Why Can't I Breathe [boyxboy]

1. Wells

The rising sun paints Ventura in a squall of orange, pink, and purple. The colors rise with the sun out of the ocean, the crisp breeze blowing the view through my window, shifting the curtains. Shrugging on my wet suit and adjusting it around the crotch area (I really need to see about getting a new wet suit), I ample past Dad's room like a bear possessed, but not even the end of the world could wake him before his alarm clock.

It'll warm up fast, even right on the ocean, but right now, all the California coast has to offer me is fog and the promise of high tide. Sandwiched between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, you can't call Ventura a small town, but when my eyes land on the steep slopes of the valley and the intersecting curves of the river I can pretend that Ventura is a small, seaside town with one bed and breakfast and the best waves in the state.

At least one of those things is true. Grabbing my surfboard from its place against the side of the house, I cut between sleepy townhomes, the concrete under my feet cooling as it turns to loose, white sand. This part of the beach, where the road cul-de-sacs into white, tile-roofed townhomes doesn't get much traffic even during the afternoon, but right now, it's just me and the waves.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

Even through the wetsuit, the sand is as cold as the wind whipping through my hair. I like to watch the water before I paddle in. Where do the waves break? How big are the waves? My eyes flit from spot to spot--where're the best spots to catch waves? As the waves keep coming, I start to notice where the bigger sets are centralized.

The water hits me like a slap, and the sun juts out in single rays from above oppressive, gray clouds. My muscles ache against the intensity of my paddling as the sky melts into blue. My hands cut through the waves at the first whitewater wave I see, a churning crush of white against the overcast ocean, and I push up on my board as I crest over it. The slap of saltwater against my frigid skin is familiar and comforting. Like the sand; like the board beneath me; like the city itself.

Not seeing any waves I want to catch, I rest there, under the lightening sky, salt in my nose and on my hair and in a myriad of places I won't notice until I strip my wetsuit off. In the distance, the fog moves in gusts, intermittently revealing the Channel Islands in the distance, a crescent moon against the sunrise.

These are the moments that made me fall in love with surfing. I don't... rest a lot. I work, and I work, and I work, and I love working, but the thing I love most about surfing is that it doesn't feel like work. There's a routine to it, that yes, feels like work. But the waves cutting across my board; the feeling of standing as the ocean churns below you; the push and pull of equals.

That feels as natural as breathing.

I'm riding a wave back to shore when Zara finally danes to show her face. She meets me halfway to the water, her wetsuit still unzipped in the back. She waves.

"Reporting for dawn patrol!" She has to shout to be heard over the waves. I want to point out that dawn patrol implies that it's still dawn, and by now the sun is full mast, but even if Zara heard me, I don't think she'd care. A quiet smile stretches across her dark skin, her small eyes dancing with excitement. Her black hair is in tight braids down the center of her back, unraveled near the ends.

She turns her back to me. "Can you zip me up?"

"Sure." I find the zipper and pinch the top of her wet suit while zipping her up, my hand scraping against her skin. It'd be a little more scandalous if there wasn't five years of friendship between us. And if I weren't gay as the day is long. Besides, as Zara always says: she doesn't date men often, and when she does, she's way out of my league.

"You missed all the good waves," I say when she turns back around to face me.

Zara shrugs. "I slept in." Zara never sleeps in, but she only answers my puzzled look with a wide, closed-mouth smile, and it's like a second sun has broken through the fog.