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I nod. “Thanks for catching me.”
“I should have let you fall.” The half-smile on his face makes my stomach flutter. “But I love you too much.”
I close my eyes and take a deep breath. “I need to meditate.”
“Go ahead.”
“I’m not going to meditate with you here.”
“Why not? I promise I’ll be quiet.”
My chest aches as I remember the first time I meditated on Adam’s living room floor while he watched. It took me a while to get used to tuning out noise while meditating. The obvious way to deal with this is to focus instead on the steady rhythm of your heartbeat or breathing. Fallon taught me to create noise in my head to drown out the outside world. Then I gradually lower the volume on the noise until I’m fully relaxed. The deepest moment of peace always comes right after the blast.
I fold my legs so I’m sitting cross-legged and close my eyes. I take a few deep breaths and attempt to think of something peaceful. The ocean is usually my favorite thing to meditate on. You’re technically not supposed to think of anything when you meditate, but I haven’t reached that level of nirvana yet. So I imagine the waves crashing, but the first thing I see is Adam riding a wave. I shake my head and imagine a glass of water in a sink. The faucet drips into the glass, filling it up one drop at a time. Suddenly, Adam is there washing dishes in Cora’s apartment.
I open my eyes. “This is useless. I can’t meditate with you here.”
He leans forward and rests his elbows on his legs. “Do you want to hear the good news now?”
“Shoot.”
“I’m not going to L.A. I’m staying here until everything is sorted out with Abby.”
Hearing him call her Abby, with such familiarity, is painful. I’m so jealous that he got to touch her.
“What about the album?”
“If they can’t wait then I’ll have to scrap it, for now.”
His eyes are locked on mine, gauging my reaction. A warm sensation spreads from my belly and outward into my chest as I finally realize he’s still in love with me. He’s not just doing this to be competitive or out of a sense of obligation.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything, but I’d love it if you could come over this weekend to talk to my mom.” I narrow my eyes at him and he chuckles. “What?”
“Why did you tell Jackie that we were engaged?”
His eyes widen for a moment then he tilts his head. “I never told you this, but after we started having sex she made me promise that I would ask you to marry me.”
“This is a joke, right?”
“No, I’m not joking. She didn’t want to tell you because she really thought I was going to ask you and she wanted it to be a surprise.”
I think back to the months after I turned eighteen, after Chris and I started having sex. Two months after my eighteenth birthday, he took me to Moore Park and gave me a promise ring, but he insisted it wasn’t an engagement ring. It was just a symbol of our promise to love each other for the rest of our lives, even if we broke up. I wish I could say that this was a stupid promise to make when we were so young, but somehow I’ve found it to be a very hard promise to break.
“Don’t let that scare you,” Chris says as if he can read my worried thoughts. “My mom will find out soon enough that you’ve moved on with someone else and she’ll just have to deal with it—like me.”
My fingers reach for the heart-shaped locket as I wonder how Adam would feel about me going to see Jackie. He broke up with me so I wouldn’t have to worry about what he would think. Still, I can’t help but feel like I need his blessing. But I need Jackie now just as much as I need Adam. I need to know that I haven’t broken her trust in me.
“Okay. I’ll go.”
He puts on his hat and sunglasses then grabs his crutches from where they’re leaning against the foot of the bed.
“Hey, you never told me why she thinks we were engaged.”
He stands up on his crutches and his expression is serious. “I’ll tell you some other time.”
We stare at each other for a moment before I decide to let it go. “Whatever.”
He sets off for the door and I scurry over to open it for him. He stands on the threshold for a moment, staring at the floor, before he turns to me.
“Remember when we went to Tristan’s sister’s birthday party two years ago?”
“Molly.”
“Yeah, Molly. When we were leaving, I had to go back inside to get your phone and Molly asked me if you could spend the night. I told her no because you were spending the night with me before you went away to college. She told me that I was lucky and Tristan nearly kicked me when I told her she had no idea just how lucky I was.” He pauses for a moment as his gaze wanders over my face. “You may not be mine anymore, but I’m still lucky to have you in my life.”
I didn’t think it was possible to feel guiltier about my decision to give up Abigail. But as I watch him shuffle away on his crutches, I realize that he is much stronger than I gave him credit for.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Adam
BY THE TIME I REACH the water, I can’t feel my hands. I’m not sure if I’m more stunned or angry. I trudge through the water, forcing myself not to look back in Lindsay’s direction, then I do the math in my head. Lindsay and I broke up in the end of March. It’s now the end of September. Six months. There’s no way she’s less than six months pregnant. Fuck! How long was she cheating on me?
I duck dive under a ten-footer then resurface next to Carlos Ferreira. I nod at him and keep paddling until I’m past the breaks. The sun warms my skin between each breeze and I breathe in the salty fragrance of the Pacific Ocean. As much as I love the Atlantic, the Pacific Ocean just seems to have an electric quality, a life that the Atlantic doesn’t have. If I could live on the Pacific I would. I’d pack up all my things, buy a boat, drop anchor, and never look back.
My gaze keeps darting across the shoreline to where Lindsay dips her toes in the water. She used to bitch at me all the time after I quit competing. She actually called me a quitter once. I should have dumped her then, but we’d been together for a year and a half and I had the stupid idea that we should try to work things out since we’d already invested so much time in the relationship. It was just a few weeks later that I caught her cheating on me with Nathan Jennings—number 86 in the world ASP rankings.
I’m not even ranked anymore. It was depressing watching my rank drop from 47 down to nothing. I should never have let my dad deposit my winnings into my trust fund. I never thought he’d put the stipula
tion on the account that I’m not allowed to touch a single penny of it until my thirtieth birthday. I’m pretty certain he also put a stipulation in there saying I’ll gain access to the funds if I have a child. I guess he assumed that I’d be less inclined to confess my sins to Myles’ family when I’m thirty or when I have a child of my own to consider. At least, come Tuesday, I’ll only have eight more years to wait. Unless Lindsay has a secret she’s been keeping from me. Then, by the looks of it, I may gain access to my trust fund in about eight days.
A jet ski whizzes past me with someone in tow. Whoever it is lets go and I’m hit with a small wave from the jet ski’s wake. I wipe the water from my face to see who had to get towed out here—the water’s not that rough—then I see Nathan’s shoulder-length brown hair and the cross tattoo on his right bicep.
I’m tempted to look away so I don’t see the scar on his face, but I don’t. It takes him a moment before he notices me.
I throw him a cool nod. “Good swell today.” And I hope you get bombed out there.
He smiles and I see that fucking gold tooth he got to replace the one I knocked out. “Perfect conditions for schoolin’ some seniors.”
Nathan’s only a year younger than I. I don’t know who he’s calling a senior, but I’m not playing into that bullshit. I feel the frustration building in my arms. I’ve suppressed that sensation for six months, only slipping up that one time a few weeks ago. I’ve controlled my temper since March by moving away from everyone I know, smoking a fuck-ton of weed, and keeping myself busy with work and Claire. Weed and Claire were my addictions for the past six months and now I’ve given them both up. I’m fucked.
“Don’t let that grille weigh you down,” I shout over my shoulder as I paddle away to get a better view of the swell.
I count the seconds between the first few breaks then close my eyes to listen. The crashing of the waves forms a rhythm that corresponds with the motion of the water under my board. The sun warms my shoulders as the ocean sways beneath me until I’m totally relaxed. The siren blasts to signal the beginning of the heat and my nerves fire up again.
I open my eyes and Carlos Ferreira is riding inside the barrel, racing to stay ahead of the spit coming off the wave. The barrel closes in on him, or so it appears. He emerges two seconds later wobbling as he fights to stay on his board. Even all the way out here you can hear the cheering from the crowd.
I paddle out to the line-up and wait to see if Jordan Muzo is going to take this next wave. He hesitates and, since I’m on the inside of the wave and have the right of way, I take it. I push the nose of the board down into the water and stand up as the wave curls up behind me. I flip a hard left then right to get some momentum as the tube forms. I kick faster so I can stay ahead of the curl because I need more than just a clean ride if I want to place today.
I get ahead of the wave and ride it up to the crest then flip my board into a 180. The sensation from that half-second I’m in the air is pure exhilaration and terror. Then everything fades and suddenly all I see is the terror in Myles’ eyes as he teeters on the edge of the cliff. The moment when he realized he was falling too fast.
My board comes down on the crest of the wave facing backwards and I try to right myself before the wave closes in on me. Then I bail.
The rest of the heat doesn’t go much better as I attempt to drown my thoughts of Myles and Lindsay. I try to think of Claire as motivation, how I’d love to bring back a trophy to her, but I keep getting confused by my desire to be with her. If I do well, I’ll be seeing a lot less of her when I go on tour.
I place ninth overall; enough to move on to the ASP qualifier in Australia. While everyone hangs out around the judge’s tent during the award ceremony, I set off to find Lindsay. Nathan placed thirteenth, so they probably took off before the ceremony began. I set off toward the park area and spot them behind a sponsor tent where Nathan is changing in the shade of the tent. I set off toward them, but a photographer cuts me off.
“Parker. We need you at the Hurley table for photos.”
