Page 127 of Summer Love

“It was a plastic fin,” Noah goes on. “Kids messing around. Calm down, Jace.”

A plastic fin. Kids. A toy.

My thigh throbs—real pain, deep and sharp, the kind that comes back with every episode.

Noah keeps talking to me. Short, reassuring sentences.

“Breathe. There. Like that. Again.”

Summer’s there.

Pale, she watches me over Noah’s shoulder. She’s standing behind him, soaked, hair dripping. Her light dress has gone see-through in places.

I close my eyes.

The shame arrives before the panic’s even gone. Everyone saw me.

The tourists, the kids, the whole crew. They all saw me thrash around in five feet of water over a plastic toy.

I thought I was past this.

Years of therapy. Endless exercises. I went back in the water. I surf every morning. I rebuilt everything.

And one goddamn plastic fin drags me right back.

The anger rises, acid, burning. At the kids and their piece-of-shit toy. At the red LEDs of this shitty pool. At myself, for not being able to tell the difference between the lodge pool and the cliffs at The Last Ride.

Someone covers me with a towel. I open my eyes and push myself up. Noah tries to hold me back.

“I want to go home,” I get out.

“Jace, wait. You shouldn’t⁠—”

“I want to go home!”

My voice comes out too loud, raw. Heads turn. I don’t care.

“With you or without you.”

Noah looks to Evan. They give in.

I get up. My legs wobble. The towel slips and falls onto the wet tile. I don’t pick it up. Water drips off my clothes.

Noah pulls my arm around his shoulders. Evan takes the other side. We cross the deck, take the little gravel path that leads to the surf school. The music fades behind us. The voices die down.

None of the three of us says a word.

It’s a long walk. I left my flip-flops at the lodge. The gravel crunches under our feet.

“Careful,” Noah says halfway there. “There’s a root.”

In front of the trailer, I pull free with a sharp jerk. Noah and Evan let go.

“Thanks,” I say, my voice hoarse.

I open the door, step in, slam it, and lock it behind me.

Locked. No one can get in. I lean back against the door. The metal is cold against my wet shoulder blades. My knees give out and I let myself slide down. I end up sitting on the floor, forehead against my knees.