“Life,” she said curtly. “I got hurt, so I can’t surf. My dad passed, so I had to clean out his belongings and live in the house alone.”
“Oh, Ro.” Lea’s eyes flickered and Rowan fought off a wave of emotion. No, she couldn’t go there. It would swallow her whole. “Why do you keep pushing me away? I can help.”
“Don’t need help. I like where I am. I stock rash guards and suntan lotion and sand the boards when Tino’s fingers cramp. That’s me now.”
Lea blinked. “Bullshit.”
“I don’t teach anymore.” The words were pebbles dropping into the dark. “I don’t surf.”
Silence steeped between them in the hush of the outgoing tide. Lea’s jaw flexed. “That’s a lie,” she said quietly. “Maybe you don’t paddleout. Maybe you pretend not to look. But you can’t sit here and tell me you’re not a surfer.”
“Don’t.”
“You think I didn’t notice?” Lea’s voice went sharper. “You think I haven’t been trying to reach you for a year? I text, you don’t answer. I call, you let it go. I stop by Tino’s and you’re on break, or in the back, or gone.”
Rowan stared at the dark line of water rolling on the sand, over and over. The repetition had always calmed her. Now it scratched at something raw. “I’ve been busy.”
“Busy?” Lea let out a laugh that was nothing like the ones Rowan remembered. “Busy avoiding all of us? Busy pretending you don’t care? Busy pretending your knee is a reason to cut out your own heart?”
Heat crawled up Rowan’s neck. “You don’t know what it’s like,” she said. She could hear the wobble in her own voice and hated it. “You don’t get to stand here and judge me. You’re still on the circuit, still winning, still getting sponsorship checks and glossy photos on magazine covers. Which, by the way, congrats. Way to screw over Tino. What’d Luana Boards pay you? Enough to forget who helped you from the beginning?”
Lea stepped forward, the sand sinking under her heels. “I cleared it with Tino before I said yes! You just dipped out when I tried to talk to you about the offer. And yeah, it all looks great from the outside, but you think I haven’t lost, too? You think I don’t wake up some mornings and wonder how long I have before it all goes? But that’s not even the point. You shut everyone out. You won’t even let us stand next to you while you decide to drown on land.”
Rowan bristled. “I’m not drowning.”
“You are.” Lea’s words cut. “I’ve seen you at the harbor.”
Rowan’s head snapped up. “What?”
“In the morning, before the shop opens.” Lea’s gaze didn’t flinch. “You park by the pilings and watch the sets roll in. You think you hide,but I see you, Ro. You look at the water like you’re starving. Like your fingers ache because they’re not around a rail.”
Rowan’s stomach dropped. The image of herself across the channel, sunglasses on, coffee gone cold, hit too clean. She tucked her hands under her arms like she could hide them. Her knee throbbed, phantom pain and memory.
Lea’s voice softened. “You act like getting hurt means the ocean turned its back on you. It didn’t. You turned yours.”
Something burned under Rowan’s ribs. Anger. Shame. A grief so big she couldn’t even name it. She swallowed hard and tasted salt. “My life is different now,” she said, each word deliberate. “That life is over.”
Lea shook her head. “No.”
“Yes,” Rowan snapped. “You weren’t there in the ER, okay? You didn’t hear what the doc said. You didn’t feel it when my knee went sideways and the board smacked me and all I could think was, I’m done. You weren’t there when everything you planned pulls away like a set you misread. So don’t stand here and pretend you get it.”
Lea flinched—barely—but Rowan saw it. The muscles in Lea’s forearms tightened, tendons jumping. “I was there after,” Lea said. “I was on your porch with malasadas and that crappy coffee you like. I sat on your steps until the mosquitoes ate me alive, and you didn’t come out. I was there in texts and messages that got left unread.” Her voice grew hoarse. “I tried. You didn’t.”
Rowan’s spine stiffened. “I needed space.”
“You built a fortress.” Lea’s teeth flashed but it wasn’t a smile. “And now a kid wanders into your orbit with that wild, hungry look you used to have, and you tell her no because you’re afraid you might feel something?”
“It’s not about fear.”
“Then what is it?” Lea leaned in, face close. “Because if it’s your knee, we deal. You don’t have to go out on a heavy day. You stand in waist-deep and push a foamie. You don’t have to chase glory. You just have to get wet.”
“It’ll never be the same!” The words burst out of her. “I can do PT till I collapse, but I’m not guaranteed I can compete on the level I was used to. How am I supposed to be okay with that?”
The air around them felt charged, like the moment before a thunderhead cracked. “Rowan. You can’t hide from the ocean forever. It’s who you are. What would your father say?”
The words hit something precarious inside Rowan, something she’d stuffed in the back of a drawer and slammed shut. For a flash, she saw herself standing in the white water, sun on her shoulders, the hum under her feet when the board found the pocket. The sheer, stupid joy of it. Then the flash snuffed out, like wind blowing a candle. The image of her dad, face creased with intent; shouting encouragement and directions from the WaveRunner; the joyous smile when they walked into the house together, bodies wrung out, skin encrusted with salt and sand, souls empty and full at the same time—all of it hit her full force and drove away her breath.
A gull screamed overhead. Rowan stomped out the mess of emotion and relished the familiar numbness. “You don’t know who I am anymore, Lea. Stop pretending you do.”
