Beyond the Break

by Heather Buchta

  I try it everywhere. In the water, on dry land. Surfing, night swimming. Kissing in the water is salty but more serious. We can tread water, one hand on both of our boards and the other on each other, gripping the sides of our neoprene suits. Kissing while balancing on our skateboards is tricky, but I’ve perfected the “lean and peck” without smacking my nose against his cheekbone.

  How’s it already January? I think falling for someone is a time warp where you want every moment to last for eternity but instead it keeps jumping forward and you ask, Where did the last hour go? Or the last day? Week? Month?

  I’m not planning on marrying Jake tomorrow, but sometimes I imagine myself after college marrying a twenty-six-year-old version of him, and that makes me feel okay about kissing him. I realize the slippery slope I can go down when it comes to that—how I could say that about sex, too—except I’m pretty sure the Bible’s clear on that matter.

  My brother is still in town. I wish he would go back already, but school doesn’t start for him until mid-January. One-and-a-half more weeks to endure the looks and silence. We all tiptoe around our house, eggshells and tripwires everywhere.

  I hate every moment because my brother’s right. He did the right thing by telling our parents, regardless of how it turned out. And so should I. I feel it grate at my soul every time Mom closes herself in her room early for the night. My brother faced that head-on, and I’m terrified of it. Afraid of making Mom get stress headaches. Afraid of Dad’s military rigidity. I’m letting fear guide me instead of God. I think back to the verse in the prayer room in church: “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God. Romans 8:28.” Do I believe that? What if God does allow my parents to cut me off from surfing? Do I love God enough to let him work that to my good somehow?

  I should tell my parents I want to compete in the All Wave Junior Open. I should tell them how badly I want to surf again without feeling guilty and criminal. But I don’t. Because the truth is, I love it too much to let it go. I’m willing to disobey God for the ocean.

  At youth group tonight, Kelly’s sick and Jake can’t make it for some reason, so I’m in the front row all by myself, which makes me feel like Brett’s talking directly to me during his sermon. He holds his open Bible with one hand. His other hand is in his pocket, casual, as if he’s telling us about the weather. “Not many people from the Bible had hundred dollar bills falling from the sky just because they obeyed God. God wasn’t poppin’ bottles and makin’ it rain whenever they did what he asked.” A few of us chuckle at Brett’s lame slang, others shift in their chairs. “Remember Joseph? Joseph did the right thing, and look what happened to him! His boss’s wife was like, ‘Hey, Joey-joe, you’re a hottie with a body, get in my bed and let’s do a little somethin’-somethin’,’ and he was like, ‘Heck no!’ But the boss’s wife didn’t get that no meant no, and when she grabbed Joseph, he wriggled out of his jacket and headed for the nearest fire exit, but meanwhile she screamed. When her attendants came running, she said that the owner of the jacket attacked her in bed and tried to make babies. And did God clear Joseph’s name? Nope. Joseph went to jail for twenty years!”

  I already know where this sermon’s going: trusting in God when things don’t make sense. Obeying him regardless of outcome. AKA telling my parents and surrendering my board.

  I zone out and imagine Joseph in jail. Twenty years is a long time. It’s three years longer than I’ve been alive. I wonder if every year Joseph thought, “This is the year that God’s gonna get me out.” I wonder if he stopped thinking that after a while. Did he ever have a wave-crashing thought that maybe God had forgotten?

  I know this story. Sometime in that twenty years, the pharaoh’s cupbearer and baker were arrested and put into jail with Joseph. They both had dreams, and God told Joseph what the dreams meant. Joseph must’ve thought, Finally! I mean, if God started speaking to me like that, wouldn’t I think He was up to something? Surely He’d get me out of jail. So Joseph told the cupbearer, “Hey, when you get out of here, tell the pharaoh about the cool dream thing I did.” When the cupbearer was released like Joseph predicted, I bet Joseph thought, “Any day now. Any day . . .” But the cupbearer forgot to say anything! In the Bible, we fast forward through all that. But sometimes I wonder what Joseph thought about during the 365 days a year for twenty years. I get out my phone and do a quick calculation. Did he wonder on just one of those 7,300 days if God was still in control?

  I get it, I tell God during closing prayer. But not yet. I’ll tell them after the competition. Maybe if I have an award to show them, they can see that I’m good at this, that I’m not going to get injured the way my brother did, that they can rest easy knowing that I’ll be going to championships, not hospitals.

  When I get home, I change into my pajamas and crawl into bed, but first I wrap a piece of surf wax in cellophane and hide it under my pillow. I shake the snow globe and set it on my Bible, watching the sand float and flutter in chaos before it settles and clears.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  “You know what today is?”

  Jake has stumped me. January 16 isn’t our anniversary. It isn’t anyone’s birthday. I look at all the eyes directed at me around the table. Our lunch crew is at Two Guns Espresso in Manhattan Beach, a locals’ hangout, and the only coffee shop in the South Bay that boasts its lack of Internet. Their hope is that people come here to talk, connect, not disengage. Aside from the few two-person tables bumper-boating the line of people that goes out the door, there’s an extra room, narrow but wide enough to house one long rectangular table, where we sit with our lattes, schoolbooks, and about eight other patrons. No one minds. It’s bright and comfy, and there’s no stranger danger in Manhattan Beach, not with so many Uggs and yoga pants.

  We were meeting here after school. I wasn’t told why, and now it looks like everyone expects me to know. January 16? I hope I’m not forgetting something important. Lydia pulls out a pink cardboard box and opens it. Inside are six Beckers cookies in the shape of surfboards.

  “Hmm,” I say, sliding my backpack off. Jake’s usual black coffee steams in the cold afternoon, already half empty. They’ve been here a while. They all drove, but I skateboarded. Wanted an extra workout. He hands me my favorite, a milkadamia, which is a latte with macadamia-nut milk. I sip the delicious foam. “Is it that holiday where we eat lots of Beckers cookies and binge Netflix or watch North Shore on repeat?”

  “Netflix and chill?” Niles says. “That should be a national holiday.”

  “If that’s today, we’re for sure honoring it,” Kaj says, putting his arm around Lydia.

  Kelly rolls her eyes.

  “I swear, your mind’s so comfortable in the gutter,” Lydia says but then kisses him. “And who says you’re getting Netflix and chill today?”

  “It’s one month till you compete,” Kelly interrupts. “The surf competition.”

  “Even Kelly remembers,” Jake says.

  Lydia beams at me. “We all remembered. It’s your debut! Your chance to bury Cecilia’s boyfriend in the wake of your turns.”

  Trevor Walker. I think about what he said on the water. I’ve often wondered if I should tell Cecilia what I heard. How would you handle that one, Jesus? Back when I wore the WWJD bracelet in seventh grade, it was all about smiling at strangers and offering doughnuts to the homeless. That’s what Jesus would do. I never imagined I’d be asking God what my responsibility was in telling my enemy that her boyfriend cheats on her.

  “We should get some practice runs in,” Jake says.

  Lydia claps. “Yes! We could bring posters and rate you perfect tens!”

  Kaj laughs. “I don’t think that’s how it’s scored, baby.”

  “A perfect score would be a twenty,” I explain. “Never happens, especially if you’re up early. A judge won’t throw a ten in the first heat.” I recall my early competitions and watching my brother in
his. There were three judges and a fourth as a “spotter.”

  “How much time do they give you?” Niles asks.

  “Fifteen minutes, if I remember.”

  Jake nods. “It’ll seem shorter when you’re out there.”

  “So you pop up as much as you can against the others in your heat—say there’s four of you—and the judges give you scores for each wave you ride.” I take a drink, nibble on the edge of my cookie. “Each judge takes their top two scores for each surfer and, based on that, ranks how you placed in your heat: one, two, three, or four. Then those rankings are added to the other judges’ rankings for you, and the lowest-numbered surfer or sometimes the lowest two numbers move on to the semis or finals.”

  Lydia eats her cookie, shakes her head. “Sounds like my way of scoring’s much easier.”

  Kaj kisses the top of her head. “You’re pretty.”

  She slaps his shoulder. “Don’t you dare.”

  “What? What’d I say?”

  She’s all levels of irritated by his condescending remark. She stands. “Excuse me.” She throws her backpack over her shoulder, grabs her half cookie, and whips her hair behind her, marching off without a backward glance.

  “So Netflix and chill later?” he calls after her.

  She responds with a middle finger above the back of her head.

  Niles howls with laughter, and Kaj turns back to his iced latte as if she blew him a kiss goodbye.

  “We can Netflix and chill later,” I say, gently kicking Jake under the table, and he chokes on his coffee. He wipes the dribble off of his chin.

  Kelly’s eyes bug out like a cartoon, and Niles and Kaj cackle. Avoiding eye contact with me, she exits through the doors to the parking lot, maybe to find Lydia.

  I look at Niles, Kaj, and Jake across from me, all grinning.

  “Oh my gosh. So Netflix and chill means . . .”

  “Sex,” all three say in unison.

  I slap my hand to my forehead, feeling like a moron for not putting it together. I should’ve known that. I mean, it’s not like I haven’t heard it. But in junior high, it was code for kissing. When did everyone get the memo that the definition changed? “How was I supposed to know . . .” My cheeks are beet red, I can tell by the heat in them, but when I look up and see the boys giggling, I can’t help but laugh with them.

  * * *

  The girls come back in, and Kelly still won’t look at me. I’ll have to explain later. Right now, everyone else is asking me about whether I’m nervous and what tricks I’m going to do, and I’m answering but also remembering Kaj’s comment about honoring Netflix-and-Chill Day. Lydia telling Kaj his mind was in the gutter but also not denying anything.

  When we finally leave, before I ride to my work shift, I text Lydia.

  Hey

  Whats up

  I pause, stare at my screen. So

  Yes?

  Do you Netflix and chill for real?

  Lol

  She didn’t write “no.” She wrote “Lol.” My head’s dizzy. I knew they made out. But I guess I figured if they’d had sex, Lydia would’ve told me. I mean, I told her when Jake and I kissed. That night I sent her a text and she sent an emoji of hands clapping and wrote back, “It’s about time.” It makes me sad that maybe she didn’t tell me about the sex because she knows what I believe about it. How many of my friends are going through changes and not telling me? Are they assuming I’ll judge them for it? I mean, why else would she keep it from me? And is everyone having sex?

  I text her: But you’re Catholic

  And?

  I don’t know what to say to that. I just assumed she wouldn’t ever. I see Lydia’s text bubbles. She’s typing a lot.

  Sometimes things aren’t as big of a deal as you make them. You’ll see soon enough ;)

  Whoa! Soon enough? I text in all caps: WHEN I’M MARRIED!

  She writes back: Lol. Ok

  Why does everyone seem to think it’s not a big deal? Well, everyone except Kelly, who thinks I’m the worst of all sinners for dating a non-virgin.

  Jake slept with Hannah. My brother’s sleeping with his girlfriend. Lydia’s sleeping with Kaj. Am I just some old-fashioned backward-thinking girl who’s been drinking the Kool-Aid? I’ve known I was extreme by not kissing before marriage, but I didn’t think I was the only one waiting for sex.

  I think of the purity contract I signed in seventh grade. It made sense then. I remember when Tim Rainsforth accidentally touched my breast in ninth grade at the lock-in. Even then, I knew it wasn’t something anyone my age should be doing. When did everyone decide it was okay to do all the things?

  I need to clear my head. I slap my skateboard down to the ground, sling my backpack on, and head to Manhattan Beach Boulevard. I ride down the hill, fishtail skidding to brake, weaving in and out of the winter tourists. At the pier, I kick off my shoes and walk toward the water. The sand is cool, but the sun warms my neck. I stop at the edge of the dry sand, where the tide ends and the dark, wet sand begins. I set my board on my backpack to keep the sand off, and I lie down, close my eyes on the far too cheerful sun, and let it soak into me.

  For the past five years, my answers have been found in Bible verses. But the questions were easier. Pastor Brett gave me my first Bible verse to memorize after I had told him I believed in Jesus. It was a Sunday morning a few months after Hume Lake, and he walked me out to the parking lot after service. I had so many doubts—I mean, who doesn’t at eleven?—but he assured me God had accepted me. “But what if He changes His mind?” I asked Brett.

  “He doesn’t. ‘I the Lord do not change.’”

  “But what if I don’t do enough good for Him?”

  He laughed. “You can’t. We don’t do things in order to be loved by Him. We do them because we’re loved by Him.”

  “But what if I do bad stuff in the future?”

  “You will,” he said.

  “But what if He stops loving me?”

  He squinted up at the glaring sun above us, the same sun I feel warming me right now as I lie on the beach. “Imagine the sun as God’s love for you. You can hold an umbrella up to it and block out the sun, right?”

  I nodded.

  “So, technically, you can stop receiving it. But He never stops shining it. You gotta decide what your posture’s gonna be toward Him. That will decide what your life’s gonna look like.”

  He handed me a Bible verse and told me to memorize it and say it to myself whenever I started to doubt: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. Ephesians 2:8–9.”

  That’s when I started memorizing every verse I could. “How can a young person stay on the path of purity? By living according to your word. Psalm 119:9.” Purity meant staying close to God. It was so simple. It worked.

  I never could’ve imagined what I’d be wondering about on January 16, almost five years later. How purity started meaning other things. How questions got broader. More layered. This was so much easier when it was just me and You, I tell God. Back when all I had to do was understand that You died for me, that I couldn’t make it up to You, and how You didn’t want me to. How You just wanted me to choose You. But choosing You was so easy back then. There wasn’t all this other stuff.

  Wait. I think back to Pastor Brett when I wondered if God would change His feelings for me, and he quoted scripture: “I the Lord do not change.” I sit up, resolved. I need to figure this out. If the Bible always held my answers, then maybe it still does. I need to look. The ocean splashes my toes, and they curl back on instinct. The tide’s shifting, coming higher, inch by inch, unnoticeable, but soon I’ll be soaked. I stand up and lift my things just in time. A wave pushes the water to my ankles, not as cold as the first time it splashed me. I insert my AirPods and lose
myself in worship songs, walking north toward my work.

  Your promise still stands.

  Great is Your faithfulness, faithfulness.

  I’m still in Your hands.

  This is my confidence, You’ve never failed me yet.

  It fills me like the first breath of air after being tumbled and held under by a wave. I walk along the shore all the way to Thirty-sixth, where I have to head up two streets to my work. The water’s so comfortable as it splashes against my calves, and it calls me to leave my backpack and skateboard and dive all the way under. Just a quick dip, harmless. But I don’t think Billy’s Buns would appreciate a drenched employee dripping seawater onto their ciabatta loaves. I’ve got a job, I sigh, remembering, and I trudge away from the beckoning water and make my way to the world of hairnets and salami slices.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Jake uses the thumb of his opposite hand to wipe the salt water off the face of his watch as a rolling wave raises and then dips his board. “Eight more minutes.”

  “Got it. You said ‘nine more minutes’ a minute ago.”

  We’re between sets, so I tip off my board and go under, letting my hair slick back mermaid style.

  When I climb back onto my board and paddle closer to him, I continue what I’ve been telling him since we entered the water. How I’ve been looking up every verse God has to say about sex outside of marriage.

  “So it’s pretty clear when it says, ‘Avoid sexual immorality.’ But I was like, What is that, ya know?” I sit up on my board, twirl my legs in the water, turning my surfboard back and forth. “Like why doesn’t it just say, ‘Don’t have sex if you’re not married?’ Why’s it all fuzzy about details? So I looked up the Greek, and it’s this word porneia.”