Alpha Beach

Dropping In

Dropping in gives her the same thrill that it always does, even on the tight three footers. Each wave had its skill level. There was no denying it.

Giants though? It was like riding with Poseidon himself. 

Michelle’s board dipped only further off of the wave. It’s curve claimed the steady space of the wall she would usually plant down on and so she flung out her arms to the sides of her for balance but as soon as the rest of the world disappeared, it was just her and her wave. 

Big wave surfing was a lot like party waves where many surfers would drop in for their chance to quench their adrenaline rush but no one followed her. Not one single surfer had been on that wave. 

Shane’s message lingered in her mind but the roar of the wave surging forward and the beginning of a barrel had taken over. Where smaller barrels usually looked like surfing through ice or glass forms, this wave was so thick that only the gleam on the surface remained. Michelle cut through it effortlessly, feeling each ridge pull up and into the falling curve. The water beside her crashed harshly into itself. It created a white wall of spray just beyond her that could still be felt as she cut through and out to the other side. 

The ocean, the earth, her connection with it all fell silent as she rode out the remainder of the shoulder. 

Michelle didn’t return to ride again. She was simply looking for her exit. She didn’t need a bunch of Alphas telling her how stupid she was for riding one when she had her whole life ahead of her. They didn’t even know her.

None of them did, except for one. 

Michelle didn’t bother looking for him though. Whatever they had was over. She could feel it, the unrelenting pressure of knowing she barked at him the way she did. She could see the way he backed up from her, affronted. Like he couldn’t believe that her life was just hers, not everyone else’s.

When did everyone else care? Where were they when she needed them? Nowhere.

Those other people couldn’t be her responsibility now just because of riding one wave, Michelle told herself. Shane had no right planting that idea in her mind. 

Michelle then bent down to straddle her board and look off into the horizon, deep in thought. She missed the way that a jet ski team had pulled alongside her and the head guard that spoke up beside her. 

“Micha?” he questioned her to see if she was with it. 

Michelle knew the deal. The lifeguards did what they could to connect with their victims but she was no victim. 

“Ketten. Michelle Ketten, Brennan,” she replied, knowing the guard’s last name and that they specifically went by them to avoid confusion along the enormous coast they served. 

“Ah,” Elan Brennan chuckled. “You gave a lot of people a scare, missy,” he replied. 

“I did not,” she huffed. 

“We know what you’re capable of,” he stated boldly. “But they don’t.”

There it was again. The push for her to be more to a society that ignored her. Or better still the Alphas still deciding if they could drop in for their bragging rights. Who had the largest cojones didn’t seem like a contest she belonged in anyway. 

Michelle squinted as she looked over Elan’s shoulder. It wasn’t easy given his height on the jet ski but she was able to see around his lean form to see the beach absolutely mobbed. 

“What’s with the ambulances?” she asked curiously. 

Elan shook his head. 

“A lot of scared parents started reporting missing children cases, thinking their runts were on that wave,” she heard him chuckle nervously about it. “Enough of them called emergency services that Mr. Skyran shut down the competition.”

“That didn’t happen,” she refused the thought, then turned swiftly to look behind her. 

She was surprised to see the chopper flying out to let them know as Elan informed her that they should all head back to the beach. 

“Contest is over,” she heard Mr Skyran shout over the intercom at the beach. 

He proceeded to let people know that it would be rescheduled before the speaker clipped off. There was no way that man wasn’t cursing her out now. This was supposed to be one of Alpha Beach’s crowning achievements. Naming an Alpha the winner meant a contract to join what the surfing community there knew as “The Circuit”. It was a way into being a professional athlete and living the dream. 

It wasn’t Michelle’s though. Michelle just wanted to follow her heart. It would be nice to get the Alpha of her dreams and just live along the coast as she always had. Sure it was simple but there was something slow and lovely about it. 

She shook her head in defeat. 

“I just wanted to do it too, El.”

Elan was quiet as he watched over the surfers from his vantage point. 

“Alphas can be assholes, Mich. A lot of them were out here today.”

“I’m well aware of that…” she interrupted then saw the clarity of his concern. “I better go then, huh?”

“Might want to make yourself scarce, hun. At least for a little while,” he answered. 

She watched as Elan revved his jet ski and how it lurched forward in response before taking off behind her. Michelle assumed it was just to deal with another checkpoint and relay that he had spoken to her about their dilemma when she realized several other jet skis were cutting through the water too. It seemed like a rescue was underway and she did not need to be in the middle of that. 

Instead she wished him luck and settled back down onto her stomach to paddle out and down along the coast. There she dropped into smaller waves that helped her retreat all that much faster. It didn’t matter though. Beach goers of all types could see her now. Where she would blend right in and be nothing, she now held a torch to her name. She was more than them and they knew it. 

Some snarled at her while others pointed. 

The crash of the waves around her had been enough to ease her anxieties about their sudden interest in her and Michelle welcomed it. What did they want with her anyway? Someone to idolize when they didn’t once feed her?

“Hey!” she heard someone shriek from the shore but Michelle kept moving, blind to the rest of the world now. 

She then dipped down into another wave only to be sidelined and thrown from her board. 

Michelle landed awkwardly on her knees as the tight barrel took over. Her board shot off in another direction while her leash kept her together with it.The wave swallowed her the way that many hoped the giants would after her little display, but they could go screw. The wave’s energy ripped through her. It tossed her around and made the world spin when she finally  emerged. 

“What the hell?” she gasped, looking for the i***t that gave her the love tap. 

Michelle looked all around her before her board shot back up and rested on the surface as if nothing had happened. While Michelle knew she had a special connection with the sea and her beloved sport, she knew she wasn’t invincible. She would wipe out and often. She knew how to land if she did go flying and that more often than not, that they were not alone in the ocean. 

That tap could have been anything. 

As Michelle pulled herself back onto her board she nervously looked around the sparkling mirrored water for a large, dark almond shape only to find nothing. 

It was in her head, she told herself. 

She must have hit another surfer or a kid in the waves which made her feel like s**t. Being ran over is just the worst…

“Hey!” Michelle heard the person holler again from just beyond the waves. 

It wasn’t male which was a surprise given the fact that she had ruined their day. Michelle frowned as she paddled to find out who was calling her just to find Lana on the other side.

Lana and Michelle had been friends for just about as long as Shane and she had been. They, however, were the same age. They were beach rats together. They spent the day following the guards around, which included Shane and his friends. They would sit by their lifeguard stands and wait out shifts with a deck of cards or simply surfed for attention. If they were in the water, they had it. At least, thats what they told themselves. 

“Lana?” Michelle questioned her friend. 

“You look surprised to see me,” her friend snorted. 

“Honestly, I was waiting to be eaten by a bull shark. Thank you very much.”

“For what? Bumping your board?” Lana chortled. “Those damn things have no chill. It would have eaten you while you were on it.” 

Lana had a point but it didn’t scare her any less. Michelle’s eyes still flickered down towards the surface around them before asking her friend what her deal was. 

“Next time we’ll get you a radio…” Lana added. She clearly was enjoying this too much. “People went crazy on the beach.”

“Elan said that much at least.”

“You should have heard the way the other Alphas were cussing you out.”

“I heard enough of that on the way in,” Michelle assured her friend. 

“Oh, I don’t mean them.”

“Who then?”

“The lifeguards. They were seriously taking bets on what Mr. Skyran would do…”

“If I returned to that waiting mob?” Michelle snorted, then sat up on her board. 

The girls dipped and rose behind the waves gently while the two conversed. 

“I wouldn’t have done that. I still don’t know where I’m going to walk out of here. Especially not within range of a bathroom.”

Lana nodded at that fact. 

“It seems like people are following you now. If you want to make a break for it, stretch three is close to home. Dad fixed the sauna,” she added cheerily which made Michelle want to listen longer. Her friend’s happiness was like fuel she needed to survive and the pang of hurting Shane this morning still ripped through her. 

“I think I’m just going to shower here and try to find Shane,” she said as nonchalantly as she could but her friend knew. It seemed like they all knew and that she was still floundering around in a world she didn’t know.