Normal People || Baxter Radic

1| Mabel

There's days where I suffocate. If I don't touch the water and let it lap against my skin, my breath begins to fade and the world turns grey. I itch to be in the ocean, I want to become one with the waves and if that's taken away from me then I'm nothing. Mum blames my dad. She says that it's his fault for getting a job and making the family move sixteen-thousand kilometres across the globe to Australia. 'She'd be normal if we stayed in Leeds.' She'd say when six-year-old me would throw a tantrum when we were not allowed down to the beach.

Truth be told, I don't think mum ever wanted to move here. It's no wonder her and dad divorced when I was ten. She moved back to England in a matter of months and left us with dad. She tried to take us but couldn't face the hassle of unsettling us and making us start from scratch again. I guess she had good intentions, but every year we end up being shipped back to England at some point. Thankfully it's usually during the winter, so it's summer there but the seas in England have the shittiest breaks and the waves are pitiful.

My brother, Abe, he's normal. Or at least, in mum's eyes. Sure, he'd surf a bit with his mates during the summer but apart from that he was your typical teenage boy - all videogames and girls. Whilst I'm riding the waves, some random girl is riding him and he isn't shy from keeping those details to himself. 

We landed back in Australia two days ago and I've been bed ridden ever since. I don't think I'll ever get used to the jet lag. My body aches and I feel like a ball of concrete under the sheets, not even the calling of the waves can drag me from my pit. The second I wake up and feel the slightest bit brighter I'm up and out of the house before the sun comes up. 

I kick my shoes off at the edge of the sand and drop my clothes on top of them, feeling my feet melt into the sand and the breeze nip at my skin. I race to the waters edge. Pink and orange skies reflect onto the calm waters, and the slightest trickle of water splashes onto my toes. 

I shiver but take another step forward and another, and another until the bitter water submerges my waist. My breath escapes me but I marvel in the weightlessness I feel from it all. I dunk myself beneath the surface, kicking my legs and breaking the water with my hands, pushing myself further away from shore. 

I lay on my back watching as the sky mellows into a soft blue as the sun rises even more. I like the stillness, that despite the soft waves rocking me, I am stuck. Stuck in peace as the world slows. The morning is one of the best time to relax in the water, it's serene and hardly anyone except a few cold water swimmers, or dog walkers are at the beach. You can be alone with your faults or be alone with silence. There's no pressure to think or feel anything. You can just exist. 

Existing is a a privilege people take for granted. 

A scream breaks the silence, rippling through the water and piercing through my ears. So much so I fail to realise I am the person screaming until I'm fulling hauled onto a board. I'd swallowed water and flop over the edge of the board, hacking my lungs up as a hand slaps my back. 

As my chest heaves and my knuckles grow white from how hard I grip the edge of the board, I muster a cloggy sentence, in amongst a chorus of coughs. "What the hell did you do that for?"

The boy straddling the board in front of me, hold his hands up. "I thought you were dead!"

"Why?"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe the fact it's six in the morning and your lying face up in the water." He says. 

I slide back into the water and swim away from him. 

"A thank you wouldn't go a miss."

I turn back as he paddles towards me. "You'd be thanked if there was a reason to be thankful."

I reach the shore, ignoring his calls after me and pad up the sand back to my stuff. There's a round of applause from the steps. 

"See I told you she'd be here," the familiar voice of Poppy Tetanui, my best friend, chimes as I approach them. Our other friend, Bodhi Mercer, is huddled next to her shivering and pulling on her hoodie for more warmth. 

I race towards them, swiping my towel up from the sand shaking it and wrapping it around my shoulders. "I've missed you guys!" 

"Got quite the pipes on you, Mabes," Marlon laughs coming up behind us, Ari in tow. "You're out of the water quick."

I grumble. "Well if that weirdo had minded his own business, I'd still be out there."

"Weirdo?" Laughs Bodhi, "You mean Baxter Radic?"

"Am I supposed to know who that is?"