Meet Me at the Boardwalk Read Online Free

up.
    “Megan, I see you’d like to add to this discussion.” Mr. Browning groaned.
    “No, but I changed my mind,” I announced. “I want to be boss of Pete’s Petting Zoo. I can work my way up to mayor from there. Jade will be my deputy.”
    Oh, and if the giraffe thing doesn’t work out for Miles? I thought. I’d like to be his wife .
    Ever since then, I’ve kind of been a lost cause. And nobody— not even Jade —knows how I feel about the boy I will probably never have.
    The weird thing is, even though Miles and Jade have no clue about my crush, the two of them have been acting noticeably bizarre toward me this year. Little silences, little looks. Did they figure out my secret? Was it something else? It was making me paranoid, and I was hoping that this summer would be our chance to clear things up.

Miles
    I ’m not like Jade.
    What I mean to say is: I was never burning to get out of Seashell Point. I used to love it here—the salt staining your skin, the crest of the waves, the way everyone kind of lived lazily, sipping cold drinks and discussing which board shorts were best. But my hometown has lost some of its old appeal. My change of heart doesn’t have much to do with the impending boardwalk doom written up in today’s paper, or what Megan knew about it, or even how Megan’s mom mentioned what happened to me.
    Everything has to do with me alone—specifically—with what happened last summer.
    Ah, yes. That would be my “accident,” as my parents like to call it, or my “recovery,” as the doctors like to call it, or my “stupidity,” as I like to call it.
    See, one morning, when I went out to surf—
    Screw it; lame intro. Let’s be exact. It’s not like I can pretend not to know the precise date and time. It wasn’t “one morning.”
    When you’re traumatized, you remember everything about what happened up to the very instant: the weather conditions (cloudy, cool, and rough water, i.e., an approaching storm); what you were wearing (Nike wet suit, Expeditionwaterproof watch, the leather ankle bracelet Jade’s father gave you); the other two surfers in the water at the time (Mr. Browning, your old third-grade teacher, and some random tattooed tourist chick you’d seen a few times); the trio of seagulls gliding overhead—like some evil omen—as you strapped the board to your ankle and started paddling out to sea.
    Details, details. So, on August 12, at 6:46 A.M. , I was floating on my board, flat on my stomach. There I lay, poised to take a particularly choice approaching wave, when I spotted Megan and her mom, standing alone on the boardwalk, watching me.
    I shouldn’t have thought anything of it. But Megan has issues with her mom. Just like Jade has issues with her dad and sister…just like I have issues with both my parents. I thought: Megan looks bummed. I should do a goofy trick to distract her.
    I remember, too, thinking about the soundtrack to Dogtown and Z-Boys —a documentary about these whacked-out group of surfers-turned-skateboarders from Southern California. (Megan forced me to rent it; she’s obsessed with weird movies.) And all this was swirling through my head as I turned back to the wave—
    It was close, about to break.
    I should have back-paddled over it. I should have let it pass.
    I should have…I should have …
    See: Surfers, contrary to popular belief, are not “slackers.” In fact, the best are very meticulous about how they approach their passion of riding waves. The best are as meticulous as, say, a great lawyer is about practicing the law. (Can we sue the surfboard company for Miles’s accident? Answer = “No, they are not liable, but nice try.”) Or they are as meticulous as a great doctor is about practicing medicine. (“Miles, with rigorous meds and therapy, your leg will heal in nine months.”) You don’t think of great doctors and lawyers as slackers. A dozen different smart decisions have to be made quickly, depending on what’s coming at