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“It’s short,” she complained.
“Like it should be. Makes it more agile.”
“Slower,” she replied.
I smiled, not at her answer, but because it was the first time in those three endless weeks that we were having what you might call a conversation. I went toward the water, and she followed me without complaining.
The city was a mecca for surfers, but the waves weren’t usually big. Still, that day the phenomenon known as “the Byron Bay wave” was on display. It happened when the three points came together at high tide, creating one long wave that advanced to the right, starting at the edge of the cape and entering the bay in regular, synchronized tubes.
I never missed an opportunity like that.
We headed out toward the depths. Once there, we didn’t say a word, just sat on our surfboards and waited, waited for the perfect moment… Leah reacted and followed me when I made a sign and took off, smelling a good wave on its way, sensing a growing energy in the calm water.
“It’s coming,” I whispered.
Then I swam out to sea, hurrying, and stood up on my board before sliding into the wave, skirting it, gathering speed to make my move. I knew Leah was following me. I could feel her behind me, opening her way on the wall of the wave.
Happy, I looked over my shoulder.
A second later, she was gone.
10
_________
Leah
The water struck me, and I closed my eyes.
Then the color was gone, and I felt safe again from those memories that try sometimes to creep in, the life that was no longer there, the things I used to want and no longer cared about. Because it wasn’t fair that everything remained the same now that nothing was the same. I was so far away from my former life, myself, that sometimes I felt like I had died that day, too.
I opened my eyes.
The water was whirling around me. I was sinking. But there was no pain. There was nothing. Just the salty taste of the sea in my mouth. Just calm.
And then I felt him. His hands pulling me into his body, his strength, his momentum tugging us upward. Then the sun hit us as we broke the surface of the water. I felt nauseated. I coughed. Axel ran his fingers down my cheeks, and his eyes, their blue so dark it looked black, stared me straight in the face.
“Fuck, Leah, babe, are you okay?” he asked, calling me babe, the way he had before. Ever since I was a child.
I looked at him, shaken. Feeling…feeling something…
No, I wasn’t okay. Not if I was feeling him again.
11
_________
Axel
Panic. losing sight of her—that was panic. My heart was still in my throat when we got back home, and I couldn’t stop thinking about her sinking in the choppy waters, how fragile she looked. I wanted to ask her why she hadn’t tried to come up, but I was scared to break the silence. Or maybe what I was really afraid of was her answer.
I stayed in the kitchen while she showered, looking out the window, tossing around the idea of picking up the phone and calling Oliver. When Leah came out and looked at me, nervous and ashamed, I had to hold back to keep from letting loose on her.
“How are you?”
“Fine, I just got lightheaded.”
“When you fell in the water?”
