He never saw it coming. His friends had dared him to swim out as far as he could. He was a good swimmer. Better than all of his friends. His parents had him take swimming lessons since he was two-years-old. He didn’t enjoy it very much as a kid, but he stuck with it. It wasn’t until he was much older that he really appreciated it.
It was a good thing he was there that day. The ice cream truck had come to the beach and he offered to get his friends each something. While he trekked through the sand, it stinging in between his toes and balancing frozen ice cream in his hands, he had heard his friends screaming.
He didn’t think anything of it though. His first instinct was that his friends were screaming for their ice cream. He assumed they had saw him coming and started cheering him on – or yelling at him to hurry up. He wasn’t too sure which one was it. The tone was hard to read from very far away.
Whenever he went to the beach with his friends they always camped right at the shoreline. It was always such a long walk through the desert sand to make it back to the showers, the shack, and the parking lot.
As he got closer though, he realized what his friends wanted from him. They wanted him to swim out as far as he could into the ocean.
They wanted him to do exactly what they had just dared their other friend to do who was having trouble swimming back.
There was a lifeguard already in the water for the rescue. He couldn’t stand by and watch his friend – and possibly a lifeguard – drown because of his friends’ stupidity.
Plus, he couldn’t say no to a challenge.
There was a huge wave on the horizon. He knew how to swim, not how to surf. He went out there anyway.
So, even though the lifeguard had brought back his friend, by the time he had a chance to go back out and get him… all that was left was the wave.
Words: 356
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