Conquer

17 0 3

by BizzieBell

by BizzieBell

"Alright." Priss started, heaving herself to her feet from where she was curled up on my bed with me. "We are not just about to spend the whole day sitting on our phones, sending each other Tik Toks all day."

I glanced away from her for a moment, then look back at her. After a slight pause, I asked, "why not? That's what we always do."

"Exactly!" Priss threw her arms up in the air, exasperated. "That's what we always do! We need to actually do something! Go on an adventure!"

I couldn't help but roll my eyes. Priss always wanted "an adventure", but the thing was, I wasn't the most adventurous person. I'm pretty sure I remember not wanting to swim in the Lake Michigan (which we've lived by our entire lives) for fear of the sharks and squids that live there.

"Okay." I threw my phone to the side, and sat up. "I'll bite. What adventure do you want to go on?"

"Let's go surfing."

I couldn't help but stare, dumbfounded, at her. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Let's go surfing, come on!" She ran over to my dresser and when she realized I hadn't moved, threw a suit my way and said, "we're going. You have 5 minutes."

I guess we're going surfing.

After 30 minutes of getting ready, grabbing the boards my family kept stored in the garage, and the drive there, we arrived at Empire Public Beach. We found a spot to set up our beach blankets, and started preparing to spend the next couple hours in the water.

Neither of us had been surfing in a few years, and never together, so we waded out to edge of the second sandbar, and planned to surf to shore.

"Total transparency?" I asked, as we sat on our boards, watching a couple freighters on the horizon while we waited.

"Sure." Priss ran her hands on the surface of the water.

"I don't think I've ever stood up on a board before."

She was clearly shocked as she looked over at me. "Are you for real?"

"Yeah? It just always seemed a bit scary to actually stand up, ya know?"

"Freighter waves coming in." She lay on her board and started paddling to position herself. "Here's you're chance, James, let's go!"

I rolled my eyes and started paddling after her.

She spotted a white cap, and managed to stand as she rode it to shore. She gave me a thumbs up and started to paddle back out to where we started.

As I picked my wave, I took a deep breath and pressed up to my knees, before attempting to stand. I made it a solid 3 seconds before falling out. But that moment of euphoria made me realize that sometimes my best friend might just know what's up. And as she swam up to me, bursting with smiles, and congratulating me, I thought I might just have to start listening to her more.