I miss you so much.
Just for a moment, she let her heart swell with the memory of his tenderness. Her body ached to feel his strong arms around her, to feel his kiss on her lips. Her ring flashed in the dim glow of the bathroom lights, and she spun it around her finger, her thumb smoothing over its surface. Pete had designed it himself, right down to the peridot, a volcanic gem that no one else would put in an engagement ring. Looking at her reflection in the mirror, Cassidy saw the tears welling in her eyes and stuffed the rest of her things in the bag. The stabbing pain in her heart was just as crippling as it had been before. Whoever said time heals all wounds is a fucking liar, she thought.
From up on deck, a band of pink silk marked the Eastern horizon, with the sun’s rays still hidden behind the black silhouette of the distant mountain. Bruce and Jesus were nowhere in sight. She squinted into the shadows towards the rocky beach. It was not yet light enough to see the wave, but she could hear its thunder. Her pulse thumped against her eardrums. The boat rocked gently in the swells; she held the railing for support and made her way to the stack of boards lashed vertically to the deck.
Bruce had told her about this wave, one that he claimed to have discovered. “It comes in like a freight train. Most days she’ll tube nice and easy. Gotta wait for low tide, though, or wave breaks too close to the rocks.”
Knowing that if she dove off the boat, it might wake someone, she unsnapped her board then tiptoed to the back deck. After attaching her leash, she lowered her board into the water and slipped quietly in after it. Already, the day was humid, so the water felt fresh and clean on her sunbaked skin. She began paddling towards the low roar of the distant wave.
The tops of the scraggly trees on shore were turning from shifty gray to green as she paddled, and the sunrise seemed to burn a brighter orange by the minute. As she pulled closer to the wave, she noticed another surfer in the water: Bruce, bobbing, his head just visible. It reminded her of the seals she always saw while surfing in the Pacific Northwest. She watched him turn towards the shore and stroke furiously to get into a blue-black lump of water that jacked up as it neared him. She lost sight of him, and the wave curled shut in a deafening roar. When he didn’t reappear after a few seconds, she scanned the area, realizing she was worried. She paddled faster.
A part of her knew this was irrational—Bruce could take care of himself—but she knew that the moment when a person left you could be any moment. This one, or the next. There were no rules.
Then Bruce’s form appeared, swimming leisurely for the outside. She sighed with more relief than she knew was logical, and paddled into position.
“Buenos días,” Bruce said as he joined her.
“Dias,” she replied. In the faint light, she could see his white teeth and cracked lips. She shook off the last of her anxiety.
“You’re up early,” Bruce said, whipping his head vigorously to the side—a move meant to clear his eyes of seawater, Cassidy knew, because Quinn did it. It made her miss her brother, with his cackly laugh, his pranks, and the way he always knew what to say.
“I’m not very good at sleep,” she said.
“Sleep’s overrated anyway,” Bruce replied. “Especially on mornings like this,” he added.
The sun spilled over the land and basked them with its golden light. A cool breeze shifted the hairs on her arms and grazed the backs of the waves. The hiss and sizzle of each wave reaching up, meeting the breeze, growling as it crumbled, made Cassidy shiver.
“So, it’s none of my business, but how did you end up working on a volcano in Costa Rica? I mean, Hawaii has volcanoes, and aren’t the Cascades volcanoes?” he asked, squinting at her.
Cassidy was relieved that he was asking about her work and not her past. “I did a semester in Costa Rica in college. Back then, Arenal was erupting. I was already on a science track, but experiencing that made me fall in love with volcanoes. I didn’t think I would study Arenal, though. I would have been happy with any of the Central American projects, but it just worked out that way.”
“So will you live in Costa Rica?”
Cassidy shook her head. “Lots of people study it and don’t live in the country.”
Bruce seemed to accept this.
“I couldn’t live here,” she said.
“Why not?” he replied, sounding surprised.
Cassidy searched for the right words. “Everything is ‘Pura Vida’ all the time.”
“What’s the matter with that?”
He sounded genuinely interested, so she continued. “There’s no ambition. No urgency to contribute to the world.”
“I have to predict earthquakes to contribute?” he said in a teasing tone.
“I don’t predict earthquakes,” she said quickly. “Nobody can.”
“You know what I mean,” Bruce groaned, giving her a splash.
She realized she was being unfair. Of course, Bruce contributed—she remembered how he had helped the woman caught inside at Witch’s Rock, the kids at Playas del Coco who had swarmed around him, the envelope he had handed to the hotel owner.
“Just make sure you don’t get so busy saving the world that you forget to enjoy it,” Bruce said, giving her a sideways glance.
Pete had called her a workaholic more than once, but she had thrown the term right back at him. They would both often work late into the night, forgetting about making dinner until they were half-blind
