t h r e e w e e k s l a t e r

To say I had lost my focus would be the understatement of the century. I couldn't hit a wave to save my life. I drove around my tiny beach town aimlessly, going back to get a caramel latte from the Island Provisions cafe three times a day and just so I wasn't sitting around my condo. I ran in the morning with Sam, then ran without him in the afternoon. I played the entire Dashboard Confessional Dusk and Summer album on repeat for two days straight. Anything that gave me even the smallest stitch of normalcy, I blew it to dramatic proportions. If I didn't get my shit together in time for the North Shore Pro in Hawaii next week...well, in short, I was fucked.

Even when I was actively trying to ignore Atlas and his entire existence (I'd even hidden him from appearing on my Instagram feed, which was basically like the spineless way to block someone without actually blocking them), he threw my entire world off its axis.

The irony of it all was the fact that these were exactly the reasons why I didn't get myself involved in this - it was nothing more than a distraction. And yet, trying to remove it was another form of distraction entirely. It was like drawing poison from a snake bite, but the snake kept biting you.

As dawn was just about settling in, covering the beach in a blanket of deep golden light, I made my way down to the edge of the shoreline, where Malia and her perpetual resting bitch face and Ray Bans were waiting for me. My knee wasn't fighting with me, and I wasn't going to let my wandering mind take away from the fact that I was physically feeling better than I had been in months.

"Well nice of you to join us this morning," Malia prodded at me.

"Too early for attitude," I waved her off as I stretched myself out. In the early haze of the morning, waves gently sloshing against the beach, there was a sense of calm in the stillness. A stillness I too often took for granted.

"I'm working on my 360 aerial," I said to Malia as I plucked my surfboard out of the sand.

"What?" she scoffed. "Savannah, there's a difference between getting out of your comfort zone and pushing yourself too hard. That's not a trick you're ready for."

"Oh yeah? Watch me," I snapped.

I replayed the visual of Addie Simpkins hitting that 360 aerial over and over again in my head, begging and pleading with my body to replicate it. I sat upright on my board in the water, gently sloshing around in the early morning waves. The moment I caught a glimpse of white water at the peak of a wave, I took a deep breath and dove towards it, getting up underneath it and pushing myself up onto my board. I hit a curve off the top of the wave, trying to gain speed as I coasted down into the white water of the tube. Spray from the wave kicked up into my face, but I threw my hands back into the water, carving out another turn and still trying to pick up speed as I came back around. I tasted salt at the back of my mouth, but I kept pushing.

I could feel the wave start to fade underneath me, so I hit one more turn off the top of the wave and propelled myself off of it and made a move to spin in the air. My feet slipped out from underneath me, forcing me to abandon my turn and sending me down into the water face-first.

Everything's quiet when you're underwater, and in a way it's almost soothing. In the crystal clear of the water, I could make out two sea turtles further off in the distance, and a school of yellow fish swam below my feet. For just a fraction of a moment, I felt at peace. Peace was always short-lived.

I swam back up and broke the surface of the water with a sputtering cough.

"God damn it!" I yelled and threw my hands down against the water, sending it splashing back up into my face. There was nobody around other than Malia to witness my outburst, but it felt as if the very sun beating down on my head was judging me with searing heat.

I ached as I paddled back to the beach, dropping my board into the sand and flopping down on my towel.

"Come on surfing gods, work with me here," I pleaded up into the early morning sky.

Malia's shadow swallowed me whole as she stood over me.

"What the hell are you doing?" she sighed.

I squinted up at her. "Wallowing in self-pity."

Malia groaned as she sat down on my towel next to me, pulling her legs into her chest. Her dark hair billowed in the early morning breeze, and the faintest smirk tugged at her lips.

"You know it's funny," she shook her head. "Physically, you look better than you have in months. But...I can tell immediately that there's something off. Which is why I said you shouldn't be pulling a trick like that now and risk actually getting hurt."

"I'm fine." I rubbed at my face, catching grains of sand on my cheeks. "I've just got a lot on my mind."

"See that's the thing, Savannah. If your mind isn't right, it doesn't matter how good your body feels. The root of surfing is balance. If your mind, body, and spirit aren't in a position of understanding, it makes all of this..." she gestured out to the ocean, "...very difficult."

I sat up with a sigh and crossed my legs. Water still dripped off locks of my hair, but the morning sun warmed my body and began drying little droplets of ocean the moment they hit my thighs.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, you've read me this riot act before. The Lokahi triangle, that we are genuinely considered healthy when our mind, body, and spirit are all in harmony."

"Right..." Malia shook her head. "But you cannot truly heal physical ailments until you've set right any problems in your spiritual and mental space."

I groaned. "I've been trying, Malia. I've tried blocking all the outside noise out so I could be laser-focused on getting better and winning competitions. But..." I sighed again and picked up a broken seashell sticking out of the sand. "I'm starting to realize that the actual act of blocking everything out is just making things worse, not better."

"Not all noise is bad," she replied pointedly.

"Well there's a difference between calming white noise and loud, jet engine, screaming crowd noise."

Malia shifted her body to face me, sliding her Ray Bans up to rest on her head. The burn of her glare rivaled the sun. "Oh my god, you're having actual boy problems."

My gaze fell to the sand. "What makes you say that?"

She scoffed. "You wear your emotions on your face. Besides, you never have guy problems. This all makes sense now." She paused and wrinkled her nose. "Oh god, it's not Dane, is it?"

"No, no way," I insisted. "That ship sailed back in Bali in 2016. I...I actually ditched Dane to hang out with this guy in Miami."

"Is he another surfer?"

I knew what she was doing, poking and prodding at me like a piñata, trying to find the best spots to hit so I'd spit out candy. But I wasn't sure if I was ready to admit that there was part of me that thought I made a mistake.

"No," I shook my head. "He's...he's no one, honestly."

Malia chuckled, and I knew she didn't buy it.

"Savannah, you know I say this with love, but you've had one fatal character flaw your entire life: fear. But you fear intangible things, like failure. It does nothing but hold you back. You don't take the leap because you're afraid of what happens when you hit the bottom."

The way her sentiments echoed Atlas's that early morning in Miami was all too ironic. I couldn't escape him if I tried.

"Are we talking about the same thing here?" I placed the shell I was holding back into the sand.

"Listen to me Savannah. You are a shark," she said as she rested her hands on my shoulders. "Sharks live and thrive in the depths, and they rely on instinct to hunt and survive. And...sharks eat boys for breakfast."

"Sharks don't willingly eat people, Malia," I shook my head at her. "You know, that's a pretty problematic falsehood to be spreading."

Malia chuckled as she stood up and made her way back up the beach. "Oh, go cry to the oceanic conservatory about it. You understood the analogy, didn't you?"

Later that week, I had a dream I was drowning. Every time I tried to claw my way to the surface, something kept pulling me down, but there was nothing there, just the deep dark of the water.

When I woke up that morning to go attack the very thing I dreamt about being destroyed by, I thought a lot about what Malia said. So many people were afraid of the ocean, but I stared it down every day like we were best friends. Like I belonged. There's a Laird Hamilton quote that I would recite to myself every time before I'd jump in the water. "We are all equal before a wave."

Malia and I continued to work on my aerials for the rest of the week. I swallowed more salt water than I cared to admit, but for the first time all season I felt like I had a tangible goal. Like maybe for once the sea wouldn't swallow me up and spit me out. I am the sea, and nobody owns me.

I finally checked my phone when I got back to my condo from a run with Sam, still tracking sand from my bare feet into my kitchen. I'd been talking to Addie a lot more recently, and even though she would swear up and down that I was the one helping her...she was helping me too. Believing in yourself was important, but having support from someone else was wildly underrated.

After I'd showered, scrubbed all the sand off me, and cycled through another listening session of Dashboard Confessional, I finally flopped down onto my bed and exhaled. I'd been so wrapped up in my thoughts that I'd barely registered the other message at the top of my DMs. Time-stamped 5:43 am.

The universe had a funny way of listening.

As soon as I opened the message I groaned, remembering that godforsaken seen notification again. Despite my conversation with Malia earlier that week, I still thought engaging with him wasn't the best thing for me to do, but I knew ignoring him would feel ten times worse. After all, none of this was his fault. My exile was entirely self-imposed, and it was just me, standing in an open field waiting for lightning to strike again. I must have typed up and deleted a response 15 times before tossing my phone onto my bed in frustration.

I had to stop myself and take a breath. I played Malia's words over and over again in my head - if your mind isn't right, it doesn't matter how good your body feels.

I sighed and picked my phone up, looking down at my messages again. A ghost of a smile played on my lips and with it came everything I thought I had buried in England. It was like another bad remake of Dawn of the Dead, except instead of zombies my own feelings had risen from the dead. I'd rather take on a zombie hoard, but that didn't mean I couldn't have a little fun first.

Just like when the tide pulled away and exposed the shoreline, I felt exposed too, and it forced me to ask myself what making my mind right truly meant. For one, accepting the fact that not all noise was bad, and ironically enough, it was going to start with the best noise of all.

miami in a porsche
for AV
by sav allen on spotify • 12 songs, 46 min 28 sec

and you can call up to the moon
but if you want something to change
you've gotta change your life
and take your time

balance / future islands

hi i learned a neat little trick recently where you can scan that code thing and it'll take you to the playlist (yes i also realize i was extremely slow to pick up on that) & also return of the painful instagram DMs! i hate that i've done this to myself but here we are

y'all knew i couldn't keep them apart for long, but sav's personal development is just as important to me as her relationship development with atlas, so i hope y'all appreciated this self love, surf focused chapter for our girl! she needed it after silverstone <3