Moving Through The Waves

Eleven

Darwin

The verdict was, that Mum's house had been checked and Zander wasn't there, let alone Bailey.
As much as I'd been ready to join the party searching for my best friends' Little Sister, it was my job to track down my Little Brother.
Chances were, if I could find him, I'd find her as well.
I didn't pretend to understand their attachment to each other.
The story was that they broke up yesterday, but I'd seen my fair share of them falling apart and then piecing back together again, so I wasn't convinced that they wouldn't be found together, ignoring the rest of the world.
When I didn't find Zander at the Beach, Surf Club, Skate Park, The Caves and more than one of his friend's confirmed by text that he wasn't in School, I'd boosted to Mum's house.
I'd turned her caution up a notch, into worry, when I'd walked through the door and asked her if She'd seen Zan - even though I already knew his car wasn't in the driveway.
She'd told me She hadn't seen him since last night and She expected he'd gone to the airport to catch his plane to Queensland for his next comp.
I'd checked his room anyway and found his board's were still leaning against the wall and his phone laid on his bedside table, the screen filled with literally an obscene number of unanswered call's and text's.
Zan wasn't on a plane, or waiting at the airport.
He'd need his board's if he was competing.

Brogan

Part of me knew that I was sitting in an uncomfortable chair in the Hospital's Emergency waiting room.
But, the scenes rushing through my head didn't match.
On a constant replay that I couldn't seem to stop, was the moment where Corbin and I found our Baby Sister lying on the leaf and stick littered path at the edge of the National Park, unresponsive.
We'd failed her.
We let her Mum take off across the fucken Country with her.
We'd trusted her smile's when she got home.
And now...
Now, she was behind those door's that only the Staff can let you through.
All.
Because.
We'd.
Stopped.
Watching.
Her.
Raking my finger's into my hair, I registered that my arm's were shaking.
But, instead of seeing the scarred Hospital floor at my feet, all I could see was Bailey's unmoving form on that nature littered pathway, blonde hair strewn across the path and skin freakishly pale.
My heart was breaking right there inside my chest.
Or rather, I think I'd left it back at that Western entrance to the National Park.
The conversation's around me were just white noise.
In a slideshow, snap's of my first glimpse of the blonde figure laying across the path on her right side, a closer up view which confirmed it to be my Baby Sister and then her pale face cradled in my hand's while I begged her to wake up and Corbin got on the phone, his voice a broken, tortured sound as he'd given the Emergency Services the details of our whereabouts and then called Arian.
After he'd gotten off the phone, Corbin, the only one of us who actually religiously stuck to Surf Life Saving, found our Baby Sister's small pulse.
I hadn't prayed since we were eleven, when Corbin got wiped out in the waves and Darwin, Elliot and I dragged him to the sand, his head bleeding and him not answering me.
I'd yelled at our Best Friend's to run and get help.
They'd taken off.
And I'd sat in the wet sand, my Twin Brother's head trickling blood onto the ground, tipped my head back to look at the grey, angry looking sky (I'd learned later that a vigorous storm was brewing) and I'd clamped my hand's together over my chest and begged for my Twin, my other half, to be alright.

Zander

Sitting a mere metre or so from the edge of the cliff that overlooked Snake Pit — one of the worst, yet best Beaches that our Coast, State and Country, even the World has to offer — , I barely saw the monster waves roaring into motion over the reef, then smashing down onto the shore with an echoing boom.
I was twelve the first time my Brother's let me hit this break with them, when the waves weren't much different to the size and power they were today.
I'd come out with a gash the length of my left forearm (which still held a scar of evidence) and a busted lip.
All of the crew that had hit the break had given me various degrees of praise when we'd finished up, from knuckle's and back slap's, to most of my Brother's and the Evans Boy's literally hugging me.
And then Darwin, to Benjie's disgust, had handed me a can of Jack Daniel's from one of the esky's that had been brought along.
Today, I wasn't here to Surf.
My head was a fucked up mess.
While a surf in some of the most intense waves I could find would normally be my go to, my heart was seemingly even more wrecked than my head at the moment, so, while it felt like the perfect time to be a reckless idiot, hitting a break like Snake Pit would be a suicide mission even more so than it already was, if I couldn't focus at all.
I can't risk death or paraplegia — Mum need's me (or more likely the money I'm now bringing in from the surfing comp's).
"So what exactly's ya plan?"
Having grown up with eight older Brother's, I was generally pretty desensitised to them sneaking up on me.
Also, I can pick each and every one of them by voice, no matter where we are, or who, or what is around.
"What d'ya want?"
I grumbled, not taking my eyes off the raging wave's.
"Maybe to find out why the fuck you're not at the Airport, or at least on your way there?"
Darwin answered, his feet, thong's, lower leg's and bright yellow board short's moving into my peripheral vision.
"Fuck off!"
I retorted, not at all interested in his antagonising.
There was a reason that I'd come up here.
To be alone.
Out the corner of my eye, I watched my Brother ease himself down to sit beside me.
"Go to work, Darwin."
I grumbled, eyes on the ocean.
"R.D.O."
He replied, folding his arm's across his knee's.
"Then fuck off and find somebody else to annoy!"
I snapped, turning my head to shoot him a glare, even though I knew it wouldn't so much as make him flinch.
When you've got eight older Brother's, they just laugh and tease you, no matter how threatening you think you're being.
"So it's true."
I frowned.
"What's true?"
"That you and Bailey split."
My first instinct was to flinch, but the stubborn 'youngest of nine Brother's' me, tried hard for a partially blank, little bit pissed off face.
"Good new's travel's fast..."
I grumbled, turning back to the surf.
"I'm not gonna lie and tell ya that I understand how ya feel..."
Darwin hedged.
"I don't wanna talk about it!"
I snapped, clenching my jaw so hard that I heard my teeth grind.
"All I was gonna say, is that I'll listen if ya wanna talk."
I kept quiet, since I'd already given him my answer.
Wrapping my arm's around my shin's, I glared out at the water, while my heart pounded unsteadily in my chest.
"Oooooookaaaaaay."
Darwin muttered.
"You can fuck off now."
I told him.
"'Fraid i can't do that."
He denied.
My blood felt just about at boiling point!
I snapped my head around to look at my Brother.
"How many fucking way's do I have to tell you to leave me the fuck alone?!"
Darwin's left brow arched.
"I can't do that when you're supposed to be boarding a plane in less than two hour's."
I scoffed!
"Since when do you have a problem with people foregoing what they're supposed to do?!"
He stared at me, expression uncharacteristically serious.
"Zan. You fuck this up... and you'll lose your chance at going Pro."
"Does it look like I care?!"
I shouted.
"The only Girl that I've ever loved has decided that we don't matter. So, like I give a rat's fucking arse if I stand a chance at going Pro!"
Darwin clenched his jaw tight and breathed in hard enough that I literally saw his nostril's flare.
I was pushing it, but, maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing if my Brother kicked my arse.
"You're talkin' to someone who in that aspect, has already been in your shoes."
Darwin gritted.
"You didn't have the Girl you love rip your heart out and set fire to it!"
I retorted.
"You landed yourself in fucking jail!"
Darwin's fuse was about to blow, I knew that much.
"If you won't rack off, then I will!"
I hissed.
"I like Bailey, Zan. You know we all do."
He told me, voice tight.
"I don't want to fucking—"
"But a breakup's not worth fucking your career!"
Darwin yelled, cutting me off.
I tried really hard not to flinch.
Losing Bailey's not worth—?!
Darwin held his hand's up, palm's forward, as if holding off an attack.
Smart move.
The edge of the cliff was too close for us to start throwing punches.
"All I mean, is that you can go and compete, give you both some space and make up when ya get home."
Darwin explained.
"There is no 'us getting back together'!"
I hissed.
Darwin frowned.
"She broke up with me!"
I snapped.