14
Sam
Surfing was impossible. Impossible, frustrating, and unnecessary. Why not just swim? They started on the sand, and after two lessons, Sam mastered the motion of popping up. But in the water, the variables were too much for her. She would pop up perfectly just as a small swell came and threw her off-balance.
“I can’t do this,” she said, pulling her board back toward her and climbing on.
“Of course you can.”
“The water keeps moving.”
“That’s what water does, Sam. Get back up.”
They met each morning, and Sam tried. She’d sit on her board and watch as Wyatt rode wave after wave, like it was nothing.
After a particularly inelegant fall, Sam sat on her board, braiding her wet hair, and said, “I give up. The ocean wins.”
Wyatt laughed. “That’s kind of your problem. You have a vibe about you like you’re trying to compete with the ocean. This isn’t a win/lose thing. It’s like you need to adjust to the movement of the ocean, to cooperate.”
“Oh my God, stop,” Sam said.
“Just try to catch a wave like you’re not trying so hard. Get up and then be fully willing to fall off. I mean you’re already wet, right?”
Sam knew he was right. Everything she loved to do came without force. She’d become a swimmer gradually. She’d started drawing without any particular end in mind. She opened books and just let them carry her away. The most fun she ever had happened when she acted on an idea without thinking it through. But trying to surf felt like trying to master gravity. She wasn’t entirely proud of the feelings that came up when she was considering a wave: distrust, uncertainty, fear. She liked the way Wyatt thought of her as strong and capable, the girl who could always capture the flag.
The next morning she got out to the beach at seven. There were small waves breaking in front of her house and she figured she had nothing to lose. She wanted to feel what it was like to glide along the curl of a wave, staying steady but open enough to let it take her wherever it was going. Something was happening to her, and it scared her, mostly the fact that her body acted of its own accord around Wyatt. She wanted to be open enough to let that take her, too.
The water was cold on her feet, cool on her shins, and then absolutely perfect once she was all the way in. Her body knew what it was doing. She paddled out to where the waves were breaking and waited for the right wave and her courage to emerge at the same time. A wave started forming from the south and she decided to try. She pushed up and felt the board beneath her feet. She imagined the motion beneath her went both ways, as if the ocean moved her and she moved the ocean. She was completely underwater before she realized she’d ridden that wave.
She came up for air and saw Wyatt running into the waves to meet her. “I saw it!” he called to her. He held out his arms like he was going to hug her but dropped them to his sides quickly. To her own surprise, she threw her arms around his neck. He hugged her back, and the feel of him, warm and dry, pressed against her wet body, was shocking. It had never occurred to her that another person’s skin against hers could make her feel like she was melting. Her skin felt so soft against his that she wondered if it had been changed somehow, as if the cells of his body interacted with hers to create a whole other thing. Wyatt let go first, which embarrassed her, like he’d been standing there waiting for it to be over.
“So you snuck out here and taught yourself to surf?”
“I guess. I don’t know how it happened.” She was relieved he’d changed the subject. She was afraid she might ask him how his skin felt against hers. She wanted to know.
“Let’s go back out,” he said. He hopped on his board and started to paddle. He was smiling.