![]() Lobsters evolved to swim backwards, compressing their tails to propel themselves away from predators I learned to live in a state of constant apathy, unbothered and unoffended. Their words raked over her body like they owned her. I peered through one of their elbow crevices to see what they were laughing at. “All her photos are in a fucking thong bikini.” Their frosted tips touched as they crowded around one phone screen. Once, while in line for the bathroom at a party, I overheard a cluster of half-baked surfer bros berating someone’s Instagram photos. Maybe if I didn’t piss off the local groms, they would let me into their little club. I should’ve known they were often full of shit, but as a shy tween, I let them take my waves. They were kids who learned about the ocean from their parents. ![]() In the faces of every male surfer, I saw remnants of cupcake-blonde 13-year-old boys in matching rash guards, trash talking foam board users and flaunting their fiberglass shortboards. My imposter syndrome grew as the years went on. Maybe I would have been less bothered if I saw other people in the water who looked like me-girls with brown skin and dark hair, their mothers yelling at them in Spanish from the shore. The demons in my head were heckling locals and ostracizing beach boys. My parents feared the physical dangers, like lethal currents and sharks. The more time I spent in the ocean, the more I craved it. But to be fair, my grandfather did stagger out of the surf on a beach three miles south of where we were. We saluted their tail lights with paint-chipped middle fingers. It was near midnight-a perfect time to catch people swimming to America. We were the only ones out, giggling and ducking below the surface when the border patrol would drive by on the sand. Every time someone got caught in the rinse cycle, the glow stick luminescence gave color to the white water. The full moon even came out to play that night, allowing us brief previews of the dark walls of water approaching before the waves would break. The impatient Santa Ana wind tugged at our glow stick necklaces and tickled our cheeks. We rolled out of the driveway with the headlights off. I took four friends, all of us piling into my mother’s old Chevy Tahoe. I remember sneaking out of my house in high school to go night surfing during El Niño conditions. Jumping into a rip on a surfboard, I could make it past the set waves without getting my hair wet. They saved me energy-sucking me out quickly, protecting my endurance. I dove off the board and let the white water wrap my tumbling torso. Hell, Jesus Christ himself had nothing on me. Some dusty blonde old-timer, a friend of a friend of my father’s, sat on a longboard behind me and pushed me into a mashed potato wave. The first time I caught a wave, I was 12 years old in a red and blue rash guard and pigtail braids. ![]() My mother would pace along the shoreline yelling, “¡Ten cuidado!” She always wondered why I turned toward the ocean and not her. I have no memories of my mother allowing the waves to reach past her ankles, and my father never learned to swim. I would pad along into the water and plunge headfirst into the sea. I was raised in San Diego, but this was abnormal for my family. I spent most of my childhood playing in saltwater. I nodded, “A bit,” and adjusted my weight belt, securing the knife in its sheath. The boys cordially shook my hand, asking if I had done this before. The Aquatic Country Boy and his sidekick strolled over to Liam and exchanged Neolithic handshakes. His passenger door burst open and out popped an overly excited teenager whose hair resembled charred tumbleweed. A small dude in a camo hoodie and a trucker hat hopped out. Then a gargantuan Ford Raptor with a blinding overhead light bar pulled up. ![]() He told me to sit tight while we waited for the others. It was dark, but passing headlights allowed me to spot his wavy hair and goddamn fraternity sweatshirt. He skirted past me as I opened my car door, busying himself by inspecting the gear in my truck bed-occasionally speaking, half to me, half to the sky. I sat anxiously in my pickup truck on Pacific Coast Highway, waiting to go nighttime lobster diving with a guy I just met.Īt 8:30 P.M., Liam arrived in his eighties Jeep Wrangler. ![]()
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