feel heard without ever speaking a word. Trusting him completely, I stepped in and slid into the seat with my legs extended in front of me. Ronan’s friend handed me an oar while Ronan easily climbed into the blue kayak.
His friend pushed me off into the water, and Ronan paddled alongside me. Like he’d done it a hundred times before, Ronan told me how to dip my paddle in the water to send me forward, turn, and stall without splashing the icy water over me. For a while, he took it easy, letting me get used to working the kayak on my own, but then he started paddling farther away from the shore. I followed him until the waves weren't crashing against the front of my kayak, but rocking me gently.
The soft sound of the waves blended with the distant sound of gulls was music to my ears. When was the last time I’d been able to depart from the city and just be? It had taken Ronan to get me outside of myself, outside of the daily turmoil my lifestyle put me in.
“How did you learn about this place?” I asked.
He rested the oar over his lap. “I worked here for a summer once.”
Ronan spoke like he’d lived a thousand lives, even though he was only a year older than me. I simply nodded, mulling over the questions in my mind about him and his life and the way he viewed the world. I'd never met someone with such a simplistic, straightforward perspective, and it was more than refreshing. It was inspiring.
“Are you cold?” Ronan asked.
I shook my head. Between the wetsuit working its magic and the sun’s unimpeded rays, I felt great, but maybe Ronan had more to do with the warmth I felt radiating from the inside out.
“Good.” He slipped his oar into the water and paddled, moving farther yet away from the shore. I followed him, admiring the way his shoulder muscles moved underneath the wetsuit. Soon, we were so far out that the beach behind us and his friend’s rental store appeared as fuzzy lines in the distance.
“Do you see that?” Ronan asked.
“What?” My eyes scanned the water, looking for any hint of what he'd spoken about.
He pointed his oar in the water. “Orcas.”
I followed the tip of his paddle and saw the three dark shapes moving through the water. Amazement made my heart beat faster. “No way! I’ve never seen them in the wild like this!”
He grinned up with me. “Sometimes all it takes is a new perspective.”
I had one all right, and Ronan had given it to me.
Twenty-Five
When the sun reached high overhead, we decided to head back to shore. I was thoroughly wet from a splash fight we’d had, and I felt thoroughly content for maybe the first time since my mom had died. This had been one of the best days of my life, and it had been entirely unplanned. It reminded me of the time Mom let me skip school and go see a movie with her. It was a couple of months after she’d been diagnosed with cancer, but we didn’t talk about it the whole day. The entire theater had been completely empty, and she'd given me my own big bucket of popcorn. I’d felt like such a grown up, like her friend instead of her daughter. It was one of my favorite memories with her.
The thought still had me smiling when we reached the shore and Ronan helped me out of my kayak. My feet sank into the ocean bottom as the waves lapped around my ankles. I realized I was hungry, excited to see where Ronan would take me for lunch. He seemed to know all the best places.
But first, we went to his friend’s shop, and he greeted us with a big smile that I think must have been there permanently. “How was it?”
“Great,” Ronan answered
“We even saw some orcas,” I added excitedly. The giddiness of my response felt so foreign to me, but so right.
“It's a good day for that.”
Ronan nodded. “We better change. I want to take her to the Crab Shack for lunch.”
Crab? That sounded delicious.
We took turns changing, and then began walking down the street to the restaurant. The only vehicles on the island were emergency or working vehicles, so we didn’t have to worry about traffic. It was nice, just meandering down the pavement like we had nowhere to go.
Once we reached a stand of shops and restaurants a few