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Bret had asked him to quit surfing then. Not for good, just for the day. He’d asked him, and Kai had said no.
Kai had asked to go again. It had been stupid, he knew, but it was like riding a bike and falling off. He wanted to make sure he wasn’t traumatized, that despite that he’d bit it on his first big wave since the injury, he could still do this. It was about ego, too, wanting to go out on a good wave. Bret had argued with him and Kai had yelled in his face. How a real friend would man up and do this. Kai wasn’t proud of what he’d said, of the bile that he’d unleashed on his longtime friend. But Kai had been scared, and he’d had something to prove, and the only way he knew how to do that was to throw himself at the mercy of that monstrous wave.
“You have a death wish, you know that?” Bret had screamed at him at the time.
And maybe Kai did. If he’d died that day, at least the world wouldn’t have discovered he was a fake. He would’ve gone out as a kick-ass extreme surfer, not some guy with a bum leg, someone to be pitied.
On Kai’s second ride that day, he’d fallen almost as soon as he crested over the wave. He plummeted down the face of what was almost Niagara Falls, with such force in the bowl below that it broke his board in two and pummeled him once, twice, three times. He was held down beneath that engine of water for a full minute. I’m going to become a fish, he thought. This was it.
Bret got him out of the worst of it, but the Jet Ski, stuck in the foam, unable to push water through its engine, had stalled. Then the two of them were sitting ducks for the next wave. It swept the Jet Ski out from under them. The wave crashed into Kai’s head, knocking him senseless. Bret, arm broken, nearly drowned but still somehow managed to get to Kai. The Jet Ski was smashed on the rocks, yet they got to shore. Bret was carried out on a stretcher. Kai walked on his own. He insisted on taking Bret to the hospital.
But the real tragedy happened later.
When Bret’s wife found out what had happened, she rushed to the hospital in a panic. She sped through a red light and was hit by a delivery truck. She’d survived, but she’d lost her baby.
Bret blamed Kai for it all. And so did Kai. If he’d listened to Bret, if he hadn’t gone out that second time, none of that would’ve happened. Kai understood Bret’s anger. He got it. He deserved it. He’d apologized countless times, but Kai knew that some things, you just couldn’t be forgiven for.
Ever since that day, Kai had a fear he’d never had before. He’d lost his edge. His ego had cost him his best friend. And now here he was again, about to die. This time without Bret to save him.
What am I doing here? The competition’s in a matter of days, and I’m not ready. I’m miles from ready.
A wiry twig of a boy bounced into his view. “Hey, Kai Brady, right? I’m Henley James. Gonna tow you today.”
“You?” Kai didn’t bother hiding his surprise. The boy was half his age. Barely looked old enough to drive a car and even had a smattering of acne on his forehead. How could this kid maneuver a tiny Jet Ski through and around hundred-foot waves?
“Been doing it for two years.”
“Since you were ten?” Kai asked.
“Hey, man. I’m eighteen,” he said, sounding offended. Kai shook his head. Maybe Jesse was right and he was getting too old for this sport. Henley, however, recovered quickly. He was likely too excited to stay mad. “You probably don’t remember this, but you saved my brother, man.”
“I did?” Kai scratched his head, drawing a blank.
“Two years ago. Hamilton James? We call him Hammy. He was out riding Jaws and probably shouldn’t have been. Scrappy blond kid? He went down hard and was knocked out. You pulled him out.”
Kai vaguely remembered a kid who’d had a spectacular wipeout there, before the tsunami. Kai nodded. Probably one of many he’d dragged out of the drink only to yell at them for being out in a place they had no business being.
“Yeah, I remember.”
“Hammy never surfed big waves after that. Said he learned his lesson.”
“Good.” Kai nodded. Big surf wasn’t for everyone. Might not be for me anymore, either. But anytime Kai really thought about quitting, he wondered, What else am I going to do with my life? He knew of plenty of retired surfers who made surfboards or put their names on shirts, and he could do all that, was doing all that, but what did it matter if he couldn’t do the one thing he thought he was born to do? What then?
