Ripped

If there was an art to looking sexy at the beach, Heather hadn’t mastered it. She imagined emerging from a calm sea with slick hair and a glistening body, hips swaying as she strode to shore. Instead, she stepped on a sharp shell and screeched like a parrot. An incoming wave hit the back of her knees as she hopped in pain, and she buckled. The roiling water crashed over her body and sent her tumbling toward shore with the churning sand, depositing her on the beach in a tangled mess of limbs and hair.

“WIPEOUT!” Beau screamed next to her ear. It was his new favorite word, and he’d said it at least a thousand times in the last three days.

Heather spit seawater out of her mouth and blindly pushed up to a sitting position. She swabbed tentacles of sandy hair from her face and squinted her eyes as Beau howled with laughter.

“You look like a drowned monkey!”

“Beau, be nice. She’s only half-drowned. Go fetch her a towel.”

The six year old’s feet thumped away on the sand.

“Are you okay?” asked her husband Gary, with laughter in his voice.

Heather had always loved his musical laugh, but today it grated on her nerves like the shell shards that clawed at the soles of her feet until they peeled. She cringed away from his helping hand. “Fine,” she snapped.

He sighed and let go.

“Here, Mom!” Beau offered the end of the towel he hadn’t dragged through the sand.

Heather dabbed carefully around her eyes with little hope of redeeming her wave washed visage. She looked glumly up at Gary and found him studying the horizon where dark clouds slowly lumbered toward land. At least he wasn’t focused on her anymore. 

“A storm’s coming, and it’s 5:30, babe. We need to get showers before dinner.”

“Noooooo!” wailed Beau. He flopped down on his boogie board on the sand. “I’m not ready to go in!”

“Why don’t you go up and take your shower first?” Heather volunteered. “I’ll stay out here with him for a few more minutes.”

“Okay. I’ll bring the cooler and bags so you won’t have to carry much.” Gary quickly gathered their gear and headed toward the boardwalk.

Heather turned back to Beau with her hands on her hips. “Just fifteen more minutes, okay?”

“Deal!” He jumped for joy with his tie dye boogie board still Velcro-ed to his wrist, and it spun in the wind as he skipped to the water’s edge. He squatted and began to dig like a dog, throwing fistfuls of tan sand through his legs. It sprayed out behind him, and a beach walker veered off course to avoid getting pelted.

Heather found her sunglasses and eased into the large, wooden beach chair, a permanent fixture on the beach reserved for the residents of their condo unit. She pulled her salty strands into a ponytail and leaned back with a sigh. The majority of the beach crowd had vanished by now, and Beau was occupied. Finally, a little peace and quiet all to herself.

Although Heather rarely dwelled on negative emotions, a strange disquiet had been nagging at her all week, a frustrating feeling she couldn’t justify. Gary had noticed her annoyance, too. How many times had she pushed him away lately?

She stared out at the turbulent ocean and tried to ignore the hollow pit in her gut. They had been coming to Isle of Palms on the coast of South Carolina every summer for the past ten years. When the sun cut through the murky water, it looked green, at best, but right now it looked slate gray and angry.

A giant wave reached its peak, then plummeted to the water below, colliding with a loud crack that reverberated through her body. The wave continued to curl and collapse down the length of the shore in a watery crescendo that would be repeated in another ten seconds. A strong wind whipped the deeper waters into frothy whitecaps and swirled stray hairs around her face.

A tall man by the water caught her attention. He walked at a leisurely pace with bare feet, unlike the others who power walked the hard packed sand in their walking shoes. And wow, was he ripped! As he moved closer, Heather could see all of the muscles in his lower abdomen flexing and pulling with each step. She suddenly found it incredibly hard to breathe, so she averted her eyes. No, she had dark glasses on! She snuck another peek.

When he looked her way, her heart skipped a beat. But then he walked on past, his eyes inspecting the houses and condos that grew out of the grassy sand dunes behind her. You’re an idiot, she thought. Honestly, did she really want to be looked at by a twenty-something stranger?

She sighed and dug her toes into the sand, leaning over to inspect her 37 year old legs. She was skinny, but soft, not a whole lot of muscle tone peeking through these days. But hey, she didn’t have any varicose veins yet, so she had that going for her at least.

Heather wiggled her toes until they popped out of the sand, bright red polish gleaming through the layer of sand struggling to adhere to its surface. She had painted them to perfectly match her one piece suit… but what was the point…

She watched Beau digging in the sand, and her mind drifted back in time to the trauma of giving birth, nursing him for the first year of his life, staying awake all hours of the night until dark circles formed under her eyes and never went away, chasing him around nonstop but never looking fit, and she wondered why she even tried.  

How much would she pay to relive a day in her life as a 21 year old, playing sand volleyball on the beach on spring break? She smiled. A large sum. Tan skin and abs, laughing in the sun with her friends, drinking a few beers at night without worrying about the calories… Good times.

A determined seagull soon replaced the man in the spot in front of her. It continually beat its wings as it flew against the wind, desperate to get home before the storm hit, but it wasn’t making any progress. It hung in place in the air. “You should just give up,” Heather called out to it.

Lightning sliced the sky, and Heather leapt out of her chair. Thunder boomed immediately, which proved how close it struck.

“Okay, Beau, it’s time to go!” she yelled, but her voice disappeared into the wind. His little hole sat abandoned by the water.

“Beau?” Heather ripped off her sunglasses and spun a quick circle as she scanned the beach. Nothing. Her heart began to pound wildly. She raced down to the water’s edge.

“Beau! Where are you?” she screamed again. A wave crashed, and she spotted a bright flash of color beyond it. Tie dye. 

Heather took off like a shot through the shallow water, then dove in once it got deeper. She put her head down and swam free style, arm over arm as she kicked like mad. She came up for air right as a wave blocked out the entire sky in a sickly brown-green. She held her breath and ducked into it.

For a moment, the roll of the wave pulled her back toward the beach. She felt the circular motion of it, but then it reversed rapidly. An intense pull unlike anything she’d ever felt sped her through the water, out of control, tumbling and flailing until she didn’t know which way was up. The water rushed on, heedless of its helpless passenger.

Riptide.

Heather’s lungs screamed for air as water pummeled her body. She had to reach the surface. Now.

She kicked and fought with all of her might, hoping she chose the right direction. With a final swish of her arms, the water brightened, and she broke the surface.

Glorious air! She dragged it into her lungs as she fought to stay afloat. She was still caught in the current and moving at a rapid pace away from land. She craned her neck in all directions, frantic to find Beau.

Oh, what should she do? What had those signs on the beach said? Heather fanned her arms and beat the water with her legs as she racked her brains for the answer. Swim parallel.

Her eyes snapped into focus at the sight of the boogie board. It was farther out to sea, caught in the same current. Screw parallel. She had to get to Beau.

Thunder boomed again, and the clouds dropped their load as Heather turned and began to backstroke with the current toward the boogie board. She wasn’t about to put her face under again, but the deluge of rain made it almost as hard to get air. She pressed on, one stroke after another, snorting the rain out her nose.

When she turned to see if she’d made any progress, lightning illuminated the water in white fire. There it was- the colorful spiral stretched over foam.

“Beau,” she whispered as she propelled herself toward it. At last, her hand landed on the board. She grabbed the cord and yanked. It swung in an arc across the charcoal sky and landed again on the water with an unholy splat. She plunged her head under with eyes wide open, but all she saw was the inky depths.

“No, no, no!” She clung to the board and spun in a circle.

“Beau?” Her voice cracked as she asked for him, as she asked the waves for him.    

“Beau! Where are you?” she screamed with all her might. Rivers of rain flowed down her face, pooling in her open mouth until she spat it out.

She choked back a sob. “Beau. Can you hear me, baby?” Her voice sank into the ocean, weighed down by the teeming rain. She felt the current ease up, as if it had grown tired of her presence and deposited her in this new place, this new life, this new wasteland.

Heather slid her torso onto the child-sized board and wrapped the Velcro around her wrist, a feeble lifeline, but it was something. She clung to the board and bobbed violently among the whitecaps she’d seen from shore. The unrelenting wind whipped the waves higher and higher as the storm intensified.

A steep wave powered through and flipped her onto her back in the water. Heather reeled the cord in and gripped the board just in time for another wave to wash over her head. She coughed up water after it passed and moaned in despair. They kept coming.

With waves peaking in all directions and walls of gray rain draping from the sky, Heather was completely surrounded by water. In the troughs, morphing mountains blocked her view; on the crests, she needed to look down to see where she would momentarily plummet. She could only think for each moment and hunt for the next breath of air. Beau had slipped away from her, and she was on the verge of slipping away, too.

The monotony of rising and falling, tipping and correcting eventually lulled her into a saltwater stupor as moments and minutes seamlessly merged into hours of watery misery. By the time the storm relented, darkness had fallen.

Finally, the sea leveled out, performing a rapid transformation to a deceptively mercurial state. Heather couldn’t bear to look at it, so she closed her eyes and rested her face on the board as her body hung limp in the water. So exhausted.

Something brushed against her foot, and her eyes popped open. Water swirled and splashed a few feet away. Body rigid. Heart pounding. She waited.

A sleek body thumped her leg sideways. Repulsion shuddered its way through her chest and erupted from her mouth in a garbled wail. Time to move!

Arms paddled wildly and feet kicked out, colliding against a large sea creature. It propelled her forward, but progress was dangerously slow. She whipped her head from side to side in search of shark fins. The dark water rolled and rippled as her hands dipped and disappeared, each stroke made with quaking trepidation. Which one would be her last? 

Heather’s teeth chattered as she paddled on, fatigue and cold tightening her limbs. She pushed up on the board to lift herself higher and looked out over the water. Lights! In the distance she could see a long row of tiny yellow dots. She was headed in the right direction, but she was a long way off. 

For a while, Heather followed a pattern of thirty strokes then thirty seconds of rest, but her stroke count began to drop until two was all she could handle. Her arms were completely zapped, and the lights didn’t look any closer. She bobbed along in the darkness, numb and dejected, and the gentle slurp of the water under the board slowly lulled her to sleep. 

Light pierced her eyelids, and voices echoed across the water.

“This is the U.S. Coast Guard. Please stay where you are. We’re coming up alongside you.” 

She heard a splash and felt warm hands on her arm and back.

“I’ve got you, sweetheart. We’re going to pull you onto the boat and get you warm.” 

Her body now rubber and foreign, Heather relied on the hands of strangers to pull her from the water. They quickly toweled her off and wrapped her tightly in an insulated blanket. Someone guided a thermos of warm water to her lips. Tears began to seep out of the corners of her eyes. “Beau.”

“You’re safe now,” said the man who was holding her stable as the boat zipped over the water.

“Beau, my son,” she repeated louder, gaining a bit of strength from the warmth. 

He stared at her blankly. 

“We need to find my son, Beau! I went into the water to save him.”

“You were the only one reported missing. You are Heather Mayfield, correct?” 

She nodded weakly, terrified to let the seed of hope grow. The suspense shredded her remaining mental stamina, so she closed her eyes tightly and tried to shut down her brain. 

Radio chatter and static mixed with the sound of the engine and the wind in her ears, and only a few minutes later she felt the boat slow down to a crawl. 

Heather opened her eyes and looked up. Gary. Her heart leapt within her chest. He stood on the dock above them, tears streaming down his face as he waited for her. 

The crew helped her up the ladder and into Gary’s arms. Home. She sobbed and leaned into him, clutching his back like she had gripped the board. Her lifeline. His tears dripped into her hair and rolled down her face, merging with her own.

Her crying finally slowed, and her body stilled. She could hear his heartbeat. 

Heather gathered her courage and pulled back. She looked into his eyes and swallowed down the panic that clogged her throat. “Beau?” 

“He’s sleeping in the condo. I found a babysitter.” 

She covered her mouth with her shaking hands and collapsed. 

After a thorough medical exam, Heather walked hand in hand with Gary into the condo. She knelt by Beau’s bed and stroked his silky hair. His breathing was soft and slow, his long eyelashes draped on sweetly rounded cheeks. She couldn’t believe how lucky she was...

Heather snuggled up in Gary’s lap on their porch that faced the ocean. He wrapped his arms around her chest, and she leaned her head back against his shoulder to look at the sky. The storm clouds had all blown away and been replaced with a sprinkling of little white stars. 

“Gary,” her voice wobbled with emotion, “how did you find Beau?”

“Well, I ran down to get y’all when the storm started, and I found him on your chair curled up in a ball. He said he’d been crawling through the sand dunes after a gopher tortoise.” His voice quivered as he spoke. “And you were gone...”

Heather sniffed as she tried to hold back another flood of tears. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. 

“Stop apologizing,” he said gently.

“I just feel guilty.” A single, salty tear escaped and rolled down her face. “I was dissatisfied with my life, but then out there... I had never wanted anything more.” 

He kissed the top of her head. “It’s okay. We’re together now.”