“I hate being stuck. I’ve traveled my whole life. Chasing waves. I bought my house in Conil just to have a base, but I’m a free spirit, you know?” Alejandra sighed.
“I can see that about you.”
“The thing is… in the ocean, I always felt free. No chains. I could ride a wave, do an aerial, and what was under was just a consequence of what I wanted to do. Yes, I could hurt myself, and in Pipeline, it wasn’t the first time I did. A couple of years ago I hit my head at that very same spot. But this time… I got stuck.”
“But you freed yourself.”
“I did. But I could’ve not. And what if without my injury had led me to become like Mick Turner, Callum’s dad?”
“What about him?”
Alejandra exhaled sharply. “Fucking Mick Turner. That man was my idol. Everyone in the surf community looked up to him. He made me believe surfing could be mythic, you know? I wanted to be like him.”
“And now?”
“Now I know he was an amazing surfer… and apparently, a terrible human being. He overdosed a week after Callum found out he existed. He had two kids he never met. Two women he left behind. And he just… mailed checks. Like that’s enough.”
Carla nodded. “You sound angry.”
“I am,” she admitted. “Not just for Callum. But also, for me. Because I looked up to him. And now I think… What if I hadn’t gotten injured? Would I have just kept chasing that? Sponsorships. Photoshoots. A shiny name. A trophy.”
“That’s not what you want?”
“No.” She said it like a realization, her voice softer. “I realized surfing only ever mattered because my family and my friends were there. Because I could come back to Carlos on the beach and cry when I lost. Because my parents danced flamenco the night before the Olympics. Because I could share trophies or losses with Ilias. Because I could call Sofia and tell her I surfed with dolphins. Because now, I could call Callum after I win.”
Tears streamed down her cheeks, because she realized now how good her life had been, even the injury. How much good it had brought her.
Carla smiled. “So, the injury didn’t just stop you. It changed your direction. It made you realize what truly matters in your life.”
“Maybe it saved me,” she whispered. “It forced me to slow down. To stop pretending I was okay. To ask for help. To fall in love again.”
“And now?”
“Now I want to go back in the water. But I want to do it on my terms. With the people I love watching from the beach. I don’t care if it’s a small wave in Conil or a rehab swim in a pool. I just want to move again. But with them. With Callum. With my brother. My mom. My dad. Sofia. Ilias. The little baby in Sofia’s belly. I don’t want trophies. I want to share the story. It has always been about sharing the story with them.”
Carla let the silence linger a moment, letting it settle. “That sounds like healing.”
“I hope it is.”
“It is.”
Alejandra smiled through the tears.
“Same time next week?” Carla asked.
Alejandra looked out the window. “Yeah. But soon, I might be back on the road. Maybe we could shift to online sessions.”
“Then we’ll reschedule around the tides.”
Alejandra chuckled. She had no idea she was going to say all those things, but now that she had put words to her inner turmoil, she felt a weight had lifted from her shoulders. She loved winning, she loved trophies, but she loved even more the people she had found along the way, before medals were a thing, before sponsorships mattered. It took her some time to understand how truly lucky she was, even with that injury, what had come out of it, how it had redirected her life. She somehow knew, felt it inside of her, that she was going back to compete. But now, she didn’t want to rush it. Money wasn’t a problem. It never really was one in the first place. She should have known better. What happened to Mick Turner made her understand that there was no way she was going to end up like him, surrounded by trophies and awards but alone. No, she was Alejandra López Romero, she was going to redefine what true success meant to her.
63
CALLUM
Green Green Grass - George Ezra
They satfor lunch at a pub close to the lawyer’s office next to Piccadilly Circus. They hadn’t had the mental capacity to find anything better, since apparently both their brains were filled with the news that had just dropped on them. The email with the will and the personal letter from Mick waited for him in his inbox, but he couldn’t manage to reach for it. He needed to be alone. Far away from prying eyes, trying to understand what Mick wanted to tell him, if it meant anything at all.
