Waves (l.r.h)

Part 26

Luke's POV

"Sadie, she'll be alright," Calum said quietly from beside me. He had a protective arm around wrapped around her shoulder as she held her head in her hands.

"It's nearly 1 AM!" Sadie shrieked as she stood up, causing Calum's arm to fall limply at his side.

"She's a big girl," he tried to reason. "She can handle herself for the night."

Sadie scoffed as she began pacing across the room, something she had been doing on and off for the past few hours. "She's practically paralyzed in her right side! She could be lying in a ditch right now!"

Paralyzed. The word sent a shiver down my side. All this time I was dying to know about Greyson's past, but now I wished she'd never told us. When I saw the scar, I felt it. I felt the pain, the anger, the sadness that she must have felt. She was a professional; surfing must've been everything to her. My heart ached thinking about how it must feel to be sitting in a hospital bed and being told you couldn't do what you loved. I tried to imagine it, but I couldn't. I couldn't imagine never being able to surf again. I'd rather the shark just kill me.

I must've sounded like such a baby, complaining day in and day out about not being able to surf for a few weeks. She was going through the exact same thing, but she never even gave a hint that she was suffering. She always asked me how I was, never thinking twice about herself. She always looked out at the ocean with a smile, while I looked at those waves in disgust because I couldn't experience them. I said that I couldn't watch my friends surf when all along it must have been ten times harder for her to watch.

And I thought she didn't understand. I was the one who didn't understand, though. She couldn't have understood better. It makes sense now, why she got upset at me when I said that. I assumed so much about her past because she never even mentioned it. She never complained; all she ever did was make everyone around her happy. Who knew that she had something that weighed so heavily on her heart when her persona came off as so light and confident.

When our eyes met, after I'd seen her scar, I saw something different in them. I thought I had seen everything there was to see in her eyes: the glassiness that came when she got lost in thought, the shimmering when she spoke about something she loved, even the dull fire that ignited when she was angry. But the look in her eyes reflected something else, something broken. That was the only way to describe it. I saw her weakness, her one weakness. And in seeing that weakness, I only saw her as a stronger person than I'd ever imagined. I wish she knew that.

The bungalow had never seemed so quiet. The only sound came from Sadie's rhythmic strides on the wooden floor, none of us making eye contact with each other. Ashton and Calum were in their own worlds like me, staring blankly at the splinter-riddled floorboards. Michael was out on the deck, his cell phone pressed to his cheek as he tried to call Greyson. Sadie had no luck, and it seemed Michael was doomed to the same fate as he frustratedly ran his hand through his crimson hair. "Pick up, Grey," he faintly mumbled after he got sent to voicemail again.

"I should've followed her," Ash mumbled from his spot against the front window sill. My eyes tore away from my absent stare to look at Ashton.

"She'll be fine, mate," Calum said not removing his eyes from the floor.

"How did you even know?" I asked accusingly to Ashton. He quirked an eyebrow at me beckoning for me to elaborate. "About the attack. You knew before today, didn't you?"

"Can we please not do this right now?" Sadie said sensing the beginnings of an argument.

"I went to her house to drop off some paperwork once," Ashton said ignoring Sadie's request. He crossed his arms and straightened his posture, obviously not liking how I'd spoken to him. "They have a bunch of boards all around their house, and all of Greyson's news clippings and surf photos were hung on the walls. They didn't want to tell me; it just happened."