Elsinore Canyon by J. M. Read Free Book Online Page B

buddies, but today he wanted to be alone. Things seemed surreal to him lately. A sea—a literal sea—of cool salt water surged below and around him. It was gentle movement, natural change, rhythm, clarity, wholesome mystery. It broke on the rocks clean. Crisp fountains like thousands of tiny crystals, tinier, down to the molecule. The lubricant of the earth. Nothing sludgy or gelatinous, the way he’d seen it in shipping ports and smoggy coastal cities in Mexico and China—churning, jangling, sick places, worlds away from the havens he knew. He shuffled along the ocean floor and scooped water into his hair. It had already begun to dribble under his wetsuit, to be heated by his body so he’d be wearing a thin, uniform layer of liquid warmth in the cold waves. The cleansing shock when he first plunged his head in. The gentle drag outwards into the curl, the enticing yet terrifying translucent wall that would either crush him or carry him back to shore like a high-speed conveyor belt across a floor of glass. The satisfying crunch into the sand at the end. The smell of wet neoprene. Finishing up an afternoon on his board by bodysurfing—tilting his head down as he took a wave in so the water would rush up his nostrils, through his sinuses, and out his mouth.
    The extreme creatures of this sea. Layers of incredibly rich fat, feathers and fur so fine and tightly laid that during a life of days and nights in the waves, the animal would never know cold. Rubbery skins that looked smooth from a distance, but that actually had nicks and scrapes when you touched them or saw them up close: the wear and tear that came from the rocks and the lower forms, the things that lived in shells and spikey skeletons. Those last ones, you always saw so many of them dead. Did they expire underwater, loosen from the rocks they clung to, and wash ashore as brittle remains? Or did they sicken or suffer below, then float up weakened and helpless to die whole on the surface or the airless sand?
    What had happened to Dana?
    He hadn’t seen her since the day after that miserable wedding reception. Of course she had plenty to be sad about—her mom dead, her dad remarried, and then Phil himself taking off for Alaska right afterward. Still, the change. They had been so close up until the day he got on the plane. He thought of them, together, just a few months earlier, how she used to turn her eyes to him with such trust. The things she said. “I can’t believe you love me.” “God, you’re good.” “You make a girl proud.” She gazed on him—that was the meaning of the word “gaze,” the way she looked at him—when he played his guitar with their friends around, Dana drinking in his music and running to claim a spot on his lap when he finished. And her kisses—her tongue, her teeth, her lips, her fingers curling around his neck to rake his ears, her breasts pressing into his chest, oh God. And he never had to worry when it might inexplicably go bad. Other girls he’d been with always somehow wound up wanting to hurt him, but Dana was so loyal, so steadfast, so sweet. She was strong, but she let him protect her. She was better known than he was, a year older and a fortune richer, but she showed such awe for the things he did, she deferred to him in so many ways. And now this. He wanted to talk to her, to explain, but she didn’t answer any of his messages and she never picked up when he called.
    These last few weeks. All her joy and genius put to this weird shit. People loving and wanting her one day, trashing her the next. His Dana, talked of that way. They didn’t know her. He would be waiting for her when she got over this—whatever it was, and whatever would be left of her. What would be left of them? He needed to connect.
    There was a rip. He’d sucked out way past his usual line, although he was still safe; he’d gone out this far before. A powerful wave would take him back to shore. He skimmed out farther, toward a smooth horizon.