Page 28 of All the Ways You Save Me
“Maybe you’re right,” I say to appease her. “Maybe I need to move on from Adam for good.”
Josie tilts her head to study me, and I shift the phone so she doesn’t see me wipe away another tear.
“Madeline…” she begins, but I cut her off.
“I’ll think about what you said, I promise.” I sit up and force mylips to curve into a smile. “But right now, I’m starving. I should go find some dinner.”
She hesitates for a moment before finally nodding. “I’ll call you soon.”
The 76thStreet lifeguard stand isn’t far from where I’m staying, so after I hang up my call with Josie, I head down to the beach carrying a book and a beach chair I borrowed from the motel. Just as my feet hit the sand, the lifeguards blow their whistles and hop off their stand, signaling that it’s five o’clock and they’re off duty for the day. Some people on the beach will choose to go back in the water after they leave, but usually at this time, the ocean turns into the surfers’ domain.
I set up my chair in a spot directly between the dunes and the water and gaze out at the Atlantic. I know from my trips to visit my sister that West Coast beaches tend to offer more drama than this, with their rocky cliffs jutting out over the Pacific. Josie took me for a drive along Highway 1 through Big Sur the last time I visited her. But I’ve always loved the rolling dunes covered in beach grasses and the expanse of pale sand meandering gently into the green-blue sea. Especially at this time of day as the sun slants west and the cool breeze blows in from the ocean.
I settle into my chair and close my eyes, relishing the warmth on my face and the soft sand between my toes. At this moment, I can’t quite remember why I vowed to never come back here. Kids scurry by carrying beach toys and kicking up sand, their parents following more slowly, laden down with chairs and umbrellas and coolers. I vividly recall being a kid on this beach, feeling like the hours couldn’t stretch long enough to build all the sandcastles and jump in all the waves I wanted. And then going home at night and collapsing, sun-kissed and exhausted, into bed to do it all again the next day.
Behind me, I hear a deep male voice call to the lifeguards as they haul their stand back toward the dune. By the familiarity of their greeting, whoever the voice belongs to must be well acquainted with the lifeguards, which would likely make him a local. I’m about to turn around in my chair when a shadow crosses over me and moves toward the water. I look up at the now-retreating back of a tall, broad-shouldered man in a black wetsuit with a surfboard under his arm.
My heart stutters and I sit up straighter in my chair. I can’t see his face, but I take in his dark hair waving at the nape of his neck. It’s slightly unruly, so similar to the way I remember Adam’s. He always waited a few weeks too long to go in for a cut. The man’s frame is more solid than Adam’s was, with more muscle, but ten years have gone by. Most people change between their teenage years and adulthood. But the man has the same height that Adam did, and the same broadness in his shoulders.
Could this be the guy I’m looking for?
The man stops about twenty feet in front of me and drops his board in the sand. He props his hands on his narrow hips and looks out to the ocean as a young woman with long brown hair, also in a wetsuit, rides a wave in. When she’s landed gracefully on the shore, he pumps his fist in the air and calls out, “Niiiice.”
I stare at his movements, the curve of his arm, the way his feet shift, waiting to feel something. A certainty. A sense of recognition. Should I stand and approach him? What would I even say?
The man zips up his wetsuit and bends to pick up his board. As he straightens, tucking it under his arm, his face shifts in my direction. When he catches me staring, his lips slowly curve into a grin.
An unfamiliar grin.
My shoulders droop, and I sink back in the chair. There’s nodoubt that his dark hair and certain parts of his build resemble what I remember of Adam’s, and his blue eyes are almost an exact match in color, but this man isn’t him. I force a smile in return, and he gives me a nod and heads into the water. My emotions crash inside me like the waves on the shore. Wasthisthe surfer I saw in the video, and I told myself he was Adam? Was my mind really just playing tricks on me, just like Jason implied?
Unexpected tears prick the back of my eyes. I didn’t realize until this moment how much I was hoping the surfer was really Adam. That somehow, against all odds, he’d survived the crash and made it to Sandy Harbor. But sitting here, hundreds of miles from home, watching this dark-haired, blue-eyed stranger hop on his surfboard and ride it to shore, the realization of just how far-fetched that notion was rushes in like the tide. It was a complete fantasy that Adam could have disappeared without anyone knowing, and even more that he’d ever make it back home to me.
My bag vibrates, and I pull out my phone to find Jason’s name on my screen. I knew we’d talk eventually, we have too many years of history not to. But I assumed it would be after he got back from Mexico and we had a little distance from the fight that ended our relationship.
I answer cautiously. “Jason?”
“Hi, Maddie.” The sound of his familiar tenor calling me by my nickname soothes some of my ragged emotions. “I just wanted to call and let you know I got here okay. And—” He clears his throat. “I guess I wanted to hear your voice.”
My heart tugs as his words echo my own thoughts. In my shock over the video of the surfer and everything that followed, I lost sight of the fact that Jason has been my best friend for the past decade. No matter what happens, he’ll always be important to me. I hate how things ended, and this call gives me hope thatmaybe we can salvage our friendship from this wreckage. “I’m glad you called.”
“Yeah?” His tone brightens. “I’m glad I called, too.”
A seagull flies low overhead, screeching at me in the hopes I’ll throw it some food. A wave crashes on the sand in front of me as the tide slowly moves closer to my chair.
“What is all that background noise?” Jason asks. “You’re at the beach, aren’t you?” His voice deflates. “You’re looking for that guy who looks like Adam.”
“I am at the beach,” I admit. “But I don’t think I’m going to find the guy who looks like Adam. I think you were right about it all being in my imagination.”
“What changed your mind?”
I look out to the water, catching another glimpse of the dark-haired surfer in the waves. “We saw Adam’s car go over the cliff, and we were both up to our necks in that freezing river. I know there’s no way Adam survived it.”
“So, if you’re not searching for the surfer from the video, then what are you doing at the beach?”
“I’m at the Jersey Shore, on Sandy Harbor Island.”
“The place where you grew up?”
