Page 96 of Under the Waves

You ruin. You ruin. You ruin.

I exhaled deeply, my lungs so greedy for air that I struggled to keep up with their demand. Leaning my head back against the shower wall, the spray of water trickling down my forehead, I sighed. The now abandoned showers lookedas lonely on the outside as I felt on the inside. Rusting metal shower heads. Broken, fractured tiles.

“You know, if you put as much effort into surfing as you did punching the wall, you’d be better than me, Wellsy.”

“Fuck off, Ridge. I amnotin the mood for your comments, which, by the way, suck ass ninety percent of the time.”

Jasper grinned, a smile toying at his lips. “And the other ten percent, Wellsy?”

“Are even worse,” I replied, sweetly. “So much so they make me visiblygag.”

“You’re something else, Wells.” He shook his head, still grinning. The mere sight of his smile aggravated me to my core. I wanted nothing more than to rip it from his smug face.

But instead, I said nothing. I didn’t knowwhatto say to that. Maybe he’d take the hint and fuck off, leaving me to wallow in my self-pity alone. God knows where my dad ended up. I didn’t even bother collecting my silver medal after the competition.

It was as useless to me as my existence was to my parents.

As soon as my scores came in, my facedropped. My father didn’t waste a second before walking off, his silence, hisdisappointment,was so deafening I didn’t even hear anything else. I was pretty sure Jasper made some backhanded compliment, but I wasn’t sure. I couldn’t even remember how I had gotten here.

All I knew was that if I was here, I wasn’t at home.

If I wasn’t at home, I wouldn’t get beaten.

And that meant less bruises to cover up, which meant less anxiety for me.

So I’d say that made me agenius.

When I opened my eyes, I saw Jasper staring at me, a puzzled expression on his face as he leaned against the shower wall opposite me.

“What?” I snapped.

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

Except the look in his eyes said a whole lot more than justnothing.

I suppressed a shiver, hiding behind one of my many walls of steel. “Well, it’s obviously something so spit it out,Ridge.”

“Do you maybe want to go and get a smoothie or something from Sunny’s hut?”

My brows shot up to the fucking sky. “Are you on drugs?”

“What? No—”

“Are you sure?”

“I—”

“Positive?”

“Wellsy.” He groaned, shaking his head. In a few strides, Jasper reached me. His brows were drawn, almost in anguish. “I just—” He exhaled. “I have thisfeelingdeep down inside of me that is screaming at me to stop you from going home just yet. I don’t know why or what it is, but it feelsimportant. And I—” His eyes locked onto mine. “I ignored this feeling with Lia once before and I refuse to do it again. Soplease, Wellsy. Just humor me this once.”

I couldn’t breathe.

He knows. He knows. He knows.

“You know, if you just wanted to hang out with me, asshole, you could’ve just said so.” I retorted, deflecting as much as I could.

I needed to get out of here before he found out.