Page 30 of The Surfer

10

RIPLEY

That’s it,no more Cove and no more Australia.

I’ve given up.

I’m going home.

I wait for Sandy to return home from school. Cove - and that random party girl he’d brought home last night – have disappeared. Gone since this morning. I don’t know where they went and, to be honest, I don’t care anymore. I haven’t seen surfer boy since he grunted incoherently at me and ran away from me when I tore off his bedsheets. I didn’t go searching for him, he’s a big boy and he can handle himself, and besides, I decided that this wasn’t my fight anymore. Cove is no longer my fight.

He can do whatever he wants now, I’m going home.

In the hours since Cove disappeared, I’ve just been sitting around Sandy’s home. I made myself a sandwich and opened up one of the nursing textbooks I’ve lugged all the way to Australia in case I got free time to study. I’ve had a lot of time to think today whilst Sandy has been still at work, time to think about my future in this country.

And now my mind is made up.

There isn’t a future for me here in Australia.

If you look up the word impossible in the dictionary, I bet you a hundred bucks Cove’s face will be printed in the definition. I can’t deal with him anymore. It hasn’t even been a full day and I’m already overhim, no way can I stand six more months of this.

That’s it, my mind is made up completely now.

I’m going home.

Back to Mom and back to more debt and financial stress, but that doesn’t matter. I can’t do what Sandy and her Dad are asking me to do. It’s impossible, I can’t fix Cove Finn.

And that’s what’s led to me sitting at the kitchen counter with my nursing textbook opened to the section about CPR when I hear the familiar sound of Sandy’s car pulling up on her driveway. I hear the car door closing, and then the scratching sound of Sandy unlocking her front door.

She has no idea what she’s stepping into here.

This morning, after Cove left, I decided not to message my best friend about my decision to go home, instead, I wanted to talk to her in person, she deserves that respect. Even if her brother doesn’t.

“Ripley!” Sandy shouts my name as she walks in, throwing her keys in the ceramic bowl. She’s happy to see me but I doubt my face reciprocated her joy. She notices that pretty quickly and her voice immediately goes quiet, knowing something’s happened with her best friend. “What’s wrong? How was your first day with Cove?”

I sigh and shrug my shoulders. “Do you have any wine?” I ask.

Sandy’s face and mood changes, her smile turns upside down. “That bad, huh?”

I nod. “Yeah.”

“Well,” Sandy replies with a smile. “Good luck for you that my favorite drink is Chardonnay and that I have plenty of that stocked up in my house.” She skips over to the fridge and pulls out a bottle of white wine, brandishing it like a trophy she’s won. I can tell she’s refusing to let my sour mood ruin the evening, even if I have bad news. “Let’s open this baby.”

She eagerly pours the wine into two very large glasses she finds in the cabinet. I close my nursing textbook and we sit down at the dinner table to talk, the wine glasses Sandy has practically filled to the brim ready to drink in front of us.

“Tell me everything,” she says, reaching out to take my hand sympathetically.

I sigh, again. I don’t want to give my best friend bad news, especially not when she’s looking at me with such a caring and hopeful look. She’s done so much to get me to Australia, and I don’t want to let her down, but I have to. My mind’s made up. “I’m thinking of going home, Sandy,” I say, resigned. “This is too much for me. Cove is impossible, this is impossible. What you’re asking me to do these next six months is impossible.”

Sandy blinked. “What are you saying?”

Time to say it.

“I’m saying I’m going home,” I reply. I feel her hand rub on mine and it makes me sad. I don’t want to be saying this but it’s the truth, and that’s what Sandy deserves from me. I was so stupid thinking that I could change Cove. Sandy and her Dad were wrong to put their trust in me, of all people. “I admit defeat. I quit. I failed. I’m so, so sorry, Sandy, but I’ve had enough. I promise I’ll pay for my few days stay here and then I’ll get the first flight out in the morning. I’m just so, so sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused.”

Sandy doesn’t speak for a long time. She picks up her glass of wine and gulps it down in one go, drinking it like it’s water, I’m amazed at her drinking ability. Done, she slams the empty glass on the table with a bang. “No way,” she says defiantly. Her tone is unwavering and strong. “No fucking way, Ripley. You’re not giving up, not yet. Not if I have anything to say about it. You, Ripley Sailor, will wait here, I’m sorting this whole situation out. Cove can’t get away with this.”

Then, without waiting for me to protest or even ask what she’s doing, Sandy gets up from her seat and, in a quick flurry of movement, snatches her car keys from the ceramic bowl. She flies out the front door and launches the car out of the driveway and onto the road with a spin of her tires.

She’s gone, leaving me sitting in her living room with my half-drunk glass and Sandy’s empty glass of Chardonnay in front of me.

She wants me to wait here? She’s sorting this whole situation out?

What the hell’s Sandy doing?