We Thought We Were Invincible

by Michelle MacQueen

  We hadn't had any good surf days for over a week now and it felt good to be back. As my hands scooped water, arms burning, my mind cleared, the confusion of earlier taking a back seat to pulsing adrenaline.

  Extending my arms, I dug my board through a large wave as it crashed around me. Coming out of it, I saw Jamie glance back, his blond hair dripping. He grinned, making me lose focus for just a second, long enough for a wave to flip me over. I clung to the smooth wood, squeezing my legs around the edges, and righted myself.

  Jamie was laughing.

  “Bastard,” I mumbled, unable to hide the sheepish smile on my lips.

  “Need a little help?” he asked, feigning worry.

  I kept moving, trying to catch up. We made it out past the breakers, far from the sandbar.

  He was sitting with his legs dangling in the water when I reached him.

  “Not a word,” I said.

  “Then you wouldn't want me to ask if you want the first wave?”

  “So, you ask now?” I laughed. The last time we'd both been out here, he'd cut in on my wave, making me fall. I hated falling.

  His only response was a shrug. This was new territory for us. For years, we'd rotated around the same circles. Okay, he'd been the center of the circle and I'd been on the outside. But still, we'd been around each other when we were with Colby or Jay. That was only the second time we'd hung out together on purpose in years.

  It was the first time we'd surfed together.

  I pretended to scan the waves, not really seeing them. My mouth grew dry, the salt on my lips not helping any. I didn't know how to do this. Be friends. With Jay, it was always easy. Nothing with Jamie was that simple.

  “You gonna go?” Jamie asked, meeting my eyes.

  “Huh?”

  He gestured to an oncoming wave that looked so perfect I was shocked he hadn't taken it. I kicked myself around and paddled.

  It was going to break early, I could tell, so I pushed myself up and planted my feet, letting the water carry me forward. This was what I knew. Not boys or friendships or anything they taught in school. For a few moments, it was all I needed in this world.

  It broke over me, the wave barreling for a very short time before collapsing. I jumped off my board before it did and turned just in time to see Jamie, his tanned chest shining in the sun as he spread his arms wide. The wind picked his hair up from his neck and blew it out behind him.

  He looked strong, his leg muscles toned from soccer and flexing as he turned his board. His black swim trunks hung low on his hips. I'd thought he was crazy for not wearing a wetsuit or at least a rash guard, but suddenly I was glad.

  He fell into his wave as it folded in on itself, his head popping up above the water moments later. I was still holding onto my board with my legs treading water so I swung back up on top and headed back out deep.

  We each caught a few more waves. My muscles ached, but I didn't want to stop. Each set grew larger than the last and I knew that as soon as school let out, there'd be many more people out here.

  “We should probably head in soon.” Jamie stretched his arms above his head, causing his muscles to contract.

  “What?” I snapped my head around to look at him. “Why?”

  “Don't you see what's happening here?” He gestured out to sea. “Most everyone else has already gone in. The waves are getting out of control.”

  I looked around, noticing for the first time that most of the other surfers were gone or in on the beach. Only two others continued to surf.

  Wanting to stay out here as long as possible, I turned around and started swinging my arms through the water. As the wave rolled, I struggled to stay up, my legs wanting to give out beneath me. But I did it. Bailing out of the wave before it took me in close, I paddled back out to where Jamie still sat.

  He'd been observing me, his eyes worried.

  “Callie girl, come on,” he said.

  “Don't call me that.” For some reason, I no longer wanted him using Jay's nickname for me. I just couldn't stand it.

  Turning abruptly, I started out, my arms and legs still throbbing and weak from the last wave. This one came in at an angle and I didn't stop. I couldn't even though I knew I should. I knew it as soon as I pushed myself up. My legs shook beneath me as I dropped into the craziest one I'd surfed all day. In seconds, I was caught in the lip of the wave and then flying forward toward the flat water below.

  The water muffled my scream as it swallowed me whole. There were very few times I could remember being scared in the ocean. To me, it'd always been something to love, not something to fear.

  But as I flipped end over end, struggling to break the surface, a terror gripped my chest. I kicked as hard as my tired legs would let me, trapped and clawing to get out.

  I broke through long enough to suck in a breath of air before being pulled back under. As I fought, I lost track of which way was up.

  The light, my foggy brain nudged me. That's up.

  My board leash snapped and suddenly all I could think was that the board itself was probably broken.

  I pulled my head above water again, gasping and sucking in both air and water. Then I was choking and losing sight of the sky as the water closed in around me once again.

  A sharp pain shot up my leg, shocking my system, as it crashed against a rock that was hidden at the bottom. My mouth filled with water as I instinctively cried out.

  I barely registered the hands on my arms as I was pulled free of the water, my head lolling to one side. Then I was being lifted, limp in someone's arms.

  Someone said something to me, but I couldn't make out the words, and then my back hit the sand. I flopped onto my side, my throat burning as I choked out the salty water. I heaved until there was no more. Sucking in quick breaths, I turned to the woman crouching next to me.

  “You're okay,” she said, trying to reassure me. “My name is Freya. I'm a nurse.”

  She too was in a wetsuit, with her red hair tied on top of her head.

  The sound of someone crashing through the shallow water made me turn my head. Freya stepped back as Jamie came into view.

  “You really should go get that cut taken care of.” She gestured to my leg, then looked at Jamie as if trying to decide if he'd take me.

  Jamie dropped knees first into the sand by my head.

  “I'm just over there if you need me,” Freya said, pointing toward the other end of the beach before heading that way.

  “Are you okay?” Jamie ran his hands over me, checking for injury and finding the gash on my leg. “We should get this taken care of. I'll take you to the hospital. We need to call Kat and Colby, probably Morgan too. It's going to be fine. You're fine.” He pressed a hand to his forehead. “You're fine.”

  His words broke me, the terror of the last few minutes becoming real.

  “Jamie.” I started to cry. My leg throbbed. My lungs burned. I was shaken.

  He wiped at the tears off my face, and I gripped his leg to tell him not to leave me. It was irrational because I knew he wouldn't, but the thought still gripped me. I couldn't stand to be alone after that.

  I pushed myself up on my elbows and he pulled me to him.

  “It's okay,” he whispered in my ear. “You're fine.” It was the third time he'd said it, and I got the impression he was reassuring himself just as much as me.

  More tears fell my chest shook.

  Jamie kissed my forehead, his lips soft on my skin, then moved down to my cheek as if he could kiss away the tears. He lingered there, his breath warm, before pressing them to the corner of my mouth. His hands brought me closer to him, pressing me up against his chest, as I turned to kiss him back.

  He hesitated. I slid my arms up around his neck and wound my fingers into his hair and that broke any last restraint he had. His next kiss was hard.

  “I was so scared,” he whispered against my lips.

  I kissed him, drawing my teeth against his bottom lip.

  He broke away for a moment, hi
s hands now digging into my hips. “I…”

  “Jamie.” I put a hand over his mouth. “You're ruining it.”

  I felt his smile, and he kissed my fingers until I replaced them with my mouth.

  I couldn't seem to care that we weren't alone on the beach. All I cared about was the fact that I may have almost died and now it was time to grab on to the nearest life-raft, consequences be damned.

  My breath shook as we shifted and broke apart. A stab of pain wound up my leg, and I flinched. Jamie saw it, his eyes going wide.

  “Shit, we need to get you to the hospital.” He stood, bending down to lift me, his eyes refusing to meet mine.

  My mind spun out of control as I touched my tingling lips, the feeling mixing with the pain in my leg to create a cloud of confusion.

  What had just happened?

  Kat rushed into the room as I was helped off the table.

  “Callie, are you okay?” she asked, pulling me into a hug. “Jamie said you'd had a pretty bad spill off your board.”

  “Not going to yell at me for skipping school?” My joke fell flat.

  She pulled me into her arms.

  “Just a few stitches,” I reassured her.

  “Jamie said it was serious. You had to have help from some nurse at the beach?”

  “Is Jamie still here?” I looked past her. He hadn't come into the exam room with me.

  “No,” she said, holding my face between her hands to look at me. “He had to go take care of something.”

  I did my best to keep my face blank, but was sure the disappointed showed, hoping Aunt Kat would chalk it up to exhaustion. That was exactly what she did.

  The doctor who'd stitched me up told me to avoid putting too much strain on the leg for a few days, but I was good to go.

  With Aunt Kat's help, I made it to her car.

  At home, I found the two halves of my board leaning up against the front door. Inside my room, I laid them on my desk and collapsed on my bed. That board was my mom's. When I was on it, I always felt closer to her, like she'd make sure nothing happened to me out there. Well, it had.

  Tears came to my eyes. Wiping them away, I turned onto my side away from the board. That wasn't supposed to happen. The waves had always healed me. Never hurt me. Until now.

  17

  Jamie

  “I don't understand,” Amelia said, her voice growing thick.

  Please don't cry.

  Please don't cry.

  “I just can't do this anymore,” I said. “It isn't fair to you.”

  “What isn't fair to me? Is there someone else?”

  Was there?

  “No,” I said. “That's not what I meant.” An image of Callie on the beach broke into my thoughts, her body soft beneath mine. Then that image changed to her getting thrashed about in the waves and me too far away to help. I stumbled back.

  Amelia didn't notice. “But you slept with me like last week.”

  “I know.”

  I was always one to skip through relationships, but now actually felt bad about it.

  “Look, Amelia.” I put my hands on her shoulders. She looked up at me, her lip quivering but an anger stirring in her eyes. “I'm sorry. I'm not the guy for you.”

  “You're right about that,” she snapped. “You never were good enough.”

  Her words hit a little too close to home, and I released her, turning away. “I have to go.”

  “Ass,” she yelled to my back.

  I sat in my car, my hands shaking. I could've lost her, Callie. Resting my head back against the headrest, I squeezed my eyes shut. She wasn't mine. She was Colby's. She was Jay's. And they'd never allow me to go there.

  Knowing she'd be home by now, I headed there. It was time we had a talk.

  I paused with my hand raised to knock on the door, glancing to each side to make sure Colby and Kat were both in their rooms. I didn't know what I was doing. This wasn't okay, but I'd seen her almost drown today and that wasn't an image I could shake. I needed to see her, touch her, to reassure myself she was okay.

  My knuckles rapped against the door, and I held my breath as I waited.

  “Sleeping,” came her voice on the other side of the door.

  I leaned my forehead against the solid wood. “Callie.”

  I opened the door, and she sat up on her bed, combing her fingers through her hair. I stood there, silently watching her. I'd replaced my swim trunks with jeans and a bright yellow polo. Callie had opted for a pair of sweats and ratty old t-shirt. We were so different, the two of us, but I liked that about her. She didn't try too hard.

  “We need to talk,” I said quietly. Hurt entered her expression, and I wanted to kick myself for putting it there. She knew what I was going to say.

  “Just go,” she begged. “Please.” Her eyes shifted away from me and my stomach twisted. Tears shone in her eyes and I followed her gaze to where it now rested on her broken board. This couldn't be going any worse.

  “We can't do this, Cal.” I leaned against the door frame and hung my head. I wished I could tell her these words hurt me as much as they did her.

  “I know.” she sniffed. A steely resolve entered her eyes as she tried to shove her weakness away. I wanted to tell her I didn't think it was weakness at all. She was the strongest person I knew. “You're with Amelia.”

  Those words startled me. How could she ever think I'd choose Amelia over her? Now, this was about more than my ex. I looked up at her. “I broke up with her. That's why I left you at the hospital.”

  She looked up, urging me to continue.

  I did. “She's a nice girl. It wasn't fair to stay with her when I had feelings for someone else.”

  She reached out as if to touch me, but I was too far away. Pushing herself up from her bed, the pain showed on her face as she put weight on her leg.

  She wobbled, and I lurched forward to catch her around the waist and ease her back onto the bed. When she was lying back down, I released her.

  I jumped away from her bed and paced.

  “I don't understand,” she finally said.

  I said nothing for a long moment before turning toward her and bursting out. “You're Jay's!”

  “Excuse me?”

  “He's my brother, and it's always been you two. Everyone assumed it always would be. I can't do that to him.”

  She pushed up again, her sudden anger keeping her going. “I don't belong to anyone. Jay has a girlfriend.”

  “But we all know he's just waiting for you.”

  “No, he's not. God, all you people don't know what you're talking about. I make my own decisions. Jay doesn't have any hold over me, and I don't have any over him. We're friends. Get that through your thick skull. You drive me insane.”

  “What about Colby? He'd be so pissed.”

  “What does he have to be pissed about? Right now, I'm more likely to kill you than kiss you again.”

  “But he's your brother and my best friend.” I scratched my jaw, looking back toward the door, not wanting to tell her Colby had forbidden me from seeing her.

  “You're talking and all I hear is blah blah blah.”

  I stopped pacing at the side of her bed, right in front of her, smiling at her words.

  “Blah blah blah, huh?”

  With confidence, she reached out and took my hand, intertwining her fingers with mine.

  She tugged and I couldn't make myself stop her this time. Bunching her other hand up in my shirt, she used it to pull me down onto the bed.

  “Maybe we shouldn't tell Colby,” she said.

  I winced at that, but all resistance had left me, and my voice came out strangled. “Definitely not.”

  My lips seared the promise into her.

  I'd figured out what I was a long time ago - an escapist. Surfing, skydiving - they gave me everything I needed. But Callie, she was the ultimate escape.

  18

  Callie

  Mom smiled at me, sitting up straight on her board as the waves raced tow
ard the shore in front of us. She was beautiful, perfect. My entire life, everyone told me I was just like her. Not the beautiful part, but the personality.

  I watched as she threw her head back, laughing at something the man on her left said. That smile she wore was just for him. He was faceless, but a warmth radiated out from him.

  That board she rode, I recognized it and a twisting in my gut began.

  She raised her face to the sun, basking in its glow on her skin. She was happy.

  Then she looked at me, a look filled with love and regret.

  “Callie,” she said.

  I jolted awake, tears stinging my eyes. I didn't let them fall. When my gaze landing on the broken board, it hardened. I couldn't think about that.

  But what about the faceless man? It wasn't the first time I'd dreamed about him. By now, I knew who he was supposed to be. My father. The man I'd never met. Mom told me a long time ago that he left her and us, but I couldn't shake the look of bliss on her face from my dreams. Had she loved him?

  I closed my eyes, trying to shake those images out of my head. I was putting way too much stock in a dream, but I couldn't stop myself from wanting to put a face on that man. Was I crazy? Didn't everyone want to know their father? No, not father. Sperm donor. That was a better term for someone who'd left.

  Aunt Kat always said she didn't know much, but I wondered how true that was.

  I looked up as my door opened. Jamie's tentative smile took me out of my own thoughts.

  “Hi.” My voice was more breathless than I'd have liked.

  He shut the door and was kneeling by the bed in a matter of seconds. He kissed me, but I pushed him away.

  “Dude, I haven't even brushed my teeth yet.”

  “I don't care.” He held my face between his hands and kissed me again.

  “Ew.” I laughed, rolling away from him and standing on my good leg.

  He ran to the other side of the bed and wrapped his arms around my waist. “Must be nice to be a slacker.”