Short Stories of Sorts

Summer Soaring

"You ready, Syd?" Mrs. LuAnne, my friend's mom, asked.
"Heck yeah!" I exclaimed, adjusting my life jacket and peering over the side of the boat to see the large inflatable tube bobbing in the deep blue lake water. A single shot of adrenaline rushed through me as I anticipated the wind in my hair, the spray on my face.
"All right, hop on." Mrs. LuAnne briefly explained to me exactly what I needed to do to stay safe and (temporarily) on the tube. I knew she'd only allow me a few minutes before doing her best to fling me off with the wake of the small boat.
Carefully, I climbed to the back of the boat and down the ladder, then abruptly plopped myself onto the raft and got properly situated. As soon as I was ready, I pushed off from the boat away from the motor and channeled my excitement into my body as the determination to stay on set into my bones.
The motor growled as it revved, and the boat set off at a slow pace. The rope I was tethered with unwound ahead of me in the water, slithering along the surface like a deadly adder until it snapped taut. And we were off.
Mrs. LuAnne quickly increased the speed, and I braced my elbows and knees wide as the tube drifted to one side, toward the steadily growing wake of the boat. This was only an unremarkable bump at first, but before long it was shooting me into the air over and over. The spindrift was cast around me like a summer storm, the small arrows of water pelting my arms, my face, my obscured goggles as I hung on for dear life. As I drifted from side to side, I adjusted my body in increments to avoid being thrown by the waves, expertly maneuvering on the raft despite it being my second time ever.
The joy I felt was indescribable. Freedom and adrenaline wrapped around my limbs, the ecstasy in my chest soaring. I was utterly determined to stay on for as long as I could, both to enjoy the experience to the fullest and just to prove that I could. For the next few wondrous minutes, I shifted and leapt and laughed aloud to the rhythm of the bumping tube, reveling in every sense thrown into my face.
I knew my allotted time was almost up as the boat whipped around faster and faster and it became harder and harder to keep my white-knuckled grip. My body was happily tiring, exhausting itself on the thrill, and it began to slide around more than I meant it to, taunting me with the urge to let go and fall off. But I stayed on.
For about the next minute or two. As the tube wrestled with an especially vicious wave, my grip slackened, and my balance was thrown the second I was airborne. Coming back down to the water, I knew I wouldn't be able to continue, no matter how much I still wanted to. The raft slammed at an angle into the lake, and there I went.
My elbows ripped across the rough material, stinging as I flipped off and tumbled into the turbulent wake with so much force my swim bottoms went down. Immediately I pulled them back up, not sure which way was up or down but trusting my body to orient itself towards the surface. It did, and I found myself sideways, sucking in a breath as another violent wave crashed over me, threatening to disorient me again.
Peeking over the chopped water, I saw the boat angling to come retrieve me, and I bobbed around, casually swimming towards it. Once it had stopped in front of me, I floated to the ladder in the back and hauled myself up and onto the deck, water streaming off of my body and from my life jacket.
Grinning, I exclaimed, "That was awesome!!" I then checked my sore elbows, finding
them raw and pink, beadlets of bright red blood blooming from the wounds like miniature roses. That sight signaled the end of my tubing adventure, as I couldn't very well go again without further damaging my body.
The thrill that I felt rushing through my bones was one of three times this summer I experienced that soaring joy. It was incredible, exactly what I was longing for in the long months of homework-packed school. Finally doing what I wanted, finally soaring, finally free, the scabs left on my elbows fond marks of summer ecstasy.