Meet Me in Hawaii Georgia Toffolo (tharntype novel english .TXT) 📖
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- Author: Georgia Toffolo
Book online «Meet Me in Hawaii Georgia Toffolo (tharntype novel english .TXT) 📖». Author Georgia Toffolo
England persisted. Her parents. When would they just smile and approve? When would they be able to talk about Koa without filling her with guilt at being the one still here, and the one that didn’t deserve to be?
Let it go, Malie.
It was as though her brother was in her head telling her to just chill, to enjoy the surf, the last for the night. And then she felt it, the familiar tug of the ocean beneath her; she could see the swell in the sea ahead, the perfect green wave. Here it comes.
She rose up and swivelled her legs beneath the water to turn her board. She lay forward, lifted her chin and paddled. A deep, outstretched motion tight with the board that had her gliding through the water. She checked the wave again, matched her speed and grinned wide. Wait for it. Wait for it.
Her board lifted with the sea. Now.
Up she popped. ‘Thank you, Mother Nature!’
Nalu barked, frolicking into the water at her excited yell. This was why she surfed. This was why she couldn’t give it up, not for her parents, not for anything. Harnessing the power of the ocean, the adrenalin rush of being propelled along, of getting it right and flicking the board this way and that… taking control.
She glided with the wave, heading into shore and already she knew, she just needed one more.
It wasn’t like she’d spend that long getting ready anyway.
She turned and dropped down onto her board. The sun was settling on the horizon, beckoning her out, its orange glow stretching far and wide and mirrored in the sea. She fell forward and started to paddle, her eyes on the sun, her heart not ready to leave.
Nalu barked and her conscience pricked: You’re going to be late.
She ignored it. It was just one more ride.
She stopped paddling, the lull in the waves giving her time to sit and ponder, to take in the beauty before her.
The geographic gap fell away and she could just as easily be sitting on her board back in Devon, in Hawke’s Cove. Sunsets were much the same when you were staring out at the never-ending sea.
A longing came over her, an ache she couldn’t quite shift – if only she were back in the Cove. If only things were different.
It would always be home to her. Even if it wasn’t the right place for her anymore. She couldn’t be trapped by it again, by her parents and their fears, their disapproval of her surfing, their pain over Koa’s death. Hawaii gave her the freedom that she needed, and she was so grateful to her godfather for giving her the job at his surf school.
And she loved it, really loved it. She got to surf all day, teaching others about the magic of the ocean, the power of the wave, the freedom.
As though sensing her mood lift, the waves started to swell before her.
Maybe one day her parents would accept her. She swivelled her board around. Maybe one day she could return.
She dropped forward, felt the rush of the ocean beneath her, behind her, as familiar as her own heartbeat. No, she would never give this up. And until her parents could accept it was a part of her, she would just stay away.
Crazy when she considered that it was them who had given her this addiction, the surf school they’d run once-upon-a-time being her home from home as a child. But that had all been before the unimaginable had happened, the—
Her thoughts quit, there was movement in the sea ahead, Nalu was in the water, barking. The sound was sharp, incessant, like the rise of an alarm.
What the—
‘H-help… Help…’
The yell sounded male, an accompanying spluttering the unmistakable sound of a person taking on water. The lifeguard in Malie had her scanning the water, the hairs prickling at her nape.
The sea, the shore, was shrouded in darkness and she squinted into it as her eyes adjusted from the sunset. How long had she rocked out here for? How long had she sat—
Oh goodness, no.
She caught a glimpse of someone in the water, their strokes hurried, panicked. She could no longer make out Nalu, but they were definitely in trouble. Either side of them the waves were breaking, the perceived stillness of the water in which they swam telling her the person was caught in a rip current and instinctively fighting for shore.
‘Don’t fight it,’ she yelled. ‘Go with it!’
She was already paddling for them, her head raised and eyes trained on their position. They didn’t seem to hear her and she cursed, yelled again, ‘Hey, over here!’
The waves were picking up, getting bigger, but it worked in her favour, propelling her closer until she was almost parallel to the person.
‘Swim to me!’ she yelled, one hand waving at him to come her way.
Finally he saw her, his eyes wide as he flicked his hair off his face and continued to strike for shore. He was going nowhere and if anything, he was struggling more, fear making his strokes ineffective and sending him under.
‘You can’t fight the current.’ It was difficult to stay close to him now as each wave urged her into shore, but she couldn’t let it. She had to stay with him. ‘You need to get out of it, come towards me.’
She could see the disbelief on his face, knew the look of fear well. He wasn’t coming out. She was going in.
‘It won’t take you under, I promise.’
He shook his head, his mouth filling with water as he gasped.
‘If you can’t swim to me, float on your back, go with it and I’ll get you.’
It was as though he wasn’t listening now, just propelling his arms forward in a jagged front crawl that was too
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