Turtle used that money to buy Finn’s shack.
He refused to live in it and instead turned it into a memorial for his friend.
“I want people to remember him. I want them to know what happened here,” he’d told me after he’d signed the papers.
“We won’t let them forget,” I promised, and Turtle nodded.
“No the fuck we won’t,” he vowed.
Several months after the wake, Turtle confided in me that he and Finn had always planned to take Shelly across America, surfing all the beaches they could find.
We’d spent several years after Finn’s death doing just that. I even managed to get that stupid van to Hawaii, where Turtle shredded up the local beaches with Kai and me, living out his and Finn’s dream. Blake came with us, and after we’d torn up most of the beaches in every state that would have us, Turtle asked her to marry him.
He asked Kai and me to be the best men in their wedding, and it was one of the most beautiful nights of my life.
We went back to Stars Cove to have the wedding and to‘tell Finn the good news’ asTurtle put it.
Visiting Finn felt like coming home, in a way. We’d buried him next to Riddick, just outside of Leviathans, and I went with Turtle the first night we made it back to the cove.
Turtle had insisted that Finn’s stone be simple when we’d chosen it. I remembered going through the same process for Jake, and I understood.
Neither Jake nor Finn ever had a ton of money or even seemed to care about money.
They didn’t want flashy things. They’d only wanted to surf and live their lives conquering waves that most people wouldn’t even dream of trying to tame.
Which is why the inscription on Finn’s stone read:
Finn Summers
Leviathan Slayer
2003-2025
On our first day back in the cove, Turtle had laid a hand on Finn’s headstone. His eyes were full of tears as he told him all about our adventures with Shelly and, finally, about his engagement to Blake.
“I told you Mrs. Turtle had a nice ring to it,” he’d said so softly it made my eyes well with tears.
Turtle and Blake got married on Finn and Jake’s private beach.
It was a small ceremony with only close friends and, of course, all of Finn’s Finnatics who never stopped loving him.
Kai and I stood next to the happy couple as the sun set behind their modest marriage arch, and we watched with pride in our eyes as they said their vows.
There had been magic in the air that night. I had such a warm, comforting feeling for the entire ceremony that Finn was somehow there, watching his best friend get married to the woman of his dreams.
I felt Riddick there that night, too.
I liked to believe that what I told Turtle that day was true.
In my mind, Finn and Riddick were together. It was a tragedy that they hadn’t met when they were both alive. They were different in manyways, but I knew if they’d known each other, they would have developed the same strong bond I had with each of them, and now Turtle, as well.
After the wedding, we collectively decided to permanently move back to Stars Cove. Turtle finally moved out of Shelly and bought a place in town with Blake, claiming that Shelly was too old to keep up with all the ‘little turtles’ he planned to make with his blushing new wife.
However, every Saturday, Turtle, Kai, Blake, and I religiously gathered and surfed Jake and Finn’s private beach.
It made us feel close to them.
After a long day playing in the ocean, we usually used Jake’s old charcoal grill to make dinner and had a bonfire to honor them.
