I dipped my fingers into the cool water, letting it slip between them like silk. The horizon blurred into the sky, and for a moment, I let myself get lost in it. Out here, alone on the board, I wasn't the golden princess of the Kooks. I wasn't Emersyn and Warren Aldridge's adopted daughter. I wasn't anything but a girl with the sea beneath her and the wind at her back.
I caught sight of the swell forming in the distance. The tension in the water built, tugging at the edges of my awareness. I paddled forward, my muscles moving with a practiced rhythm, the one thing I could count on to ground me.
As the wave rose, I stood, balancing with the ease that came from years of muscle memory. The wind tugged at my hair, whipping it around my face as I carved through the water, my board slicing the surface. For a few fleeting seconds, I was weightless. The world held its breath, and so did I.
But like all waves, it broke. They always do.
I crouched down, guiding my board back toward the calm. The shore beckoned, the silhouette of the beach house distant but inevitable. I let out a breath, sinking down to sit on the board. The ocean rocked me gently as if it understood.
I didn't want to go back.
Not yet.
But the sun was sinking lower, and the world beyond the waves was waiting. Reluctantly, I lay back down on my board and paddled to shore.
The sand was still warm beneath my feet as I dug my board into it. I let the weight of it settle there as if anchoring me to something real before I could drift too far into my head.
My phone buzzed from inside my bag, and I winced, knowing who it would be.
"Where are you?" my mom's voice pierced through the other end as I answered.
"At the beach," I replied, keeping my tone light, even though I knew it wasn't what she wanted to hear.
"Your flight landed four hours ago, honey," she said, the calm in her voice thinly veiled. "I was getting worried."
