You get on a surfboard and go with quick decisions every day. Remember that. You can do that here too.
Oh, Mo, you’re mad at me. I know you are. But you’re strong like your father was. Surprised that I’m complimenting him? I hated him at the end, but he charmed anyone who met him before that addiction. And I’ll say he loved you and your mother. He stuck with her always and I think he taught the whole town to surf. He always said to be quick and commit on the surfboard. He was something before those drugs took them both away. We have to forgive them for their addiction, right? Charm and strength with that Bastian man on your arm will be enough, I think.
Go to the company. See his vision. Take the time to see if you believe in him. If so, give him the shares for all I care.
Your marriage will protect you. It makes you a wife of a mafia king. As long as he’s in power, you’ll be safe, Morina. I needed to do this for you as much as for the town. He’ll protect what’s his even if he has no interest in you whatsoever. It’s a pride thing. Men measuring their dicks and all that.
As for you, this city is what you love. I didn’t want to ruin what you loved without giving you a chance to save it. I kept it going for you. I don’t care about the money. I care about the people here and about you most.
I did all this for that very reason.
Well, and because I wanted you married, of course.
You can be a non-committal little brat sometimes. So, here I am pushing you over the edge in death. Here’s to hoping you follow those vows you say to him and don’t part until death.
Don’t be so scared to commit, Morina. I wonder if you’re so scared because you lost your parents at the end or because you had to lose them over and over. I’ll never forgive them for that, you know? I’m hoping I get to smack them both now that I’m dead.
Just remember, not everyone is like them. Look at me. I only left you in death.
Hopefully just like Bastian.
Til death do us part, right?”
Sincerely,
The grandma that haunts you
“You wantme to burn down your house, don’t you?” I asked her as if she was sitting across from me. “You want me to burn this letter too?”
God, she was such a controlling witch sometimes. I loved her and hated her so much all at the same time.
I hated that she’d left me with this huge burden.
I crinkled the letter as one tear fell onto it. “I just hate that you left, Grandma.”
The waves crashed down on the beach in their familiar rhythm. If there was one thing I’d committed to, it was the water.
I threw on a bikini and grabbed my board in a frenzy, leaving the letter behind. I wanted nothing to do with the burden it brought to my life. I wanted to catch the water, to ride what should’ve been unrideable. I ran into the ocean like it was the center of gravity and dove in, letting the cold rush all around me.
Water flowed over my face and combed my hair back. It smoothed my hot skin, cooling it, and fought me just enough to show who was in control. This is what I’d married. I’d belonged to the waves since I could remember. This was where I worked hard enough to forget everything else in my life.
I’d forget how I felt when my parents would leave yet again on another quest to find themselves. I’d forget about a bad date or a lost friendship. I’d forget about the time my grandma sat me down and said mom and dad weren’t coming home: their bus had crashed into a wall in an unknown city.
Some people in town had said it was for the best.
I remember running to the water. It was best I was there, getting swept up in a wave. The current took me out fast that day and I’d stayed there for hours like I did now. I rode wave after wave after wave.
My body ached with each stroke to push myself hard enough to find the speed to turn a liquid to a solid, to shove my body up high enough that I could snap my legs up beneath me. I pushed my fatigue so I didn’t have to feel anything else.
Grandma had called me non-committal.
I was committed. I was committed to this town, to the water, to the food truck.
I’d do whatever I had to.
I trudged up to the food truck, so drained from the water that I didn’t even change. I dropped the board on the hooks outside, unlocked the door, and grabbed a night shirt from the corner. One sniff told me it’d do. I changed in the dark and shoved the ceiling hatch to the side. It was a little hidden gem that the roof had an addition not many people knew about. I crawled up the pull down ladder, and it snapped back up when I rolled onto the mattress. I pulled the sliding hatch closed and drifted off to sleep.
I thought I dreamt of men in my food truck, looking for me.