The bus stop isn’t crowded. In fact, it’s completely empty. It’s not even really a bus stop at all so much as a beat-up, weather-stripped bench on the side of the road. But this is where the kid at the motel told me to go. He said the bus’s schedule can be erratic, but it’s sure to be here sometime today. All I have to do is wait.
I drop my bag and practically fall onto the bench. It’s not even seven in the morning; at home, Fiona and my parents are just beginning their days. Strange because this already feels like the longest day of my life, and I still have such a long way to go.
I zip up my sweatshirt and pull the hood over my head. It’s a Stanford sweatshirt that I bought last year when I was visiting the campus, before I knew whether I’d be accepted. I kept it in the back of my closet and didn’t take it out until the day my acceptance letter came. The sun is still hidden behind the clouds, and the air is misty with the promise of rain. Even though I’m a little farther from the water now, the wind is still blowing hard and fast. The Coast Guard was right to shut down the beach, I decide; there’s no way anyone should be out on the water on a day like today.
I press my fingers into the wood of the bench. It’s riddled with carvings: initials with hearts around them, rough, messy surfboards. Someone took the time to carve an elaborate wave onto the widest plank. I close my eyes and run my fingers along the peaks and valleys of the wave, imagining that I’m on a board, flying over it, my hair streaming behind me, my stance steadier than it’s ever been in real life, my heart racing as the wave begins to curl over my head.
“Ow!” I shout, bringing my finger to my mouth. I open my eyes and see that my fingertip is bleeding; I must have hit a splinter in the wood. I lean down, studying the bench, as though it will make a difference if I can figure out just which piece of wood cut me.
And that’s when I see it, carved messily onto the seat beside me: JD and MD, like they were sitting right next to me.
I stand up suddenly, my pulse quickening. They sat in this very spot where I’m sitting, waiting for the same bus I’m waiting for, breathing the very air I’m breathing.
A clue. This whole summer, everything that I thought was a dead end—Kensington, the Jolly Roger, this bench—they’ve all been a series of clues. And every one has brought me one step closer.
Maybe Jas is right; we just need to keep watching the weather, following the waves, collecting these clues. I was right from the start: my brothers have sent me on some elaborate scavenger hunt, a game of hide-and-seek, just like we used to play when we were little. Well, then, ready or not, here I come.
Now my duffel bag feels light as a feather when I leave the bench behind and begin sprinting back the way I came.
Jas’s truck is still in the parking lot; he hasn’t left yet. I bang on the door to our motel room so hard that later my knuckles will be sore and bruised. I don’t care. I’m like Jas: it would take a lot more than a few bumps and bruises to keep me out of the water now.
He opens the door and I leap into his arms like a character out of some romantic movie. I press my face into his neck and let him lift me off the ground, duffel bag and all. It feels like he’s strong enough to carry me for miles.
I pull back just enough to kiss him, and when he kisses me back I think I’ve never tasted anything so delicious.
“Yes,” I say finally, hugging him tight.
“Yes?” Jas echoes. It sounds like he can’t believe that I’m really here, right now, in his arms, let alone that I’m really coming with him.
I kiss him again and then I say, “Yes.” I don’t think I’ve ever packed so much meaning into a single syllable: Yes, I’ll come with you. Yes, I’ll watch you ride every wave the ocean has to offer. Yes, you can hold my hand and open car doors and lead the way. Yes, together we can find my brothers.
Yes, I want to be with you, too.
32
I’m not sure exactly when I fall asleep, but before I know it, Jas is shaking me awake for the second time today.
“Wake up, Darling,” he says. I like the way my name sounds in his deep voice. “I’m surfing Witch Tree today.”
“What?” I ask groggily. “Did the Coast Guard open the harbor?”
Jas shakes his head. “I found a captain who’ll take me out.”
I smile as I rub the sleep from my eyes. “I thought you were done living outside the law.”
“These are once-in-a-lifetime waves, Wendy. I’m not about to miss them.”
Unsurprised, I nod. “What about a tow partner?” I ask, remembering the Jet Ski waiting in the back of Jas’s truck.
Jas groans. “I know,” he says. “I thought for sure I’d be able to find some stragglers hanging out around the harbor, but everyone left.”
I shake my head, remembering what Pete said a few hours ago.
“Not everyone,” I say.
It’s early afternoon by the time we’re on the tiny boat, heading out to sea. Jas asked if I wanted to stay on shore, but I said no way.
“I’m not going to tell you not to come,” he said, “but I want you to know that it’s dangerous.”
“When I said yes, I meant it,” I countered. “I’m coming with you. I’m through standing on the sidelines.”
Jas nodded, grinning. “Yes, you are,” he agreed.
Once Belle saw that I was going, she insisted on coming, too. She even brought her board along for the ride, though Pete made her promise she’d stay in the boat if conditions looked too rough once we got out there. She agreed, but I could tell by the glint in her eye—the same as the glint in Pete’s eye when he accepted Jas’s offer to be his tow partner for the day—there was no way she was missing this wave either.
Jas rides the Jet Ski across the boat’s wake; visibility is so bad that every few minutes he disappears into the fog entirely even though he can’t be more than a few yards away. The boat rushes over the chop; we bounce so hard that my teeth chatter. I’m freezing in my sweatshirt and jeans, soaked through. Belle, Pete, and Jas are all wearing wetsuits and neoprene floatation vests. Back on dry land, it may be the middle of the summer, but out here, it’s as cold as December.
It’s like the storm that’s bringing these waves is a winter storm that just lost its way.
Jas shouts at us from the Jet Ski; he’s nearly flipped over, and the captain has to slow the boat as Jas struggles to right himself. Our small boat is tossed from side to side as we wait. When I first saw it, bouncing in the chop by the harbor, it didn’t look like much more than a rowboat with an engine attached to its hull. Once we were on board, I saw that it was, in fact, a fishing boat. It reeks of dead fish and is covered in seagull droppings. There’s a small space belowdecks where the captain must live. It’s no wonder that he was willing to take Jas’s bribe; with the harbor closed to fishermen, Jas was his only chance at making any money today.
He gives us the thumbs-up, and the captain takes off again. I can’t help wondering just what in the world is worth all this trouble. With the conditions as bad as they are, it takes us almost two hours just to get to the wave. We’re already risking our lives, and no one’s even tried to surf yet.
Suddenly, the captain cuts the motor—not that the boat keeps still. We’re still rocking back and forth, drifting out to sea. Jas pulls up alongside and offers Pete the first ride.
“We’re there?” I ask. How can they even tell that we’re in the right place?
Pete grins as he jumps into the water beside the boat. Jas tosses him the towrope, Pete slides his feet into his foot straps, and they take off.