Cinderella in the Surf by Carly Syms Read Free Book Online Page B

 
    But before collapsing into bed, I logged onto the website for the Invitational's smaller tune-up competition and registered myself. Maybe I'll get back on my board today and realize I can never surf again without Alex, but you know what? At least now I'll be able to say I tried.
    But I don't think that's going to be a problem.
    It's like what I told Walker when I first met him: I love surfing and I certainly love Alex, but I don't need the two of them to be together to feel passionate about either one.
    I can love them all the same, with or without each other.
    It's just going to take a little time to get it all right.  
    The small competition is today, this afternoon, just a few beaches over.  
    No better time to prove I've still got it, right?
    Daylight streams in through the sheer white curtains hanging over my windows, and I know I'm ready to get out there and do this.
    I dress in my old bikini and wetsuit and wander into the kitchen.
    Mom's standing over the kitchen counter, pink mug of coffee in hand, staring aimlessly out the window. She spins around and jumps when I walk in.  
    "Oh!" she exclaims when she sees me, her empty hand fluttering over her heart. "Rachel, you scared me!" She looks at me -- really looks -- for the first time, her eyebrows shoot up and she sets the mug on the table with an unsteady hand.  
    "Are you...?" she trails off.
    I nod, and it's hard not to smile. "Yeah," I say. "I'm going back."  
    "In time for the Invitational?"  
    "It's something I've wanted my whole life," I say with a shrug. "Alex and I were always working toward it. I can't sit it out."  
    "Well, finally! This calls for a celebration." She opens the fridge and begins rummaging around. "What do you want? Eggs? Bacon? Waffles? Heck, I can make them all."  
    "Maybe later," I say. "I've got a lot to do."  
    Mom nods and smiles, then goes back to her coffee. I'm left to stand here for a second, stunned by what I see in her eyes, like she really couldn't be happier that I've finally made this decision, and it fills me with even more confidence that this is what I'm supposed to be doing.
    "Your board's exactly where you left it," she says, turning back to the window.
    I grab a bottle of water from the fridge and jog down the wooden back stairs to the sand below. My board is tucked away under the house, behind piles of storage boxes and beach toys that someone in my family had decided they needed to use sometime after I'd quit surfing.
    As I pick my way through all the unorganized stuff, the weight of just how long it's been since I've surfed slams into me. This is the first time I can really see it, laid out right in front of me, no away to get around it or pretend it's only been a little while.
    My brother Seth's tennis rackets, long forgotten after he lost his first match in straight sets, lay on top of a gray plastic bin holding holiday decorations. My dad's running shoes that he hasn't worn since he sprained his ankle a month ago. Mom's old cooking equipment that she replaced when the kitchen was remodeled a few weeks back.
    All tangible reminders of how long I've been kept from the ocean.
    Or how long I've been keeping myself from it.
    But that all gets pushed aside now as I poke my way through the junk and find my surfboard.  
    Air rushes into me as I stand here, rooted in place, staring at the oh-so-familiar but somehow still foreign pink and red swirls on the white board.
    It looks so out of place here, propped up with all the other abandoned junk.
    Because it isn't junk and it definitely isn't abandoned.  
    Not anymore.
    And maybe not ever again.
    I reach out to touch it, and finally, finally, my hands close around the cool fiberglass, the board feeling like it melts right into my fingertips.  
    There's nothing wrong about this right now.
    I pull the board out from the corner its wedged in, working a little harder to get it free from some stubborn cardboard boxes.  
    I carry it out from under the house and tuck