And now, Riddick didn’t want me either.
“Itoldyou, we can’t do this, Finn!” Riddick was shouting at me. His fingers were buried in his thick hair, and he looked like he wanted to tear it out at the roots.
But I didn’t care.
I was sodonewith this.
“This is over, Riddick,” I said, shocking myself with how cold and dead my own voice sounded. I felt numb.
“What?” he snapped.
“I’m done. I don’t want to train with you anymore. In fact, I don’t want to fuckingseeyou anymore. Stay off my property.”
He narrowed his eyes at me, and I couldfeelhis rage like it was a living thing.
“We’ve been over this, kid,” he growled.
“What, all of a sudden I’mkidagain? It’s like that?”
“Yeah. It’s like that. I’ll surf wherever the fuck I want, and if I want to surf your beach, I will.”
I cut him a cool look and shrugged.
“Fine. I’ll go then.”
“What do you meanyou’llgo? Go where?”
“None of your business.”
“Stop being ridiculous. You’re not abandoning your own house just because you don’t want to see me.”
I was already making my way back to the cliff face.
“Watch me,” I snapped.
“Finn!” He called after me, but I kept walking, and he didn’t chase me.
Once I made it back to the shack, I packed a duffle with some clothes and sent a text to Turtle, asking him to come pick me up.
I’ll admit I packed a little slower than necessary. Some small pathetic part of me couldn’t help but hope Riddick would show up and beg me to stay. To prove that it wasn’t all in my head and that he reallydidcare about me.
But he never came, and by the time Turtle showed up with Shelly, my mood had soured even further.
Turtle helped me load up my fish board and my shortboard, which had both been recently waxed for me by the man I was leaving behind.
I tried not to let that fact sway me as we strapped the boards to the roof of the van.
I watched my shack get smaller and smaller in Shelly’s side mirror, and even when the silhouette of a tall, broad-shouldered man appeared next to it, I didn’t tell Turtle to stop.
I’d learned all I needed to know from Riddick to surf Leviathans.
I would do the rest of my training alone.
“Dude. You’re such a buzzkill lately,” Turtle complained, flopping down in the lawn chair next to me.
I glanced away from the campfire I’d started in the firepit on Shelly’s lot. Every lot on Stars Cove’s campsite had one, and I’d spent the last hour tossing rolled-up bits ofThe Stars Cove Gazetteinto it.
The big black and white photo of Mayor Tully’s face was now missing a forehead due to my nervous picking and fidgeting.
