Page 102 of Summer Love

We stay like that for a while. Four guys sitting on their boards, rising and falling with the swell. Evan catches two waves, comes back. Kai catches one, a long one, and paddles back to his spot.

Noah doesn’t catch anything. He doesn’t try. He’s here, and that’s already huge.

Noah on a board, in the water, for the first time since Dad died. And he came out for me. Not to surf, not for fun—to paddle out here and sit down next to me.

“I know you blame me,” I say.

It comes out on its own. He doesn’t deny it, doesn’t confirm it.

“It’s because of me you didn’t go to college,” I go on. “Your dream—medicine, all of it—I’m the one who took it from you.”

His college money swallowed up by the helicopter, the hospital, the transfusions, the rehab… By everything that came after the accident.

“Jace…” Noah breathes.

“And all of it for what? A stupid-ass bet.”

Kai stares at me. I sigh.

“Miles and I bet a hundred bucks with some loudmouths passing through that we’d surf at dawn under the Star Park cliffs.”

Kai straightens up on his board.

“At The Last Ride? You guys are idiots. You could’ve smashed yourselves on the rocks.”

I shrug.

“Didn’t happen. Well… I still almost didn’t make it.”

Nobody answers. The water rises and falls under our boards. I let out a humorless laugh.

“A hundred dollars. That’s why you didn’t go pre-med. Because two morons wanted to play hero in front of surfers they didn’t even know.”

I stare at my hands on my board.

“Sometimes I think if I hadn’t made it, it would’ve been simpler for everyone.”

Noah stays silent. Then he explodes.

“Goddamn it, Jace! What are you talking about?”

His voice cracks.

“Are you serious right now? You think I’d rather lost you?”

“I—”

“Of course I’m glad you’re still here, for God’s sake! Of course if I had it to do over, I’d give that money again! Ten times, a hundred times over!”

He smacks the water, splashing himself.

“That’s not the problem. It’s not the money. It’s the way it happened.”

He catches his breath.

“Mom calling me in tears to tell me you’re in the hospital and you might die. Three days of waiting. Three days without sleep. And when you’re finally out of danger, she follows it up with: there’s no money left for college.”

Eyes red, he looks at me.