The Only Exception

by Abigail Moore

  “He’s not as good as Mikey, but he’s nice,” McKayla agrees. “He had us rolling on the floor at youth group with some of his stories, though. He tells us what he does and what the Australian stereotype would be for stuff, and I don’t believe a word of it, but it’s hilarious.”

  A sick wave starts building behind us and I sit up, lean forward and start paddling. Zoning in, I drop into the wave and push myself up on my hands, about to pop up, when out of nowhere, someone cuts in front of me and what I think is a foot hits me in the right eye. I lose my balance and roll off my board, getting dragged under and knocked around in the swirling water as the wave passes over me like the spin cycle of a washing machine. The leash of my board tugs on my ankle and my lungs scream for air. My vision starts to go fuzzy and I’m seeing colorful spots.

  Somewhere in the confusion, my head comes up and I start gagging. My board pops up next to me and I grab on. My head is throbbing. I don’t think I can open my eye. Whether I can or not, it hurts. The other eye, though full of saltwater, can see just fine. I know, because I can see a figure about fifty yards towards shore, paddling back in my direction.

  “Annie! Are you okay?!” Mac calls, paddling up beside me. It’s probably a good thing my ability to speak has been neutralized, otherwise I’d be spewing as much profanity as I am water.

  “WHAT in the HECK was that supposed to be?!” I cough/shout towards the other surfer. I wretch and hack a few more times and climb up on my board, closing my non-injured eye to keep the bright sunlight out. “No snaking, barney! If you learned yesterday, pick a different spot to surf!”

  “Hey, woah,” an unfamiliar voice replies. “I didn’t mean to hit you! And I’m not exactly a barney. What did I do that was so wrong?”

  “Oh, nothing, except you dropped in on my wave, kicked me in the eye and caused me to almost drown,” I reply tartly.

  “Oh, yeah, I caused you to almost drown,” the voice scoffs. “Let’s not forget that you weren’t looking where you were going in the least. I’m not entirely to blame.” Wow, talk about nerve! I don’t even have a face to match the voice yet and I already don’t like whoever’s voice it is. It sounds like a teenage boy’s voice that’s deep, but young and has a foreign accent that I cannot place in the middle of my jumbled, under oxygenated thoughts. He sighs and says, much more calmly, “Here, let me see your eye.” Slowly, I peel my fingers off of my right eye. Reluctantly and painfully, I open both of my eyes, waiting for the receptors to adjust.

  As I become accustomed to the light, a pair of deep blue eyes stare into mine worriedly. A boy about my age sits on his surfboard, dressed in light blue board shorts and a white rash guard. His wet brown hair is finger-combed in a swoop off to his left so as to stay out of his eyes. “Oh, gosh, that’s gonna be a shiner. It’s already swollen a bit, but that’ll be black by tomorrow.”

  “Great. First day back and I’m already banged up,” I sigh. “Well, Mac, you staying out or coming back with me?”

  “What do you think, gremmie?” she asks. Gremmie is another word for inexperienced or young surfer. “By the way, nice to see you, Sawyer.” She takes off, paddling into a wave to ride in to shore.

  “I’m really, really sorry. My name’s Sawyer. Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?” he asks. It’s only then that I manage to put two and two together. His accent is Australian, watered down a bit with some American pronunciation, but none the less Aussie. This must be the kid Mac was raving about a minute ago.

  “Just don’t cut me off on this next wave,” I request cooly, paddling into the wave. The ride is smooth, so I do a couple of snaps, just to make sure it doesn’t go completely to waste and to blow off some steam. I meet McKayla on the beach, talking to an older boy that looks similar to Sawyer, but with hair that’s darker than his brother’s.

  “Nice going, Sawyer,” the boy yells in Sawyer’s direction, with a thicker version of his accent and not as deep of a voice. “My clueless brother clocked you in the face?”

  “Yeah, pretty much,” I call back, throwing my board down in the sand and running one hand over my salty, drenched, braided hair.

  “I’m Daniel,” he introduces, extending his hand to me. I take it and shake it.

  “Andrea,” I reply. Sawyer has caught up and drops his board next to mine.

  “Do you guys have a ride?” Daniel inquires. McKayla shakes her head. I, meanwhile, have a headache the size of Texas and just watching her shake her head makes mine hurt. My jaw doesn’t feel to good, either. This kid has some leg strength, man. I’d expect nothing less from a surfer, but I’d be lying if I said I guessed anything even close to getting kicked in the face by a fellow surfer to happen anytime soon. “I’ve got my car with me if you want one.”

  “We were going to walk down to Tara’s at lunchtime, but obviously, that’s not happening,” McKayla fills them in. “Annie? What do you want to do?”

  “I don’t care,” I reply, just trying to get away from this idiot as soon as possible.

  “I’ve had plenty of black eyes in my life,” Daniel says. “Head’s probably pounding right about now, right?” I nod slightly. “Yeah, we’ll get you home. Sawyer, get the boards. Mac, do you want to get her situated?”

  “I’m fine,” I lie, not wanting to seem wimpy. “I’ll be okay.” Sawyer picks up both his and my board and straps them to the back of Daniel’s navy blue, open top Jeep, pausing to open my door for me. I slide in and lean my head back against the headrest, hoping for relief that doesn’t come. The other three climb in and Daniel talks directions with McKayla. I try to alleviate some of the pressure and ease the pain in my head, but it doesn’t help much. Fantastic. Simply fantastic.

  Four

  The ride is only five minutes, but still painful, since my head feels like it’s being whacked with a baseball bat every time we drive over a little bump. Upon arrival, I again decline help as I climb out of the car. I push open the front door and kick off my rubber slippers. “Grammy! We’re back!” I call, almost wincing at the shot of pain through my head.

  “Hi sweetheart, I though you and McKayla wer-“ Grammy cuts off her own sentence as she emerges from the kitchen and lays eyes on me. “Annie, what happened to your eye?”

  “Nice to know it looks good already,” I grumble. “This genius decided to drop in on my wave and kicked me in the eye when he cut me off.”

  “I’m really sorry, Mrs. Maverick,” Sawyer apologizes. “I really didn’t mean to. I just got too close, didn’t see her and I couldn’t stop.”

  “Oh, no worries,” she assures him. “Annie, it really doesn’t look that bad. It’ll heal up in a few days.” No worries, my eye. Literally. You want to tell me I have no worries, take a look at my face. “We’ll just get some ice for that. You go lay down on the couch, Annie. McKayla, could you go back and get one or two pillows off her bed?” McKayla nods and disappears down the hall. “Sawyer, Daniel, make yourselves at home,” Grammy invites. “You can put on a movie if you like. Help yourself to anything that’s not covered in tin foil in the fridge.”

  “Thanks. I’ll go get her board,” Daniel says, exiting the entry hall. An awkward silence fills the room, feeling louder than any sort of noise.

  “Want to watch something?” Sawyer asks a moment later. I shrug and point at the DVD cabinet.

  “Help yourself,” I reply. He strides across the room, opening the glass door to examine my grandparents’ DVD collection. Eventually, he holds up The Avengers. I shrug again as I lie down on the long, leather sectional couch, back turned to both screen and idiot.

  Sawyer occupies one of the other sides of the sectional and McKayla emerges, carrying my favorite pillow. Regardless of the fancy sheets I have at my parents’ houses, this is by far my favorite pillowcase ever. It’s white, with big splotches of pink dye here and there. On each splotch is a small gathering of three or four butterflies, with other tiny color spots scattered around them of teal and yellow. The texture is si
lk-like, but not in the least bit stiff or cold.

  I try to get comfortable, but even after applying the squishy reusable ice pack Grammy gives me wrapped in a towel, I’m still shifting and squirming, switching back and forth from laying on either side to my back. “Do you want some help?” Sawyer offers. I feel like being stubborn, but the discomfort gets the better of me.

  “If you don’t mind,” I reply meekly. He stands and crosses to me.

  “Sit up for a second,” he instructs. I sit up and move the pillow out of the way. He takes it from my hands and arranges it along with a couch pillow to support my head a little bit more. McKayla returns from my room with a scarf and Sawyer ties the ice pack around my face like a blindfold, then returns to his seat. I lay back down, close my other eye and try to relax. The cold seeps through the scarf and slowly numbs the upper right corner of my face. I hear the door shut and someone that’s most likely Daniel plop down in the spot next to Sawyer, when suddenly, music starts playing from the dining room table.

  McKayla hops up and brings my phone over to me. Without taking off my blindfold/ice pack, I answer it. “Hello?”

  “Hey, surfer girl,” my dad greets cheerfully. “How’s Oahu?”

  “It’s good,” I say, only half lying. “How’s Cali?”

  “Oh, the usual,” he replies nonchalantly. “Grammy & Papaw?”

  “Terrific,” I assure. “Waves are good. You should’ve seen me this morning, I was charging on three or four of the waves I caught.” Charging= on fire. Doing well. Tearing it up.

  “Choka!” he laughs, meaning “awesome,” basically. “I’ve gotta go. I just called to make sure you were okay. My next client just got here.”

  “Okay,” I reply. “Love you. Bye, Dad.”

  “Love you too. Bye, Annie.” The line goes dead.

  I hang up and listen to The Avengers on the television for a bit, but the blissful quiet is quickly interrupted again. “Hello?”

  “Hi honey, Grammy and Papaw said you went surfing earlier so I decided I’d try you again,” my mother chatters away. “You’re okay, right?”

  “Yes, Mom, I’m fine,” I fib.

  “Okay sweetheart,” she responds. “I’ve got another call coming and I’ve just arrived at a client’s house. Call you later!”

  “Sure, Mom,” I promise. “Love you.”

  “Love you too,” she echoes. “Bye.”

  “Bye.” Another dead line. As Robert Downey Jr. talking through the television is the only sound in the room, my headache starts to settle back into a dull ache instead of a piercing throb.

  I pull off my blindfold to set my phone on the coffee table in front of me and before I can close my eyes again, Sawyer looks at me curiously. “What?”

  “You didn’t tell them I kicked you in the face,” he says confusedly. I close my eyes and sigh, tying the ice pack back around my face.

  “I didn’t want them to worry,” I reply simply. That’s only sort of the truth. If they heard I had a black eye, my mother would order me forty different kinds of coverup and about fifty different kinds of eye makeup. My dad would most likely want to get me some kind of gadget to hold an ice pack on my eye for me or a robot to do stuff for me. Seriously, when I get hurt, sometimes I just want a dad who will say “walk it off, you’re fine” and a mom who will give me some Tylenol and tell me to sleep, not everything else I could possibly buy.

  We sit like we are for about two more hours, with Grammy bringing sandwiches in at lunchtime and various movie watchers helping me take the ice pack off and tie it back on at 10-minute intervals. I notice Sawyer’s hair, now dry, is a medium brown, almost like a cross between auburn and chocolate, that he runs his fingers through, sweeping it off to his left.

  Grammy comes over a little later and evaluates my face. The swelling in my eye, according to her, has gone down, but the bruise will last about a week, maybe longer. Daniel and Sawyer get ready to leave after Grammy suggests I go lay down in my room for a little while. “Sorry again,” Sawyer apologizes on his way out the door.

  “It’s okay,” I reply hesitantly, holding up a hand on my way back to my room.

  “Later,” they chorus in their Aussie accents. I carry my pillow back to my space and flop as gently as one can flop onto my sunset duvet.

  “Thank you, Grammy,” I say to no one in particular, grateful my grandmother could tell I needed to be rid of them. Sawyer, specifically. McKayla drops onto the giant bean bag in the corner. “Yeah, he’s definitely the most fun person I’ve ever met. Likes to dance.”

  “Aw, come on, he’s not that bad,” she chides, trying not to laugh.

  “Not that bad?! He kicked me in the face, Mac! Then, and this is the best part, he tried to act like it was my fault I almost drowned! What would you think if a guy cut you off on the road and totaled your car?” I ask, bringing memories of remarks shouted at other drivers and an ear-splitting car horn. “I’ve seen your road rage, Mac. That guy would be #1 on the CIA’s ‘wanted’ list if you could make it happen.”

  McKayla can’t hold it in any longer. Her light, loud laugh bursts forth and she just keeps laughing, unable to stop. “It’s good to have you back,” she laughs.

  “Even when I’m all bruised up?”

  “Definitely,” she reassures, still giggling.

  “Anyway, I just don’t like him,” I continue. “There’s just bad news written all over the whole thing. Not to mention his stupid ego.”

  “Fine. Be that way. Just so long as you don’t mind competing against him,” she adds.

  “Oh, I don’t mind. I’ll kick his butt any day,” I respond. “Just like yours.” She laughs again and chucks a teddy bear at me. “Foul! Attacking a maimed opponent! Disqualified!” I shout, throwing a pillow at her. She and I start throwing anything relatively soft we can find at each other, both of us shrieking with laughter. My door opens to reveal Papaw, who charges through the room with my surfboard in front of him as a shield.

  “Cease and desist!” he commands. We do as he says, still giggling, and he sets my board in the corner. “Annie, if you’re up for it, I can drive you to the offices for signups for those competitions I mentioned.”

  “Of course I’m up for it!” I reply enthusiastically. “What competitions?”

  “The Oahu Juniors Championships, the Annual Pipeline and, maybe, just maybe, if you do well in the other competitions, regionals,” he says.

  “Seriously?!” I exclaim. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! But what if I make it past regionals? I’d qualify for state, right?”

  “Right. After state, would possibly be nationals, and certain positions at nationals can get you a spot on the international team for the World Championships,” he explains. “But that means you could be in this for the long haul. And a spot on the world champs team is extremely iffy.”

  “What about my parents? Did they agree to this?” I question. He shakes his head.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t talked to them yet,” he says. “I didn’t know if you’d want me to.”

  “Why don’t we wait and see about the first two, then figure out regionals after,” I decide. He nods approvingly.

  “Alright,” he agrees. I shoot a glance at Mac.

  “You want to come help sign me up?” I inquire. She shrugs.

  “Got nothing better to do,” she replies, standing. We follow Papaw out to the living room and slide on our rubber slippers, bidding goodbye to Grammy. I put on my dark shades, thankful for once that my mother bought the big ones that look like the kind celebrities wear in paparazzi photos. They’re big enough to cover my eye and the discoloration spreading around it.

  “Try not to get kicked in the eye this time,” Grammy calls on my way out the door. I laugh loudly.

  “Don’t worry!” I answer. “We’re only going to the surf offices. We’ll be back soon.”

  The old beater clunks along, getting us from point A to point B in about fifteen minutes. A little
bell rings as we open the glass door to the office. The white walls are covered in posters of great surfers like Kelly Slater and Laird Hamilton. A short girl’s blonde ponytail evilly flips around as her head turns towards us from behind the front desk. “Mr. Maverick,” Sally Emerson greets in her high-pitched voice, smiling. She looks to me with her smile becoming sweeter than a spoonful of sugar. “Annie! You’re back!”

  “Hi Sally.” I reply through gritted teeth, grimacing as I take my glasses off. Her mouth drops open slightly, quirked up at the corners.

  “What happened to you?” she asks in awe. I really need to look in the mirror. You’d think this would’ve occurred to me before we left the house.

  “Sawyer Hensley,” I reply.

  “Really?” she asks, intrigued, knitting her eyebrows together. “What’d he do?”

  “Dropped in on my wave and kicked me in the face,” I elaborate.

  “It was accidental,” McKayla assures her.

  “Sally, can you get us the signups for Junior Champs, Pipeline and regionals?” Papaw interjects before this can get any uglier.

  “Of course,” she replies. She shoots me a look. It appears sweetly curious, but it’s the kind of sweet that you cannot get without a dash of devilishness. “Back in the game, Annie?”

  “If no one kills me before I can get on my board,” I joke. She laughs exaggeratedly and hands me the papers, which I begin to fill out.

  Sally organizes papers as Papaw reads the regionals pamphlet and I work through the forms, consulting Papaw on what events to go for. McKayla picks up a magazine and begins to read. Finally, I finish and give them back to Sally, who stows them in a folder. “You’re good to go,” she replies. “See you there.” Great. First competition in a week. Let’s hope the skateboarding and snowboarding in New York pays off. Bonus if I can kick Sally Emerson’s butt (which I totally can).

  Sally thinks she’s the best surfer girl on Oahu, but she’s delusional. She’s good, but she’s never been the best. No matter how popular she is at the mall or in school, that’s no advantage out in the ocean. She and I have been pitted against each other since my first competition when I was 5. I won, of course. She came in second, and has hated me ever since. McKayla’s gotten better since then, so she’s not particularly fond of her either, but she hates my guts. She doesn’t like anyone who can one-up her, and I have every time I’ve been here to compete.