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I SIT IN THE HURLEY sponsor tent as I mentally prepare myself to go out and compete. This morning was a mess. I woke with a start at three a.m. from a nightmare where Claire and I ran into each other years from now and she didn’t recognize me. For the past three weeks, I’ve been living in the worst kind of hell. I can’t talk to anyone about what happened with Claire, except Yuri, but I don’t want to burden him with this crap before the competition. I’ve been totally and utterly alone. At least when I moved to Wrightsville, I ran into Claire on my first day there. This is a kind of loneliness I’ve never had to deal with.
Remmy walks into the tent, laughing as he glances over his shoulder at someone. Remmy was my trainer three years ago. After I quit competing, he moved to Florida to work at a surfing academy near his ex-wife’s house to try to work things out with her. I didn’t understand this since they didn’t have any kids together, but I guess love makes us do crazy things. When I called him two months ago to see if we could start training again, he moved to Wilmington the following week. I get the feeling he was looking for a way out of whatever situation he was in with his ex in Florida. It seems that being near the one you love doesn’t solve everything.
Remmy is half-French and half-Brazilian, born in Brazil and raised in North Carolina. He’s entirely mixed up, but he’s also the best of the four trainers I’ve had in my lifetime.
“Hank is sitting at the judge’s table,” he mutters to me so the group of people handing out Hurley T-shirts on my right can’t hear.
Hank Langley loves me. When you’re in a business where you have to do a lot of traveling, you find yourself latching onto people you feel drawn to. It helps make the constant change, the long plane flights, and the loneliness bearable. Hank is one of those who I was naturally drawn to when I was competing. He used to tell me about all his problems with his daughters and their boyfriends. The guy is hilarious. He once told me that I should never tell a girl that she’s beautiful unless I’m willing to commit to her because girls don’t know how to take a compliment from a handsome guy without falling in love. With Hank sitting at the judge’s table, my chances at placing just increased significantly.
Somehow, this makes me more nervous and more determined to prove myself.
I haven’t bumped into Lindsay or Nathan yet, but the prospect of seeing them is still weighing heavily on my mind. I just keep telling myself that they’re nothing to me. I’ve moved on. Claire is all I care about and getting back to her is my number one priority.
By the time the heat begins and my group comes up, I’m ready to kill it. I jog across the sand toward the water and close my eyes for a moment to drink in the moment. If I place here, I can enter the ASP World Tour. Of course, that means more time away from Claire.
The sand has a slightly pink tinge due to the runoff from the red rocks that surround this small stretch of sand at Koki Beach. I block out the cheering as I trot across the sand, my eyes completely focused on the waves ahead. I make it past the bleachers, just a few dozen yards to the water, when I see her.
Lindsay is standing at the edge of the water further down the beach, her blonde hair flowing out behind her as the ocean breeze washes over her. She’s wearing a one-piece bathing suit, probably because she’s pregnant as fuck.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Claire
PROFESSOR LINDA COLDWATER INSISTS WE call her Linda because Professor Coldwater makes her question her decision to quit the theater. When the class lets out, I approach her to ask something I’ve never asked a teacher in my life.
“Um, Linda?”
She looks up from the small table next to the podium where she’s putting away her notes and laptop. Her blue eyes fix me with a puzzled look. I’ve never really participated in this class in the eight weeks since classes began, but something—someone changed me and I finally understand that I don’t just want to make it through this semester. I want to make this semester count.
“Yes?” she asks, her light-brown hair bouncing around her face as she continues to slide stuff into her laptop bag.
I swallow the knot in my throat and take a deep breath. “I was wondering if you’d be willing to meet with me sometime this week? This is a required course for my major, so I was hoping I could pick your brain about your days as a caseworker.”
She immediately stops what she’s doing and stands up straight so she doesn’t have to look at me through a curtain of hair. “Claire Nixon.”
“Yes.”
“Is this for the final?”
I know if I tell her it’s for the final that she will probably reject me, but the truth is that the final is only a tiny factor in this request.
“No, I just have some questions about what path you took and how you liked it. I’d love to get some insight from someone who lived it and walked away.”
The truth is that I’ve been having doubts about whether I’ll make a good caseworker. I’m so screwed up and I cry at the drop of a hat these days. I know this is partially due to the botched adoption agreement and the breakup, but I sincerely doubt whether I will ever have the strength to tell a child that they’re going to live with strangers because their mother died of a drug overdose. I need some reassurance that I haven’t picked the absolute wrong field.
She looks at me as if she’s seeing me for the first time yet she obviously knows my name. “Come to my office on Friday at 2:30. Does that work for you?”
“That’s perfect. My last class lets out at one on Friday. Thank you so much.”
I set off toward the door when she clears her throat behind me. I’m not sure if this is meant for me so I wait until I reach the door before I turn around.
Her expression has softened. “I just wanted to tell you that the paper you turned in last week on parent-child relationships was the best paper I’ve ever received for this unit.”
I don’t know if she knows how little I actually know about parent-child relationships. She certainly doesn’t know how I assumed my paper would come across as the biggest load of crap she’d ever read.
“Thanks,” I whisper, then quickly push through the door and into the corridor.
I make it halfway across the yard in a daze before my phone vibrates in my pocket. I slip it out and glance at the screen.
Chris: What time are you going to be in the dorm tonight?
I consider ignoring his text the way I have been for the past few weeks, but he’s lucky Linda just put me in a really good mood.
Me: In about twenty minutes. Why?
He doesn’t respond right away so I tuck the phone back into my pocket and continue toward Spencer Hall. When I open the door to room 330B, he’s sitting on my bed with his leg propped up on some pillows and a baseball cap and sunglasses lying on the bed next to him. Senia is sitting on her bed and staring at me with a skeptical look on her face.
“What’s going on?” I ask as I drop my backpack onto my desk.
Senia stands suddenly. “I have to go call my mom about this weekend. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
She leaves and I’m left even more confused than when I walked in. “Why are you here?” I ask Chris.
He flashes me a tight smile as he adjusts his position on the bed so he’s sitting up a little straighter. “Claire, I have something to tell you. Well, two things. Depending on how you take it, this could be considered good news and bad news. Which do you want first?”
I hate when people say they have good news and bad news. The bad news always cancels out the good.
I sit across from him on Senia’s bed and curl my legs up so I’m cross-legged. “Give me the bad news first.”
“I was afraid you’d say that.” He leans forward a bit, but he keeps his eyes locked on me. “I told my mom about Abigail.”
The relative lightness I was feeling after leaving class is gone, replaced by a panic I haven’t experienced in a very long time.
“Why? How could you? I just—Oh, my God. She hates me now, doesn’t she?”
; “She doesn’t hate you. She could never hate you.”
“This is so embarrassing.”
My heart is pounding so hard my chest hurts. Suddenly, the necklace around my neck feels constrictive. I slide my fingers between the silver chain and my neck as I take deep breaths. I need to meditate.
“Are you okay?”
I shake my head. “No, I am not okay. I can’t believe you would do that. I wanted to be the one to tell her.” I cough in an attempt to clear the trapped sensation building in my chest, but it doesn’t help. “Oh, God. I can’t breathe.”
He rises from the bed so suddenly it startles the last bit of oxygen from lungs. My hands and feet turn ice cold right before I pass out.
I open my eyes and I’m no longer on Senia’s bed. I’m lying in my own bed with my blanket tucked tightly around me. Chris is watching me from where I was sitting before I passed out, as if we magically traded places. His jaw is set and I can’t tell if he looks more pissed or worried, or if he’s in pain.
“Did you put me in this bed?”
“Are you okay?” he asks, and I can definitely tell that he’s in pain.
“Are you crazy?”
“Yes.”
I sit up and resist the urge to throw my pillow at him. “You’re so stupid. You’re going to mess up that leg forever.”
“I’m fine. Are you okay?”
