Train Wreck Girl by Sean Carswell Read Free Book Online

either, because this girl was only eleven or twelve years old and Rosalie was my age. But still, I liked it. I liked seeing ghosts of Joe and Rosalie and walking out of the ocean and feeling like I was back in that time when people were still alive and the future felt promising.
    I climbed up the boardwalk. The girl said to me, “Where’d you get that little board?”
    â€œIt’s mine.”
    The girl said, “Oh, I thought you stole it from your son or something. It’s way too small for you.”
    This hurt. She could’ve have said she thought I stole it from my little brother or something. She didn’t have to say my son. Because was I really old enough to have a son who rode a six-foot shortboard? It’s one thing to call me fat. I can take that. But she could’ve left my age out of it. I said, “What’s your name, little girl?”
    â€œTaylor.”
    â€œIs that your first name or last name?” I asked, knowing that surely it was her first name and this question would probably piss her off. It did.
    She said, “Fuck you. I’m not the fat guy trying to surf on a potato chip.”
    â€œNo,” I said. “You’re the little asshole who’s afraid to paddle out.”
    I thought I was just holding my own with this girl. She was the one who started it. Calling me fat and old. Right out of the blue. Right when I was finally feeling good. But I guess I was more than holding my own. I was being the bully, because as soon as I said what I said, little Taylor started crying. Just like that. In a flash. Tears coming out before she could stop them. She turned and ran down the boardwalk, away from me.
    I should’ve felt bad for making that little girl cry. I should’ve felt like a bully. But I didn’t. Not really. Later, I would. In a few months, this would become one of those moments that I really wish I could relive, that I could go back and fix. At the time, though, it didn’t really bother me at all. Instead, the whole scene made me think of Sophie: the way a girl could hit me right on my sorest nerve and run away crying like it was all my fault. That was Sophie’s trademark.
    And at that moment when I should’ve been chasing down a little girl to apologize, or at least thinking about Sister Janie’s five-thirty ultimatum, I sat on the handrail of the 3 rd Street boardwalk. Looking out at the ocean. Wondering where Sophie was and whether or not I could get in touch with her.

9
Hurricane Sophie
    I thought I had it made in Kill Devil Hills until that hurricane blew in and brought Sophie with it. This was back in ’92. This was how Sophie and I met. She rode in on a storm.
    Before the hurricane had really hit, six of us headed for Jennifer’s place to ride it out. The night still looked like a typical summer thunderstorm, with palm trees bending nearly in half and sea oats pushed flat to the dunes and street signs flapping back and forth as if the signposts were stuck between huge, nervous fingers. The real destruction would come later. Later, porches would tumble down the street and roofs would get ripped off of houses and streets would flood. In the meantime, it was the rain and the wind and six drunk kids in my Galaxie, me drinking a beer as I steered toward Jennifer’s.
    I’d only known Rick before the storm came in. Rick was from Cocoa Beach. He’d moved up to the Outer Banks of North Carolina the year earlier. When iron working got to be too much for me down in Cocoa Beach, Rick helped me move to Kill Devil Hills. He helped me get a job as a bar back, too. The other four drunks, I’d just met them. The two girls and guy in the back seat were friends of Rick’s. Two of them, Marigold and Christian, nuzzled against each other like lovers. Marigold wore a hemp necklace and Birkenstocks and argyle socks. She had a tattooed flower on her shoulder. Christian had white boy dreadlocks and a face that