Page 187 of Forgotten Prejudice

I stretched my neck and looked around for whitecaps or breaking waves that would help us get to the shore. Luckily, I spotted a zone that seemed good enough. The only problem was that it was a bit too close to the rocks, which we needed to avoid.

“We’ll paddle that way.” I pointed in the direction while giving the two a short brief. “Andrei, you make sure Kai’s beside you at all costs.”

My kid nodded.

Feeling water coming from above, I looked up at the sky. It had started raining again, and I knew it was time to move. “Let’s go,” I said, my hands already breaking the surface as I started paddling.

“I’m so fucking sorry,” Kai began crying midway.

“Now’s not the time,” I yelled, trying to push him to keep moving. We couldn’t afford to waste time with the weather starting to get worse again.

“We’ll all die because of me.”

“No, we won’t.” Andrei smiled while rubbing Kai’s shoulder. “We’re almost there, you see?” He pointed over to the spot we were trying to reach. “Just save your breath and take long strokes. It will help.”

“Hear him, Kai?” I tried joking to loosen him up. “The kid thinks he can teach us.” I winked at Andrei. “We’ve been surfing since long before you were even conceived, kiddo.” Now I sounded like my uncle.

A half laugh broke past Kai’s trembling lips before he nodded, and it almost felt like we were doing okay when suddenly, we were pulled back in a flash, the water hitting my body so hard, dragging it underneath the surface in a vacuum.

It was a flash rip. One of the worst things you could come across while surfing.

The violent riptide moved me with it, and I barely managed to hold my head above water to get a few breaths in and see Kai and Andrei struggling the same way I was.

“Stay with him—” Water got into my mouth, and I quickly closed it as the waves carried me away. The strong flow pulled me down, then up. “Stay with each other!” I managed to shout. I heard Andrei calling my name back, right before everything went silent as I was pulled underwater again, the rip dragging me deeper and deeper, swaying my body from side to side. I lost my board the first time the waves crashed down on me, and without the leash keeping me attached to it, there was nothing to help me float back. It felt like I was being torn away from my life as the water kept swallowing me whole, moving my body like a leaf in the wind. Brief seconds turned into dragging minutes in which I couldn’t breathe, and when everything around me turned black, I thought about my father.

He’d died while free diving, and I wondered if, in his final moments, he, too, felt betrayed by the thing he loved the most.

The ocean.

But then I thought about my mom and the kids. I thought of how I’d never get to see them again, and I wondered where Diesel was right now. But in those last seconds in which everything turned cold, Soren was the only thing in my mind. Soren and the future I so desperately wanted to share with him and might never get the chance to have.

Soren

Waiting on the shore and looking at the ocean while knowing my biggest treasure was inside the belly of this raging beast was torture like no other. Each wave that crashed made my heart stop until my chest grew so tight that breathing was nearly impossible.

I walked back and forth on the sand while running my fingers through my hair, nearly pulling it from the roots as I waited for them to come out.

“You worry way too much, Verano,” he’d told me right before he ran into that danger without looking back.

How could I not worry?

How could I not reach for your arm after you called me your summer?

That was what he said. Verano—the Spanish word for summer. But when did I become your summer? I thought I was winter. Cold and lonely like an old man, grasping through life with shivering hands.

The question was picking at my skull, turning me even more anxious. Please, Ashton, just come back so I can ask you that.

Time stood still, with me staring into the eye of the storm, more scared than I had ever been in my life before. Meanwhile, Miles spoke to me, and although I didn’t want to ignore my boss’s son, his attempt to comfort me by saying Andrei and Ashton would be fine was nothing if not annoying. How young and naive was he to think he could promise me what he could not control? I couldn’t blame him, as this was part of youth. The most beautiful part of it. The confidence to think you’d live to overcome all obstacles in life. Only this kind of thinking was what led me to lose Ashton in the first place. Back then, I thought we’d be able to overcome the toxicity and lies that coated our relationship and live happily ever after, only to get a cold slap from reality.

I wouldn’t repeat the same mistakes, and until I held him in my arms again, I wouldn’t fall into empty promises.

When a figure emerged from the water, I could finally breathe; that was, until I saw who it was. Falling to his knees the moment he reached shallow waters, Kai began coughing out salt water. He needed help, but I couldn’t bring myself to move and instead remained rooted to the sand while watching Miles running to assist him.

My heart thrummed in my ears, my panic growing wild as Kai’s mumbling turned into actual words.

“I killed him,” he cried between coughing. “He’s dead because of me.”

Finally able to move, I darted toward him, jerking Miles away as I gripped Kai’s shoulder and shook him hard.