[wattpad editor's picks, nov-dec 2023]
After a one night stand in Monaco between a fallen from grace championship surfer and an up and coming Formula One star, the two are sure they'll never see each other again...but what happens in Monaco doesn't...
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t h r e e w e e k s l a t e r
I was coughing up salt water.
Malia draped a towel around my shoulders as I hiked myself up the beach, dodging fans and reporters on my way back to the cool down room for the surfers at the top of the cliff overlooking the beach.
"Not now, not now," Malia said as she backed a few journalists away from us. "You can talk to her later."
I'd just taken down #4 Alicia Brooks who snuck into the finals after a technicality in Tahiti bumped her ranking up, and since facing her was my first heat of the day, I effectively executed her. I came out of the gate aggressive and took the first waves I could, throwing down hard, technical tricks because I finally had the confidence to know that I could. I posted up an unreachable combo score before the heat had even hit the halfway mark, and Alicia knew it. I was not in the mood for mercy or prisoners today, and the only thing that had been on my mind for the last month was winning here...even if it was only to distract me from literally everything else in my life that seemed to be falling apart at the seams.
I never turned my back on the ocean, and it hadn't turned its back on me. It was all I had left, but maybe that was the way it should have always been.
The new format for the World Surf League finals was primed for hard-hitting, high-scoring heats as it was all jammed into one single day where lower seeded surfers had to fight their way through the higher seeded surfers. For those lower seeded surfers, it was a test of pure stamina, as you had the potential to surf in six heats in one single day. Last year, Stephanie Gilmore caught a clean 24 waves before even reaching the final heat. For perspective, I caught 18 waves in the entire event in Tahiti, all the way from the round of 16 to the final round.
That was why my 2nd place finish in Tahiti was so critical - it solidified my #3 place in the last rankings before the finals, so I'd essentially get a free pass while the two girls who were #4 and #5 duked it out to face me. As if fighting your way through several other surfers in one day wasn't enough, the actual final was a best of three. So even if you somehow managed to make the final, you now had to surf against the person who had been sitting around conserving energy all day in potentially three more heats...and that person sitting waiting for me was obviously Carissa.
Despite living only 30 minutes from San Clemente, I hadn't surfed here since the last time I was in the finals two years ago. Maybe it had been trauma, maybe bitterness, but whatever had stopped me from coming here in the past, it had all washed away this weekend. I had enough of other people's trauma and bitterness now to make what I'd been through the last few years look like an insignificant little drop among the crashing waves on the shore. Perspective could do that to you.
I couldn't even think about Carissa right now, as I still had to face Brit at #2. I heaved out a sigh as I leaned against the wooden deck railing overlooking the beach at Lower Trestles. The finals were always here, as it was considered to be the hardest, most technical wave in the country. It was even a hike to get out there, as it was a two mile walk from the street down to the shoreline, down the cliffside and through uneven paths of brush and sand.
