That One Killer Wave

• Lara Whitlock, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2014

The wind blew back my hair and the waves crashed around my ankles. I dived in, my stomach hitting the surfboard making an insignificant splash around
me. Salty water was stinging my eyes like a knife piercing my skin but I was so used to it that it didn’t worry me. I slowly paddled out. Nothing
was making me hurry; I had all day. Sliding my wetsuit up the rest of the way, I smiled as a perfect wave appeared above the horizon.
As I glided down the wave I saw a black figure. It was slender but strong. I peered at it for a while, questions flooding my mind. It was so close I
could touch it now. Then it surfaced. It was Sophie, my closest and most trusted friend. For that one joyous moment, I forgot what I was doing and that I was headed towards her. It was only her helpless cries of pain that woke me from my other world only to find a red ocean. Blood pouring out of Sophie’s nose, mouth and a deep cut in her eye. My surfboard shoved her under that killer wave and that was the last thing I can remember.
I sat up and my eyes adjusted to the light. I soon realised I was not in my room; it wasn’t all a dream. I had hit Soph. Speaking of Soph; I glanced around what I had figured out to be a room in a hospital. There was no one in the room except a small boy who also appeared hurt. I stood up, ripping out the drip from my left hand, but I felt nothing because I was already hurrying down to the nurses’ station leaving only a trail of crimson red liquid behind me.
“She drowned”. Those words had emptied the moments ago full mind and left it repeating the same two heart-breaking words. I had ruined a lot of other people’s lives. But nothing hurt me more than to think I had killed my buddy. I had made so many innocent people miserable. I had ended someone’s life. It wasn’t fair that I, who had done all this, was still alive. My thoughts tied my brain in a knot but I knew the best thing to do was to end my life. I had always believed it would be better to die quickly than to die a slow and painful death, so my guilt got the best of me.
The long walk to the beach was easy, way easier than what I was about to do. I dived down below the waves and I knew I had taken my last breath.
Below the waves was something that glinted in the sunlight gleaming in from the air-filled place above. I realised it was Sophie’s engagement ring. I had to give it to Mark, her fiancé. I grabbed the ring and ran straight to Mark’s place. Once I reached his house he said something to me. Something I will never forget. “Sophie loved you and you loved her back and everyone knows it wasn’t your fault”.
That is what stopped me making that horrid decision on that fateful day.
Mark is my saviour.
But I never did surf again.