Harper's Hurricane

03 | effervescent

03

" — HARPER? THERE IS someone at the door for you."

I woke up. Not because I wanted to, and not because my mom was yelling my name downstairs. But because, moments later, she came trudging up the steps, landing three firm knocks on my bedroom door.

"Harper? There's, uh...a boy."

My eyes shot open, darting to the clock. 6:47 AM.

"What did you say, mom?" I said, sliding my feet into the paneled floor as I sat upwards.

"A boy. Not a bad looking one, either, but pretty unfamiliar. Did he just move in here? I heard there was a couple moving into the Robinson's house down the — "

I swung open the bedroom door. "A boy? What boy?"

Of course I knew what boy. What other boy would it be? I mean, it could've been Luke from two doors down, or Jackson, or —

No. They would never come to my door. Not when cellphones existed and they could skip the awkward social interaction all together.

"Curly hair, about...eh height." She motioned with her hands, and that confirmed it.

As I pulled on a pair of shorts and scurried down the stairs, I cursed his name six times over for waking me up at seven in the morning during summer.

That was, until I swung open the door and saw him. He had a surfboard tucked under his arm, swim trunks pulled on and — well, he was topless, too. That was a bonus.

I blinked. "Chase?"

He frowned, eyes roving me over as he saw me. "Did I wake you up?"

"Do you know what time it is?" I said, tapping my bare foot against the door.

He just shrugged, leaning the surfboard against the outer wall. "Early. The best time to surf is the mornings, right? At least, that's what google told me."

With this, I stepped out onto the front walkway, pulling the door closed behind me so my mother couldn't eavesdrop any further.

"You know how to surf?"

He grinned. That boyish smile again. "No. But you can teach me, right? I mean, you said you like to surf a lot, so..."

Used to, I thought, but I hardly felt like correcting him. I bit my lip, taking a moment to turn this over in my head. I'd never been a good teacher. I was incredibly impatient and I wasn't exactly the best at explanations. He was strange, new, unfamiliar. But he was so enthusiastic...

For a moment, I thought that maybe Chase Wilson was exactly what I needed.

____________________

Of course, it turned out to be a bad idea.

Chase Wilson, to put it in layman's terms, could not surf.

He was surprisingly light on his feet, though, which made sense after he'd explained he had played football since he was in middle school. There was some part of me that thought, sure, we could take that athletic ability and transfer it to a different sport.

Then, I'd asked him if he'd ever played a different sport. The answer was...illusive. It went something like:

"Well, I tried soccer. But they don't let you pick up the ball, you know, and...well, I played hockey for a couple weeks..."

He gave up after eight tries. The first was hopeless, as expected. The second wasn't any better. The seventh was — well, he didn't take a dive face first that time. But the eighth, the surfboard ended up shooting right into the air, and then right back down onto his head.

That was the end of his surfing career. And maybe his brain, too.

"Jesus Christ, I can hear ringing in my head," he mumbled, sat in the sand with the surfboard thrown beside him.

"I think I see a lump," I said. I tilted my head a bit as I looked at him, watching a panicked expression grow as he felt around his head.

"Are you serious? Because I don't — " he stopped, squinting his eyes at me as I laughed. "Alright, very funny. How the hell do you do it, though?"

I plopped down into the sand beside him, resting my arms on my knees. "Practice. Repetition. You're not gonna cry, are you?"

He sent me a light shove but grinned, nevertheless.

A silence settled over us then. Not an uncomfortable one, as I'd found myself strangely comfortable in his presence now, despite my usual hesitancy towards strangers.

I couldn't help but look over at him. It had been so long since I'd really spent time with someone other than my mom, or James, and there was some strange pull that Chase had on me. As he sat there, hair sopping wet and muscles corded in the sun, I couldn't figure it out.

Maybe it was my naiveness, or blatant inexperience with things like this, but I wanted to know him. I wanted to know something other than what I already did. But —

I stopped, dragging myself from my reverie. That was certainly a dangerous path to go down.

"So what did you do?" I said, breaking the silence. He looked over at me. Blinked. Then said,

"What do you mean?"

"Why'd your parents send you here? Did you get in trouble, or something?"

He nodded then, looking back out at the ocean. It was rough still; white caps on the tops of the waves as far as you could see, the growing wind blowing past them.

"It doesn't really matter what I did, though, because it was all the same. No matter what it was, to my parents, it was wrong. So...off to prison I go, I guess."

I pursed my lips. "You think of Port Haven as a prison?"

He looked at me, turning his body to face me and steadying himself with his hand in the sand. "Come on, Harper. There's nothing here. Old people come here to die with a pretty view — not to be morbid, or anything. Don't you want to get out of here?"

That stung. Hearing someone say those things, especially someone who knew nothing about me, or my home...

I stood up, adjusting my shorts on my hips and holding out a hand for him. "Come on."

"What?" He was confused at first, looking at my hand before he realized. Then, he grabbed it and I tugged him upwards with...okay, quite a bit of strain. He wiped the dirt off his shorts and said, "where the hell are we going?"

"Port Haven isn't a prison," I stated. "I'll show you."