Page 95 of The Dysasters

Dickie extended his middle finger. “Fuck off.”

The phone rang, blaring through the speakers. “It’s Josie,” Dickie said, reaching down to silence it.

“Tell your sister I said thanks. For everything.”

Are you coming back?The unspoken question caught in the air between them.

“Nah,” Dickie ran his hand along the nape of his neck. “You tell her next time you see her.”

With a nod, Bastien tucked his board under his arm and slapped the roof of the Jeep. “I’ll be seeing you,podna.”

“Be safe out there, Bastien,” Dickie said, putting the Jeep into drive. “And make those waves your bitch!” With a final whoop and a few quick honks of the horn, Dickie peeled out of the parking lot.

Squinting against the wind, Bastien turned to face the ocean. Leaving Louisiana had been easy, so why was putting Dickie and Josie in the rearview so much harder? He barely knew them. Sand crunched between his teeth as his jaw tensed against a sudden memory.

“You’ll be back! This is your home! The only place anyone will ever love you!”

What his mother had said as he’d collected his board and walked out the door, it was wrong.Shewas wrong.

He dropped his board a few yards from the ocean’s wet stain on the shore and slipped off his shoes.

This city could be his home. People would love him here. But he couldn’t stay. The ocean wouldn’t let him. It had called him here, to this cove, the same way the indescribable wave-like crashing in his gut had called him to Galveston. It was the same feeling he’d had as a little boy, that his mother had called agrisgris—a curse, the moment in time that had ruined her life, his life, their lives, the moment that had called forth the slick and then the silence.

So Bastien had swallowed the feeling, the curse. He’d buried it down deep under self-hate and despair. He’d tried to hide his tie to the ocean and be a better son. But his mother saw the strangeness of him growing behind his eyes. She always saw it. He was the planned mistake that hadn’t saved her marriage, and had instead left them cursed.

Twelve years later, he looked inward at that pebble of a feeling he’d covered up for so long, and saw that his curse was a blessing, a way out, a compass. And he’d followed it here.

Bastien waded out until the sudsy waves lapped against his shins. He spread his arms wide and tipped his chin to the sky as the steady push and pull of the ocean drove him deeper and deeper into the sand. Yes, this could be his home.

“You shouldn’t be out here!”

Bastien’s arms snapped down to his sides as he swiveled his head to follow the voice.

“Hello! Hi!”

Bastien squinted at the willowy young woman standing even farther from the shoreline than he was. It washer.Had he really been so lost in his thoughts that he’d missed her?

She waved her long, graceful arms to get his attention before cupping her hands around her mouth. “Sorry, but the ocean, it’s really angry. You shouldn’t be here.”

Bastien splashed toward her, his legs reacting to the sight of her, theange,fluttering those delicate wings of hers as she warned him to be wary of the only thing in life he didn’t fear.

He slowed before reaching her, careful to not splash her pretty blue top that fit her slim body like a second skin.

“Oh,” a warm smile curled her pink lips. “It’s you.”

Bastien’s mouth hung open, his thoughts heavily clanking together like marbles.Speak!

“Neither should you.”

Wind whipped strands of her fair, blond hair from her ponytail and she tucked them behind her ear. “Neither should I what?” Quizzically, she looked up at him, but not too far up.

Bastien’s cheeks warmed as a quick look took in the length of her silky, ballerinaesqe legs. Refusing to repeat his past behavior, he snapped his gaze back to hers. “Be out here. With the ocean like this,furieux, sauvage.”

“Savage,” her lips parted gently as she took in the gray waves reaching like mountains across the shore break. “Yes, that’s a good way to describe it.” She paused, closing her eyes and bending down until the end of her ponytail fell into the water and splayed under the surface like threads of gold.

The way she listened to the water was the most beautiful thing Bastien had ever seen. Every nerve in his body, every tendril of his soul yearned to reach out to her.

Her eyelids fluttered open and she abruptly righted herself, her cheeks deepening to a bright coral reef pink. “Sorry, I’m not sure what came over me.” She held on to the dripping end of her ponytail as she braced herself against a sudden gust of wind. “But you definitely shouldn’t be here. I um, I have to be. I can’t explain it exactly, but I do.”