THERE’S THIS FEELING OF SUFFOCATION when you drown. Your lungs are depleted from lack of oxygen—crushing under the pressure like a soda can and there’s this feeling of knowing how to swim, but with limbs that have forgotten movements; there’s nothing you can do to stop that feeling of helplessness as the world crumbles around you.
That’s how I feel now.
Sitting on my bed I’m staring at a small fleck of chipped paint on the wall, focusing on it so hard my vision goes blurry. My mom leans against my closed door while my dad paces on my carpet. After Geer told us what headlines were appearing and what websites were posting them, none of us moved.
Frozen in the moment, waiting for the bubble to pop and the reality to crash down around us.
Bash and I didn’t even touch.
We all just sat there. Waiting.
And the first ones to poke at the bubble were my parents. They had come outside, their focus on me, and told me to follow them upstairs.
All the adults, including my grandparents, who I didn’t know had arrived, wouldn’t look me in the eye.
My fate was set. Alone, by myself, left to drown.
Bash was the only one that stood with me, looked at me, and started to follow until Dad shot him a look that warned him not to intervene. Bash watched on helplessly as I disappeared into the house.
Part of me wishes Bash hadn’t listened—that he had refused, pushing away my parents’ wants and sticking by my side. The other part is glad he didn’t. Not only for respecting my parents—can’t have them hating my boyfriend on top of everything else—but also because this is a moment for the three of us.
One that has been years in the making.
One that continues to simmer as Dad paces along the floor, rutting a path in the fluffy carpet.
He stops, looking at me before shaking his head and resuming his pacing. I nibble on my thumbnail as my heart races. It feels like time has sped up and slowed down at the same time. It feels like I’ve been sitting in this spot for a while, when really it’s only been a few minutes.
I should feel dread, I should feel anxious, but just like with drowning, there comes a point when fighting doesn’t help, tiredness sets in, and everything just stops.
I feel numb.
A shield is around me, blocking any emotion.
“Dad.” My voice is small when I can’t take the silence anymore. Mom looks like she’s going to cry. “Say something, please.”
My voice begs at the last word.
He stops walking in front of me. “What do you want me to say, Emery? How disappointed I am? How angry I feel?” He shakes his head. “You already know those things. What you want for me to say is that I forgive you. But I can’t.” My heart sinks, drops to the bottom of my stomach, shattering as it crashes. “Not yet. Not after this shit just dropped.”
He tilts his head in thought before asking, “How long has Bash been here?”
He’s trying to figure out how long I’ve been surfing. He thinks it’s Bash’s fault. And that almost hurts worse than him finding out in the first place. Not only because he’s blaming Bash, a completely innocent guy in this, but because he thinks I don’t love the sport enough to fight for it.
He thinks that I’ve been influenced by a guy and not by my desires. Not by my heart.
Maybe I went about it in a passive, deceitful way, but that doesn’t take away how much I love the sport. A sport my dad still participates in, occasionally, with Mick and Jason.
I don’t call him a hypocrite. As much as I want to, I bite my tongue, locking the words up. Right now, it’s easier to let him simmer in his anger.
“Mom?” I look at her, the silent, still one of the two. She hasn’t said anything and she looks like if she tries to speak, a sob will break free.
“Emery,” is all she says and a lone tear falls. A knife lodges in my chest. “What were you thinking?”
It’s not what she really wants to ask; she wants other answers to questions she refuses to speak. She’s trying to keep it together; we still have guests downstairs. Guests I don’t want leaving. When they do, the real drama will start. The words will fly and the hurt will be unleashed.
At least from Mom.
Dad looks ready to explode at this moment.
“I tried to stop.” That’s not what they want to hear. “I didn’t go back in the water for a year after the attack. But I missed it. I missed it so much. We always used to joke about how the Lawson’s were born with water in our veins and I believed it during that year, but I felt off-balanced. So I went back. I didn’t tell anyone. No one knew. For years, I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t want for this—” I gesture to the three of us “—to happen. I know you’re both pissed, but I’m almost twenty. I can do what I want. And I want to surf.”
“You’re almost twenty,” my dad sneers as he parrots my words. “So that makes you an adult? Not in this house. You’ve never worked a day in your life. You live off a small stipend from your trust fund. You don’t understand what it’s like to be an adult. You’re in college, but you only have a small taste of what the real world is really like. You don’t know what it was like for us to watch our daughter go through that and see you in the hospital after.”
“I do know, Dad! I was the one in that hospital bed. I was living your nightmare. But you tried to keep me from my dream. You tried to lock me up in a box to avoid the ocean. You didn’t care that it was killing me to not be in the water. Have you even asked me what I want to do for a career?” I don’t give him time to answer. “You haven’t. Not once have you asked me. You might be hurt that I lied to you for years, but I’m hurt that my future stopped existing for you after what happened.”
I have tears in my eyes, collecting on the edges, overflowing and waiting to spill over.
He doesn’t say anything. He shakes his head one last time, driving the knife in me deeper, hitting its final target, before he walks out of my room with my mother right behind him.
It isn’t until I hear their retreating steps down the hallway that I fall on my side, curling into a ball on my mattress, letting the tears break free.
I sob until I see nothing.
At some point Brit comes into my room and pulls my head onto her lap. She runs her hand over my hair as I continue to cry these deep, gut-wrenching sobs. She doesn’t say anything.
I cry until I pass out.
You have ten minutes to say hi to everyone at the party before we go back to my place.
I laugh at Bash’s text on my phone. It’s been six days since we’ve seen each other. Since Christmas, my parents haven’t let me leave the house unsupervised.
While my parents and I have barely talked since, Bash and I have been texting constantly. Which, surprisingly, isn’t as annoying as I always thought it was.
You have five minutes to get me out of there before I jump you.
Promises, promises, Firecracker.
He thinks I’m kidding, but he’s not the only one that misses the other. And as much as I want all the time alone with him, I make myself text him:
We have to stay for a while. Like an hour. After that, I’m all yours.
It’s a miracle that I’m even going to this party to begin with. Nori was able to convince my parents when she brought me gifts from the outside world, i.e. donuts and iced coffee, two days ago.
Bless.
My parents were so shocked that Nori—the one in bed by 8:30 if I don’t force her to stay out longer—is attending a bonfire on the beach. And staying until midnight.
My aunt is working at the hospital again and my parents are going out, so they told me I’m allowed to go. Not to have fun, mind you, but to “watch” Nori. Like she’s a child.
But hey, I get to go out and see my friends and boyfriend for the night. I only waited about one second after they said it before I agreed to their terms.
Freeeeeeeeedom! rang through my head and I had to physically stop myself from jumping and dancing on the kitchen counter.
My parents gave me a look, seeing into my very being, seeing the plan in my head, and looked ready to shut it down until Nori stepped in. Again, she was able to sway my parents, deflecting their attention from their problem child. They even agreed to let me spend the night at her house since she’d be home alone.
When my parents weren’t looking, Nori shot me a look and I could have squished her. She gave me the excuse I needed to spend New Year’s with Bash and not have to rush our time together.
Really, I should have gotten her more gifts for Christmas.
My sweet, young cousin is a devious little mastermind.
I’ve taught her well.
My parents haven’t officially said it, but it’s pretty damn clear I’m grounded. Under house arrest. I feel like I’m back in high school, standing two feet tall on the ground, being protected from my parents’ worries.
I tried to play the “I’m an adult” card again, the day after Christmas, which was a big mistake. They told me, after they had slightly calmed down, that they were punishing me for the years I lied to them as a “child” and they would possibly continue to do so until I leave for college in a week.
Yeah, still haven’t told them about that yet, either.
When did my life become such a mess that I can’t even be honest with my parents? All the whys in the world could be asked and the answer would still be the same.
It all started with my shark attack, and that’s something unchangeable. Set in stone and sealed in the history of my life. I fucked up by lying for years.
I should have talked to them about surfing instead of spending years going behind their backs.
And for what?
As much as I practice, go out every day, I’m no better than when I was fifteen.
Hindsight really is a bitch.
“You’re frowning. Why aren’t you happy?” Nori asks when she walks out of my bathroom and sees me sitting on my bed. “I got you out of house arrest for a night.”
She plops down next to me.
“I’m fine. Just thinking,” I tell her. “Ya know, Bash told me a few days ago that reporters are camped outside the rental he’s staying at and that he had to get a bodyguard to keep them off the lawn.”
“What? Is he okay?” She looks concerned and I nod. “That seems a little extreme, right? Surfers don’t usually get that kind of press. At least, that’s what it seems like to me.”
“They do when they’re in one of those articles for sexiest athletes of the year. And then bachelor of the season or something.” I sigh. “Why couldn’t he be universally unattractive?”
Nori doesn’t respond, not buying what I’m saying. It’s all true, though. There really were swarms of reporters trying to get the story about why he left and what he was doing with me, or more specifically, “Ren Lawson’s daughter,” which is how the media refers to me.
Can’t say if I prefer that over “Surfer Princess.” Both are totally degrading—I’m not even worthy of my actual name.
Nori knows I’m stalling, waiting until I’m ready.
It takes me a few minutes to get there. “My parents still don’t know about me dropping out,” I tell her. “They’ve always talked about how important higher education is, which I totally agree with, if you’re the right person. But how do I tell them that I’m not meant for a classroom? My mom’s a fucking scientist. I’ve never done great in school, though. My teachers in high school always said how I was smart, but lacked the focus when it came to assignments. Did I tell you how I had to leave one of my classes because I felt like I was suffocating? The room had no windows.” I shudder, remembering the awful aftershave of the professor in that small, rancid room.
“Tell them you’re not leaving forever, just shutting the door for now. Do you ever plan on going back?” Nori’s an overachiever. On top of being in the top ten percent of her class, she’s going to graduate with her AA degree before she gets her high school diploma. All of that on top of her intense diving schedule.
I shrug. “I don’t even have a major.” No one knows that. Not even Brit. Brit’s known what she’s wanted to major in since she first held a camera. Photography calls to her like the sea does to me. “They don’t offer surfing as a respectable degree track.”
Nori laughs, but it sounds sad. She knows I struggled when I first moved up to school. The first week in the dorm freshman year I had two panic attacks. I spent a year and half at a college I hated when I finally decided I was done.
My phone beeps, a text message from Bash asking where we are.
Taking a deep breath, I look at my cousin with a smile, ready to go.
New year, fresh start.