"Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and He delivered them from their distress. He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed. Then they were glad that the waters were quiet, and He brought them to their desired haven." – Psalm 107:28-30
Alana could not remember any of the workings of her mind while she was unconscious. Later, though, as she floated to the surface, revived by her involuntary need for air, she recalled some fragmented thoughts.
After over a minute of being held underwater, her lips finally tasted the sweet luxury of oxygen, and she gulped it down by the mouthful. She was not aware of the crashing waves behind her, the scores of people who watched anxiously from shore, or the competitors in the lineup wondering where Alana had drifted off to. She gasped for air like a fish out of water until her lungs had gotten their fill. Then, opening her eyes and seeing the gray sky above and the churning water all around, she felt the weight of her predicament pressing on her sore eyes and throat.
A wry laugh escaped her lips. How many times had she been caught inside, tossed and tumbled by the waves, only to vow that she would never put herself in that situation again? Yet here she was, feebly treading water, her throat burning from the salt and her head stinging from the result of her underwater concussion.
She reached up with one hand and pressed it lightly against her forehead. The flare of pain caused her to wince and quickly withdraw her palm. However, when she looked down at her splayed fingers, she realized they were only lightly tainted with blood. Apparently her wound wasn't as bad as she'd originally thought.
Good, she thought, her competitive side kicking in. Now I can finish the heat.
Her thoughts now turned towards her lost surfboard. She reached down and felt the Velcro part of her leash still wrapped around her right ankle. Unfortunately, the rest of the leash was nowhere to be found—it looked like Dylan was going to have to buy her another one.
A glance towards shore revealed that her leash was not, in fact, utterly lost. Just a short swim away her shortboard was bobbing on the surface of the water, with the remaining portion of her leash still attached to its tail.
Alana smiled with relief. Thank You, Lord, she thought, ignoring the throbbing of her forehead and beginning to swim towards her board. She reached it a minute later and gratefully climbed on. She only allowed her limbs to rest for a moment, however, because she knew the next set could be on its way at any time.
She launched into a quick paddle. As her adrenaline began pumping once again, she felt the pain in her temple and the soreness in her limbs lessen. But the announcer's voice echoing across the water broke her concentration.
"Surfer in white," he began, his voice crackling through the loudspeaker, "you need 6.50 points. Surfer in yellow, you are in the lead with 15.44 points. Surfer in pink, you need 4.79 points. Surfer in blue, you need 10.83 points."
Alana's jaw dropped open in shock. She felt angry tears threaten to spill down her cheeks. Because of her meager 4.62, she was combo'd. In order to take first place, she, the surfer in blue, needed a 10.83—a score that was impossible to get with only a single wave. She would have to catch not one but two waves, and both scores needed to be above the 8-point range.
With this unsettling news in mind, Alana quickened her pace to the lineup and reached it just as the next set was rolling towards the beach. Another squall of rain brought even more gloom over the water, but to Alana, it only seemed to mirror her miserable thoughts. She had been doing so well in the competition! Now one stupid mistake had cost her a slight injury, a busted leash, and landed her in a combo situation.
She sighed. All of the recent events, it seemed, swirled around her like waves in the impact zone. This wasn't the first time she had been caught inside—she was caught in the middle of life's problems, too. She was tossed and turned by the waves of competing, training, doing photoshoots, finishing schoolwork, handling interviews and social media, and figuring out her relationship with Cole. She was caught inside, and she was slowly sinking.
Alana quickly shook herself out of her reverie. What was she thinking? She had literally been caught inside moments ago, and here she was, already sitting in the lineup waiting for her next wave. She didn't have to stay in the impact zone. She didn't have to feel overwhelmed by life's problems. She could swim up, grab her board, and start paddling.
A ghost of a smile appeared on her face. She wasn't done fighting yet.
Just then, the sky suddenly parted for the briefest of moments, allowing a few slivers of light to shine down through the dark expanse of clouds. Alana looked up and relished the warmth of the sunbeams illuminating her face. She took a deep breath before focusing her attention back on the horizon.
"God," she whispered, "I can't do this by myself. I need you to take control of my problems. I need you to give me the strength and courage to finish this heat. And please, whatever happens, let it be for your glory."
The rain poured down harder, but through the heavy sheets, Alana saw the bump of an approaching swell. She just needed two more waves. I can do this.
The first wave was too small to break, so Alana followed the other girls' leads and stroked over it. The girl in pink spun her board around and paddled into the next wave. She disappeared beneath a cloud of whitewater, leaving Alana and her two other competitors to fight over the rest of the set.
Fortunately, there were enough waves for everyone. Unfortunately, the waves didn't have very good shape, and they looked like they were going to close out. Alana saw this and changed her direction, paddling sideways instead of further out. This put her in position for the shoulder, where she could make the section inside of being stuck behind gallons of whitewater.
Her plan worked. Alana stroked easily into the shoulder of the wave and dropped in. Her ankle felt strange because her leash was no longer attached to it, but that served as a reminder that she couldn't wipe out. If she jumped off her board, it would without a doubt wash into shore, forcing her to waste a lot of time trying to swim after it.
With these thoughts in mind, Alana planted her back foot firmly on the tail pad and executed a solid bottom turn. Her momentum carried her up to the top of the wave, where she performed a quick snap that sprayed arcs of water into the air. She repeated these motions once more, but on her last turn, she over-rotated her shoulders and hips so that her board made a complete 360-degree rotation. She kept her knees bent and her core balanced to ensure that she rode out the maneuver. When she did, she grinned and gave a little nod in the direction of the judges. That had to be at least a 7-point ride.
The announcer came back over the loudspeaker, saying there were ten minutes left in the heat. Alana quickly lay down on her surfboard and paddled back out to the lineup. Depending on how the judges scored her ride, she knew she might need an even bigger score for her second wave.
She was relieved to see that the surfer in yellow, the current leader of the heat, had not caught a single wave in the previous set. That meant her score had stayed exactly the same. Alana could only hope that the other girls hadn't improved their scores, either.
The minutes ticked by, and as the scores trickled in, the announcer declared the surfer in yellow was still in first. Alana, though she had moved up into second place, still needed an 8.54 if she wanted to win the competition. That was a big number, but she could do it. She just needed to choose her wave and her maneuvers wisely.
One of her teammates from Ventura High drifted closer to Alana, and they exchanged a few words while waiting for the next set to show. The teammate, Mandy, was curious to know if Alana was in any pain.
"Just a bit," she said, putting on her best smile to mask the throbbing in her forehead.
"When I saw you come out of the water with that bloody wound," Mandy said, "I was sure you were going to get pulled out of the heat."
Alana shifted a little on her board, but she didn't acknowledge that she had, in fact, gone unconscious. She felt fine, and the heat was going to be over in less than ten minutes anyway. She could get checked out by paramedics on the beach if she really needed to, but only after she had accomplished what she came here to do.
"Next set is on its way," Mandy said suddenly.
"Here it comes," Alana agreed, noticing the bump on the horizon.
"Good luck." Mandy smiled. "I'm glad your head wound isn't as bad as it looks."
Alana returned her smile, but only because of the irony in Mandy's words.
The girls began stroking towards the oncoming swells to get in position for a wave. Alana, being the furthest inside, could have scratched into the first swell, but wisely chose to set her sights on one of the bigger waves instead. She saw one competitor drop into the second swell, while another went for the next wave behind it.
Mandy eagerly spun her board around to catch the fourth wave. Alana, straining to see over the peak, looked towards the horizon and realized with a sinking feeling that there were no more waves in the set. She groaned, letting her head droop and her shoulders slump in defeat.
There was still a chance that there would be another set before the heat was over—but then again, what if there wasn't? What if this was Alana's final wave of the competition, and she blew it?
With her head wound still smarting and the rain still pouring down around her, Alana lifted her chin and launched into the wave. She paddled fiercely for a few moments until the force of the peak lifted her upwards, but a glance over her shoulder told her that Mandy was still paddling hard to get into position. Their eyes met, and Mandy gave Alana a brief nod before pulling out of the wave.
Alana was surprised that Mandy had given up, but along with her shock came a sudden surge of hope. This was her chance!
She took a few extra paddles to regain the momentum she had lost in her second of hesitation. Then, with the top of the wave just beginning to curl, she stood up and dropped in.
The steepness of the wave surprised Alana, and she nearly lost her balance when she reached the bottom. But an extra bend in her knees and adjustment of her arms regained her composure. She did a small turn around a section of whitewater before gearing up for some high-point maneuvers.
As usual, Alana started out with a beautiful bottom turn/top turn combo in the most critical section of the wave. She followed this with a few wrapping cutbacks, making slight tweaks here and there to avoid rough patches of water stirred up by the stormy waves. When her ride was more than halfway over, she calculated her score to be in the midrange, maybe a little higher. She hadn't done any big maneuvers, so she probably wasn't going to get the 8.54 that she needed.
Alana frowned. She needed to pull off something amazing if she wanted to win.
As her wave slowed down, she did a few more small cutbacks, eyeing the building section in front of her all the while. When the wave looked like it was about to close out, she began pumping her legs for speed and racing across the surface of the water as fast as she could go. With expert precision, she timed her maneuver so that she would hit the top of the wave and launch into the air. Once she made impact, she threw out her arms, grabbed her rails with both hands, made a single clean rotation, and landed back in the whitewater just as the two sections of the wave collided.
The power of the crashing whitewater was more than she'd expected. When she landed her aerial maneuver, she was momentarily encased in the roaring water. She felt her front foot slip forward toward the nose of her board while her torso leaned backwards into the cushion of the wave. As she lost her balance, she tried desperately to pull herself back into an upright position. Her stomach muscles strained with the effort until she finally succeeded. She rode out in front of the whitewater in an awkward stance, but at least she had made it. The judges could now deem her aerial a completed maneuver, giving her full points.
Alana was immensely relieved. She glanced over her shoulder at the horizon and saw no other waves, so she hopped down to her stomach and rode the rest of the way into shore like a bodyboarder. Once she made contact with the sand, she stood up and tucked her surfboard under her arm. She couldn't help but laugh at the pitiful remains of her leash still dangling from the end of her board.
Within seconds Alana was surrounded by the gang. "Awesome air!" Jake exclaimed while Maya gave her a big, wet hug. Blaine and Koa slapped their hands on her back with hearty approval.
Alana's smile quickly faded, however. She almost asked aloud where Cole was, but wisely kept her lips pressed firmly together. Stupid, she scolded herself. Cole's not even here. But it was hard not to hear his encouraging words of congratulations.
Instead, she took shelter under the Ventura High surf team's canopy, where Maya wrapped a towel around Alana's shoulders and hugged her to keep warm. Before long, the adrenaline and excitement dwindled away, leaving Alana shivering and chattering in the cold. Only her nervous anticipation of the judge's results kept her rooted to the beach.
When the air horn sounded and the announcer's voice crackled over the speakers, any thoughts of Cole were immediately pushed to the back of Alana's mind. She leaned forward expectantly while Maya gripped her arm.
"Here it comes!" Maya squealed.
It seemed like the entire gang held their breaths while the announcer rattled off the scores of all the competitors. When he reached the "surfer in blue," he hesitated a second before saying, "The judges have rewarded her final wave, the last ride of the heat, with an 8.98, giving her a total of—"
But Alana didn't hear the rest of his sentence. She threw her arms around Maya and laughed, relieved, until her whole body shook. The girls embraced for a few seconds before being enveloped by Koa, Blaine, and Jake, who quickly separated them and lifted Alana up and onto their shoulders.
As they carried her towards the makeshift stage, she felt all her emotions from the day's trying events culminating into one final surge of excitement. Then, with a sudden sensation of dizziness, she reached up and pressed her hand against her forehead. Her fingers came away dry, but despite the lack of blood, Alana felt woozy and disoriented.
She slumped forward. Blaine, upon seeing a strange pallor come over her face, immediately caught her and placed her on the wet sand. She hung onto his shoulders, the world swimming in front of her eyes, and didn't let go until she felt herself being picked up by a pair of paramedics.
The last thing Alana heard before giddiness consumed her was the cheering crowd, interspersed with reassurances of, "You're going to be okay," from the gang.
A fleeting thought came to mind: I did it. I won. We're going to the championships! But her weary body soon succumbed to fatigue and faded into unconsciousness.