FIND HER (short story) ✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡

Chapter Seven / When One Door Opens

I stroll towards the point where the water meets with the sand, observing how the waves dictate the expanse of the shoreline. With each imposing wave, the water extends its reach onto the beach. Anticipation builds as I immerse myself, warming my body up for the finale. I swallow a mouth full of briny ocean water by accident.

"How'd that taste?", Grayson walks over to me, his surfboard stuck to his side. I notice the droplets of ocean water sliding down his body. With each step towards me, the water cascades from his limbs, leaving my eyes wandering anything but his eyes.

"Tasted great", I say, struggling to get up as a small wave hits my back. I wring my hair out, expelling saltwater with each twist. "What are you doing here?" He lends me his hand and helps me stand back up.

"I'm in the finale. I was in group 12A", he says. We are now chest to chest, face to face. The gap closed between us.

I took a step back and thought about Lennon. "I didn't know you were competing!"

"I do it every year", He's so tall that he has to look down at me.

"Me too", I reply, smiling as I walk back to the tapestry to grab my surfboard. He follows behind, tracing the indentations of my footprints in the sand.

As the final whistle sounded, Grayson and I exchange glances and followed the nine other finalists to the waves. When I got deep enough, I held my breath, scared that if I breathe, I'll fuck up my chance of winning. I felt the wave begin to form under my surfboard, it signaled me to start paddling. Two people, on the left and right of me have already been disqualified. I balanced myself and started to breathe again. I entered a barreling wave, and I knew I could emerge it before it broke. I only had to do one trick, it was mandatory. I was struggling to think of one to do before the wave died. I let my body sync with the surfboard, initiating a 360. Something under my board then felt off, I looked down and there was a double up wave crashing and breaking in two different directions.

I'm gonna wipe out. I watch Grayson fly by me, watching as he flows with the wave. Pulling my attention back to my board, I realized I had already crashed and was sucked under.

Unaware of how this happened, I came up from under and watched Grayson win the finale. The first thing he did was walk over to me and help me up. He held his hand out and I took it.

"You just won!", I screamed, without noticing I propelled myself into his arms. As he caught me, his hold grew firmer.

"I did! I really did!", he pulls me in tighter. I felt his heart beat through his chest and in this moment, I felt myself wanting to say  fuck it to being professional. The whistle blew at my expense and the some photographers took Grayson's picture for the news. Positioning his light blue surfboard beside him, he smiles, looking at all the cameras in different directions.

"Kaylee, you're bleeding", Brynn runs over and reaches for my face. She applies a towel to it.

"You did so good, but that wipeout was worse than mine", Zara nudged me. Blood dripped from my nose onto the sand. I felt stinging sensations all over my body. I must have wiped out badly. Brynn tips my head up.

"Thanks guys, can one of you check my body, it stings from the salt water.", I asked, stretching out my legs. Zara leans down and lets out a gasp. "What?"

"You got some bad scrapes from crashing so close to the surface", she touches a cut.

"Ow!" I winced in pain from her touch.

"I'm sorry", she checks the rest of my body.

"You have some bad scrapes on your legs, one of your left hand, your face and some on your toes."

"So much for a wetsuit", I roll my eyes, thinking that the protective gear should have spared me from such marks. Brynn takes her fingers off my nose and tells me to lower my head back down. The bleeding has stopped.

"So, Grayson...", Brynn started.

I cut her off, "I didn't even think he'd be here!", My eyes searching the beach for him. He is still talking with the judge and the photographers. He catches my staring, shakes the judges hand, and walks over to us, carrying something.

"What's that?" I ask. He was holding a grey box. He smiles at me and pops the lid open, revealing a huge chunk of money wrapped in an elastic.

"Oh my god", Zara blurts.

"Grayson! How much is that?", I wince, grabbing the money out of the box. I could barely hold all of the money in one hand.

"100,000", Grayson said, proudly. I place the money back in the box and study him. His body is soaked, salt water drips down his abs, his legs, his face.

He leans in close to me, and whispers in my ear, his hair dripping salt water on the sand. "Remember what I said about one door opening?"

I nodded, recalling his words. "Yes."

"It opened, do we dare go through it?"