She died of curiosity,needing to know what Mick Turner had left Callum and—me cago en la puta—Leonor Moreira, the legendary big-wave surfer who’d retired a couple of years ago to become an artist.
Leonor had surfed Nazaré and came out alive. If she remembered correctly, she had survived a couple of serious injuries. Maybe she could give her some tricks to calm her mind before going back into the water. She knew she had a series of very heavy wipe outs. Yeah, she would definitely ask her.
When she entered the Primrose Hill office, Carla smiled widely at her, took her in with a look that made her feel seen, and gave her a quick, warm hug.
Once they sat, Carla handed her a cup of tea.
“So, how are we doing today?” Carla asked, settling into her usual cornerwith her notebook on her lap, legs crossed, that same calmness radiating from her like always.
Alejandra took a sip before answering. “Good. Well. Not bad. Not amazing. Somewhere in the middle. I’m happy… but still processing everything that’s going on.”
“That’s still progress. That’s life, usually.”
Alejandra nodded, tugging at a loose thread on the sleeve of her jacket. She quickly explained what had happened in Aberyswith. The paddleboard session with Callum, what she had felt, and then her rescue of taid. “It doesn’t mean that I have shaken off the fear. It’s like it’s still sleeping in the back of my head. Quiet, but present. I still wake up with nightmares…but it’s like…it’s better.”
“That’s okay. You’re not supposed to wake up one morning and be free of it.”
“It just felt like… when I jumped in the water to save taid… it clicked. Like I remembered who I was. But it didn’t erase the fear. It’s just… I did it anyway.”
Carla smiled gently. “That’s the difference, Alejandra. Courage isn’t the absence of fear. It’s doing the thing despite it.”
She looked down, nodded again, slower this time. “Callum keeps saying I’m brave. That I saved his grandfather. But I wasn’t thinking about bravery. I wasn’t thinking at all, maybe. I just thought that if I let that man drown, I’d never forgive myself. And also, maybe part of me needed to know if I could still do it. I’ve spent my entire life rescuing people from my board at beaches around the world. I thought maybe I could still prove to myself I had it in me. That the ocean and I could be friends again.”
“Did you prove it to yourself?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know. I did it, but it felt like a fluke. Like luck.”
“Or maybe it felt like something you’ll need to do again to trust it.”
“I feel..” She hesitated to formulate that thought. Carla didn’t push her, offering her time. “I feel…it’s not like before Pipeline I didn’t know the risks I took for surfing. But it’s like…I’ve seen the consequences. It wasn’t naivité or anything like that before. I had seen people die because of surfing, so many injuries but…until it happened to me…well, it didn’t seem a reality, a possibility.”
“It’s called optimism bias,” Carla said gently. “Our brains are wired to believe tragedy happens to other people. Even when we know the risks intellectually, we still move through life assuming we’ll somehow escape them.”
Alejandra looked down at her hands. “So I was arrogant.”
“No. You were human.”
A shrug. “I don’t know, I feel a bit stupid.”
“No, it’s not stupid, Alejandra. You’ve been surfing since you were a kid, long before the part of your brain responsible for risk assessment was fully developed. When you grow up around danger, it becomes normal before you’re really capable of understanding the consequences emotionally.”
“And now I’m old…” she scrunched her nose.
Carla smiled softly. “No. Just wiser. And finally aware that you’re not indestructible.”
“I kinda liked that feeling though.” Alejandra chuckled, leaning back, letting the tea warm her hands. Carla followed in the chuckle.
“I spoke with Sofia—my best friend, the one who wrote theBlue Mindresearch you gave me.”
Carla looked impressed and nodded. “I didn’t know she was your friend. Doctor Moretti Gómez is a very well-known voice in the marine world.”
“I know. We’ve been friends since we were five, when the prefrontal cortex wasn’t developed.” Carla laughed. “We both love the ocean, and we pursued it in different ways. As I was confessing how I felt, she made a very good point.”
“Which was?”
“A very good point that I then had time to process on my own.”
Carla nodded, as if to say go on.
