Page 30 of Wilder Love
“Where’s the douche?” I asked when I joined Trav in the lineup.
“You’re gonna love this,” he said, chuckling under his breath. “Not long after you left, the douche got slammed by a wave. Broke his board.”
We both laughed.
“Karma. What a bitch,” I said. Time to get down to business.
“Don’t even think about it,” Trav said, eying the same wave I was.
“Got my name on it.” I took off, paddling hard and caught it before he did.
“Asshole,” he called after me. “Karma’s coming for you.”
I flicked my head back, a little move to get my hair off my forehead, like an asshole posing for a pin-up in a magazine.
Karma was a bitch.
11
Remy
Mom forgot our seventeenth birthday. No card, no gift, no Happy Birthday. Nothing. Dylan and I bought half a dozen cupcakes—chocolate with buttercream frosting—and a box of sparklers. We took them up to the roof and got high and shared a six-pack, watching the sparks of light in the darkness until the sparklers fizzled out and Dylan snuffed them out in an empty PBR can. I was on my second cupcake when the door burst open and Sienna appeared.
“Seriously? You’re partying without me? I came bearing gifts.” She handed Dylan a bottle of whiskey she stole from her dad’s liquor cabinet and tossed a wrapped gift in my lap. I handed her a cupcake and Dylan cracked open the whiskey and chugged it.
“You’re welcome,” she said, glaring at him.
“Thanks, Princess.” He gave her a lazy grin.
Sienna rolled her eyes. “You’re an ass.”
I looked from Dylan to Sienna. “Am I missing something?”
“No,” they said in unison.
He rolled another joint and lit it, taking a drag before he passed it to Sienna. “Don’t say I never gave you anything.”
She muttered something under her breath I didn’t catch, making me feel like I’d definitely missed something. A few weeks ago, Dylan had gotten a new job working for a pool cleaning company. One of the pools he cleaned was Sienna’s. I didn’t ask if he cleaned Tristan’s pool or any of the others in that neighborhood. Ever since the day Tristan and Shane had that run-in at the beach, Tristan had stopped hassling me.
He hadn’t mentioned the incident, and neither had I. Which suited me just fine. Today had been our last day of school and with any luck, I wouldn’t run into him all summer.
I opened the birthday present from Sienna—a Starbucks gift card and a Nirvana T-shirt that I vowed to wear every day. We hugged and shared another cupcake. It made me nauseous.
After we drank half a bottle of whiskey and smoked the joint, Dylan came up with the brilliant plan to go to the beach. I lent Sienna the new bikini I bought with my discount from Jimmy’s Surf Shack, blue with a hot pink floral print, and wore my old faded orange suit. Sienna had never been inside our apartment and if all my edges weren’t blurred and the filter on my life so hazy, I would have been embarrassed.
We cycled to the beach, and Sienna rode on Dylan’s handlebars.
Drunk and high, the three of us were swimming against the tide in the moonlight. I was sure we were all going to drown.
Dylan was floating on his back, singing “Black” by Pearl Jam. He sang it to the empty beach and the endless sea and the silver moon. His anger and hurt seeped into every word. He couldn’t see my tears. He couldn’t see me breaking for him. I was just a broken shell of a girl, trying to keep my head above water. He was just a boy, trying to figure out how to be a man and keep us both afloat.
It was such a strange, sad, bittersweet night. But despite everything—our absentee mom and all the crap with Tristan and my unrequited love for Shane—I loved our California life.
The next morning, I roused Dylan from the sofa. “Go away,” he muttered.
“I know the best hangover cure.”
The ocean healed. Shane and Jimmy swore by it. After Dylan and I surfed for an hour, my headache was gone and so was my queasy stomach.
