Salt

Chapter 1

I gasp for air as my head breaks the surface of the water like a stone breaking through glass.

The sun meets my scalp immediately as I tilt my chin towards the overwhelmingly bright sky, salt on my lips and beads of sea water gliding down my skin.

I whip my body around on my board and gaze towards land. I was so far away, everyone on the beach looked like ants.

"I would pay attention if I were you, Keller," I hear a familiar, muffled voice to my left. I shake my head trying my best to get some of the water I had collected over the past five hours out of my ears. I grin at Nate, who is sitting on his own board nearby.

"This is the wave we've been waiting for all day, can't let this one go to waste," he continues as he begins to paddle on his stomach towards the germinating mass of water headed our direction. His tanned back muscles moved rapidly as he proceeded on.

I  consider responding when I realize that I'm about to miss the chance I had been waiting for all day. I quickly transition onto my stomach and follow Nate deeper into the ocean.

Salt sprays in my face as my board begins to move up on the monster wave, my heart beating faster as I get onto my feet. I hear Nate's goofy laugh over the sound of the ocean's scream nearby and my muscles loosen up slightly, remembering that I am not alone.

I move with the curling, roaring water, all noises and thoughts I originally had crammed into my head disappearing and dissolving into the water underneath me. As I come closer to land, I raise my arms and smile in triumph before letting myself fall back into the blanket of blue surrounding me.

My fingers curl around my board and clutch it to my body as I look around for Nate, who is nowhere to be found. "Nate!" I call into the hot, summer air. "Nate!"

I watch as he explodes through the water further out, a defeated look on his face. When he sees me staring, he flashes me an embarrassed half smile and shrugs.

A laugh escapes my lips as I walk onto the beach, the hot sand stunning my toes.

"Pretty impressive, Lainey," I look up through the ropes of wet hair in front of my face and see the familiar pair of bright blue eyes and tanned shoulders that belong to my best friend. "If it were me out there I would've left you in the dust," he flashes a mischievous grin.

"You wish," I retort, twirling ribbons of hair away from my face and dropping my board next to me. "And so does Nate, most likely."

Wes chuckles and grabs my board off the sand, tucking it under his arms effortlessly. "Nate!" He waves his free arm at the head bobbing in the water. "What happened?" he cackled.

We waited a few minutes for Nate to swim to shore, suppressing our smirks as he crawled to shore, panting profusely. "I don't know man, this board is defective or something."

"Oh, how tragic," Wes taunted him, putting a hand on Nate's head and ruffling his black hair. "Maybe tomorrow it'll work a little better?"

"Tomorrow," Nate confirmed under his breath as he stalked towards the car, water droplets running from his sunburned chest all the way down to his sand coated toes. His wet suit hung limply around his waist.

"He's just embarrassed that a girl is a better surfer than him," I whisper to Wes who drapes his arm over the shoulders with a content look on his face. I smiled to myself.

He throw my board in the back of his beat up red truck and headed towards the drivers seat. I stand near the passengers door, peeling my wet suit away from my tanned (and slightly sunburned) skin. I secretly wish that Wes would look over and see my in my new bathing suit top, just a glance, but I don't catch anything. Typical.