Natasha Conklin often romanticized the feeling of a fever dream, dripping in the uncertainties and doubts of an unrequited love. A honey-melon moon, bathing in fantasies. She did not need much, all she wanted was to be warm and sun-kissed, her hair fluttering around her as she sat on her bedroom balcony, looking out onto Cousin's Beach. And regardless of a strong hangover, she remembered her conversation with Conrad in the car very clearly. Deny. That's all she did. Because maybe it was all a fever dream, all too vivid and unforgiving.
What Natasha needed was a day of surfing. In that warm summer morning, the gentle sound of the ocean came from somewhere in the distance as she changed into a floral bikini, pulling on a pair of jean shorts as a cover-up. The smell of freshly cut grass and brewed coffee wafted through her open window, curtains dancing in the breeze. She took her towel off the drying rack, grabbing her surfboard from the deck, and rushing out towards the sea.
Natasha didn't really know why she was so committed to the sea, its ever-changing current. Maybe she had salt in her blood, her sweat, her tears, coursing through her veins in wave-like rhythms. She was tied to the ocean, experiencing immense feelings of eternity and peace, losing herself hour after hour.
The sound of the sea silenced her raging mind. Every wave is a breath, ancient and aching. And to Natasha, it wasn't about the thrill. It was about the translation, how the sea spoke to her in pulses, pressure, and pull. It was as if the waves caressed her, disassembling her molecule by molecule, until she was nothing but a disoriented mess. The sea seemed less like water, and more like a consciousness.
Tasha paddled out a couple of meters, watching the current with a steady eye. She was fluent in the subtleties: how the wind shifted slightly, how the swell thickened beneath the surface. She could hear her heartbeat in her ears, her surroundings becoming all too clear. She was aware of every tendon in her body, tense. She could feel every grain of salt on her skin, reflecting in the blazing heat, as she disappeared as a speck among waves.
Her arms moved rhythmically through the water, neither rushed nor hesitant, but rather with a quiet certainty that comes from doing something alone for long enough that it becomes a part of you. Her silhouette curved against the waves, like a sentence mid-thought: unfinished, but certain. Tasha tumbled through foam and silence, her body turned loose from control. But when she surfaces, hair slinging to her face, lungs gasping shrp air, she was grinning, savoring the autonomy.
And an hour later, when her feet hit the sand once again, Tasha saw a figure sitting in solitude, staring out into Cousin's Beach. Conrad, in all his glory, was smoking a cigarette. His eyes wandered from the sea to Natasha, dripping in salt water, her baby pink and yellow surfboard in hand. She was there all in pearls, gold, and glittering.
"Hey." He motioned for her to come over, and despite her better judgement, Tasha found herself approaching him, putting her surfboard down and taking a seat next to him on the sand. She wasn't sure how this was going to go. Confessions upon confessions flooded her mind. How do you go back to being friends with someone who has seen your soul? "You want a puff?"
"No, thank you, I'm already suffering from a major hangover. I don't need to get high on top of it." Conrad chuckled before nodding in understanding. There was an awkward silence between them. Natasha wasn't sure how to handle her emotions, thank god for impulse control. Unfortunately, summer wasn't just sunshine and peach rings on a yacht, tanning glowy skin. Natasha looked towards the sea, trying to avoid his eyes, those all-consuming salt eyes of his.
"So, yesterday was a shit show, huh?"
"Yeah, that's an understatement." Conrad took another hit of his cigarette, placing it in between his lips before releasing a ring of white smoke. He sighed, ultimately coming to the realization that they would have to talk about the backseat conversation sooner or later. "Look, Tasha, about last night. I'm sorry I came off so strong. I wasn't thinking. But ..."
