far between, but I don’t mind. I like floating around in the water, relaxing and talking to Ethan.
“Are you dating anyone back home?” Ethan asks me as we float around in the sea.
“No. Life has been… Life hasn’t really made dating possible the last few years,” I tell him, honestly.
“Years? How old are you, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Eighteen.”
“Oh wow. You’re younger than you look. Not that I’m saying you look old, but you don’t look eighteen,” he stammers out. I laugh.
“I get that a lot. What about you?”
“Twenty-two. And single, in case you were wondering.” His lips twitch, a smile tugging at the corner.
“Twenty-two is young to be running this place by yourself?” I phrase it as a question.
“It sure is,” he replies wistfully. “It was my dad’s business. I grew up with my mum and pack further north than here, but I’d spend all my school breaks surfing with my dad. It turned out he had an undiagnosed heart condition. One minute, he was riding a wave, the next, I was dragging him from the water and up the beach to perform CPR. But he was already gone.” My stomach sinks. His story rips the stitches from my own wounds—his grief and my own barely indistinguishable.
“I’m so sorry. That’s fuckin’ horrible,” I reply.
“Sorry. I don’t know why I just offloaded that on you. The last year has been tough, you know? Like I’m constantly swimming against the tide, and I’m tired.”
“I do know.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. My mum. Two years ago.”
“Shit. I’m sorry.” Suddenly, I can see what lies beneath the big smiles and endless energy. Now he feels like a real person, not the idealised version I’d made him out to be in my mind.
“Do you wanna come over for tea tonight?” I ask, maybe feeling braver. Maybe just finally seeing how lonely Ethan is and wanting to offer an olive branch.
“Tea? Like for a cup of tea?” I can’t help but laugh at the mental image of Ethan and me sitting around with a pot of tea and tiny sandwiches.
“No, sorry. I mean, like dinner. My cousin filled my fridge before he left, and I think I’d need three stomachs to get through it all.”
“Oh. That sounds amazing. I can’t remember when I last ate a meal that wasn’t heated up in a microwave.”
“You can’t cook?” I ask, surprised. In our house cooking is pretty much done on a rotation. Even when Mum was still alive, she said she wasn’t raising boys who didn’t know their way around a kitchen. Da and I do most of the cooking now, but Connor and Niamh are getting there.
A few months ago, Connor came home from school after hearing about a dish called Toad in the Hole. He declared he was going to make it, only he didn’t follow a recipe, and he hadn’t seen any photos of it. In the end, he served each of us a big Yorkshire pudding with mashed potato inside and one rather phallic-looking sausage standing erect in the mash. Just as I was about to tell him that wasn’t what Toad in the Hole was supposed to look like, Da kicked me under the table and gave me a ‘behave’ look. I stifled my laughter and dutifully ate the food; in his defence, it tasted good. He still doesn’t know.
