How Lost Souls Love

I Wish it Never Happened

Maisie POV

I stormed to my room and slammed the door. How dare Noah! He was my brother! He was supposed to love and support me no matter what. And then I find him talking to the one person who is treating me normal since New York, and he’s telling him how broken and unfixable I am. 

“Ughhh!!!” I scream as I go to my dresser and rummage for one of the bathing suits I bought at the mall. 

“Maisie” I hear as a knock sounds just as the door opens. 

“Out.” I say slamming the drawer shut. 

“Maisie, I'm sorry , ok. I didn’t mean it the way it came out… I just. I just wanted him to back off.”

“If you wanted him to not be here then you should have been! You PROMISED me Noah!” I scream at him letting my tears fall.

“I.. “ he started looking around the room.

“No! Forget it! I don't want your bullshit excuses Noah! You don't get to abandon me and then get mad at my other friend for actually being here for me!” I say fuming.

“I'm sorry. I just got so caught up with Amy I completely forgot. And then I fell asleep. I woke up this morning and realized what happened and rushed right over. I swear Maisie I never meant to. I would never do that on purpose.” he said leaning towards me and pleading with not just his words, but his eyes.

I don’t even bother giving him a response. I push past him and close myself in the bathroom. It’s sunny outside which is perfect because there's no way I’m staying here with Noah. I pull on my bathing suit shorts and surf shirt and drag my sandals over my feet. 

My phone vibrates next to me and I’m not sure if I want to answer. But I see Dax’s name so I open it up. 

Dax: R U Gona stay here? If not I’m going to surf… you could come if you need to. 

maisie: WAIT FOR ME! 

Dax: I’ll grab your board. I’m in my truck. It’s the white one out front. 

I don’t bother answering. I’ll be in the truck soon enough. I open the bathroom door and walk across to my room to throw my clothes in the hamper.  Noah is sitting on my bed and staring at me. 

“Maisie.. look I’m sorry. I swear I didn’t mean it.” 

“You know Noah.. you’ve been saying a lot of things you don’t mean lately.” I say and leave the room. 

He doesn’t follow me and I don’t stop. I walk out of the house and stop at the white truck. Dax walks out of the garage with my yellow surfboard and puts it in the bed. 

“You ok?” He asks looking at me over the truck as he goes to get in the driver’s side. 

“Ask me later.” I say jumping into the passenger side. 

We don’t talk as we drive away. It’s a comfortable silence given what just happened. I feel a bit guilty making Noah and Dax fight. I look over at Dax and he glances at me for a moment as he drives. Frowning he looks back to the road. 

“Stop it.” 

I make a face. “Stop what?” 

“Feeling bad for Noah yelling at me.” 

My mouth falls open. “How did you know that’s what I was thinking?!” 

He shrugs. “It’s what we do now. People like us I mean. We always feel like things are our fault when they aren't. I blame myself for a battery not holding a charge in a car at least once a week.” He snorts. 

“That’s different. That really is something you couldn’t control. This is something I did. I’m the one that told you to stay with me.” 

“It’s not just you, you know.” He says glancing at me again. “I sleep better when I’m with you too. I usually need sleeping pills to get some shut eye. That first night we fell asleep on the couch? We slept a full 6 hours, and it was the first time I’d gotten a good sleep in months even with the pills. Last night? Same thing.” 

I look at him and just stare. I never really thought of how Dax would sleep without me. If he needed the sleeping pills it probably meant he was worse off. I didn’t like that idea one bit. 

“Stop it.” He says again annoyed. “Don’t pity me.” 

“I’m not pitying you.” I say with a sigh. “I just never really thought about how me being selfish and wanting to keep you, may also have been helping you.” 

He smiles and reaches over to tangle our fingers. “You can keep me anytime you want. Noah will just have to get over it.” 

“I think that would put us in the same predicament we are now.” I chuckle. Dax just smiles and shrugs as if he didn’t care either way. Looking at him I don’t think he does care.. which sends butterflies through me. We pull to a stop in front of Daxs apartment and he jumps out. “I gotta get my board. I’ll be right back.” 

I take a few really deep breaths. Both my butterflies and anxiety needed to chill out. My phone vibrates. 

Noah is trying to call me. I hit ignore. I know if I try to talk to him right now it will just go in circles. I need time to think. 

I text my dad to at least let him know I’m ok and just need sometime to myself. Then I power off my phone and put it in the glove compartment. 

A moment later Dax is back carrying his board and laying down beside mine. 

“Wanna surf by Sami Atua? Then we can get food after?” 

“That sounds amazing.” 

Dax

Maisie and I had been surfing all afternoon. Once she hit the water it was like she was a whole other person. She didn’t seem to worry about her past, this morning, or being anyone else other than who she was when she stood up to ride a wave. 

I sat up on my board resting between the sets of waves and watched her move. She would paddle out where I saw absolutely nothing building, and suddenly she was up. A huge wave carrying her back towards the beach. I thought she would smile as she surged but she didn’t. Even on her best wave, spinning her whole board in a 360 jump as if she were a complete pro! She didn’t smile. She just looked  extremely focused. 

On the beach I could see people watching her and recording her ride on their phone in awe. I bet she didn’t even realize how amazing she was. 

I paddled over to her and pulled her board close to mine, pulling her behind me as I headed towards the beach. “What are you doing?” She asks panting heavily. 

“You're really sunburned.” I say laughing. “And I’m starving. We could use a break Maiz.” I say using Noah’s nickname for her. 

She looks at her shoulders. “Awe dang it.. I didn’t even think of that. Now I’m gonna peel.” She pouts. 

“Don’t worry. We will put some aloe on you and you’ll be fine.” I say. She lays on her board and takes over paddling till we reach a standing point. 

We splash down into the water and grab our boards. The people who were watching Maisie surf are smiling at her, but I don’t think she’s noticed. 

“Masina Angela Collins!” 

Maisie and I turn to see a big guy smiling ear to ear and looking right at her. He looks Lotto's age and  holds out his arms like he’s waiting for a hug. Maisie laughs beside me and drops her board. To my complete surprise she runs right up and actually hugs him. 

“Boba!” She laughs. He squeezes her tight and she winces slightly as he touches her shoulder. 

He chuckles. “Still forget to put on sunscreen I see. You always did burn like a peach.” He chuckles. 

“It’s good to see you Boba.” She says looking over at me. “Dax this is Boba. Boba, this is my friend Dax.”

“Nice to meet you son. this one here calls me Boba, but you can call me Zach '' He says holding out his hand which I take with a firm shake. He has a braided beard and a man bun. His dark tan skin tells me he is a local who definitely surfs a lot. The skin tone he has is one you only get from being out in the sun for hours and hours every day. I can't shake the feeling like I've met this guy before though...

“You looked good out there kiddo. It’s been awhile but you still got it.” He winks. I’m looking at them a bit confused and Zach seems to notice. “ Maisie here is my all time champ. She was one of my best surfing students. Took the trophy home three years in a row you know.”

“Ah, yeah I do think she mentioned something like that to me.” I said with a chuckle. Maisie looks at me and beams like a kid with a 100 dollar bill in a candy store. My smile grows as I watch her. 

“Thinking about rejoining the competition with the teen division this year?” Zach asks her with a wink

“No way. I was pretty good as a little kid, sure, but i'm no Bethany Hamilton.” she laughed.

“Well if you don't want to compete maybe you'd be willing to teach? The kids center could use a few more teachers? We haven't won a competition in any of our divisions since you left and it sure would be great to have that trophy back in our trophy case.” he says hopefully

I tense. Now I recognize this guy. He was one of the coaches. One of the coaches from that day.. 

“Hey Maisie, i'll meet you at Harbors place.” I say turning to grab her board and walk them back to my truck while she talks. She looks over at me for a moment and her eyebrows pull together like she is studying me close. Knowing Maisie and I are alike and she can read me like an open book, I turn away quickly.

I get to my truck and throw the boards in the bed and rush to the drivers side. I turn it over and blast the air in my face.

The panic is setting in. What's in front of me is slowly changing to the images of my past. My demons are rearing their ugly heads. 

No. No. No. No. no. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.  No. No. No. No. no. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.  No. No. No. No. no. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.. 

I slam my fists into the side of my head. It doesn’t work. I’m still slipping.  f**k! I slam my hands against the steering wheel and wrap my fingers around it trying to keep myself grounded to the present. 

No. No. No. No. no. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.  No. No. No. No. no. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.  No. No. No. No. no. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No

I'm losing my grip on reality and before I know it I'm no longer in my truck. My mind is forced back to the one place it never ever wanted to be.

*****************************************************

I can hear everyone screaming. I flip the last kid over the side of the fence and watch as he sprints to safety. Turning back I scan the baseball fields around me. Another shot booms and more terrified screams split the air. I knew in that moment that I would never get these sounds out of my mind. 

“Where are you?!” I whisper yell to myself. Im looking around frantically. A small head pokes up from under the bleachers behind home plate. A terrified little boy in uniform is shaking bad and holding onto an inhaler. His face is white as a ghost. He is falling sideways and I know he is passing out. Not too far from where I'm ducking behind some bushes we hear more terrified screams and another shot rings out. 

I know I can't leave him there. I push off and away from the fence and race towards him trying to stay low.

“Dax!”

I can hear our other coaches and people yelling for me to go back. But I can't. I wont leave him.

****************************************************************

“Dax!'' I hear someone yelling at me. I can feel small fingers squeezing my hand and a shaky voice trying to break through to me. “Hey! Hey listen to me ok.. Remember where we are..” it says trying to be soothing. 

I know that voice. My mind wants to find its way back to it.. I want to remember what the person behind that voice looks like. But in my mind all i can see is that little boy behind the bleachers. He is laying there and he needs help. He needs help…

“You want to know the real reason Noah didn't want you to know about the surf competitions?” the sweet voice asks. “When I did my first competition I was only 12. He didn't want to invite any friends along because he said he wanted it to be just me and him. He wanted it to be our thing. The year after that he didn't want you to come because he knew I had beaten him badly last time and didn't want to be embarrassed. But the last year I competed I was 14, and even Noah didn't want me to compete. By then he got used to the fact that I was a better surfer than him so it had nothing to do with being embarrassed..”

My eyes started to come back into focus. I could see my hands gripping the steering wheel tightly in front of me. My hard breathing filled my ears and I slowly tried to release some of the grip to let the white of my knuckles flush pink with circulation.

“He said i couldn't compete because i had gotten boobs and it was gross watching boys stare at his sister.” she laughed. 

She laughed…. Maisie… Maisie laughed.

I looked over to see Maisie standing in the frame of my drivers side door, one hand was covering mine on the steering wheel and the other was rubbing soothing circles on the back of my head playing with the small hair. I could feel her nails trailing against my scalp. Tingles ran through me as she repeated the process. 

“I competed anyways ofcourse. And when I stood up there to accept my trophy a random local decided to pick me up and put me on his shoulders. I didn't care, of course. I was proud that I won for the third year in a row. Later on when I was hanging out with the guy he tried to kiss me. I didn't even get the chance to decide if i was ok with it or not before Noahs first collided with the guys face.” she giggled. I'm still just staring at her beautiful face. My brain is slowly processing the actual words she's saying.

“Noah got me banned from the junior kids competition and that guy never talked to me again.” she said with a small smirk on her face.

I remember seeing Noah after her visit that year. “Noah.. sa-said that he-- punched a-a wa-all.” I said , trying to catch my breath and speak at the same time.

“Face.. wall.. They are both pretty hard if you ask me.” she smirks.

Her story is enough to bring me the rest of the way out of my fog. I take a shaky breath. I watch Maisie take another deep breath beside me and I do it with her.

“I'm gonna go get the tacos to go ok? Then we can head back to your place and eat. Sound good?”  I nod my head. “Good. I'll be right back ok?” she says letting my hand go and rubbing my head from my forehead down to the base of my neck and giving it a squeeze. 

“Wait.'' I say, catching her wrist as it drops away from me. For a second I was going to beg her not to leave me alone. Looking up at her face she is smiling at me already, almost as if to say ‘i'd never leave you alone.’ I take another deep breath, and instead of being weak, I pull out my wallet instead.”

“Here, you already know the pin for my debit card.” 

She nods and skips away toward the restaurant on the other side of the parking lot.

I look off toward the ocean and can't fight the few tears that escape the corner of my eyes. I wipe them away quickly but the pain and stinging sensation of their presence stays behind.

I wish she were still here.

I wish she could have met Maisie.

I wish Maisie could have met her.

Most of all, I wish it never happened at all.