Undertow

Crystal Torres

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May 16

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4–5 minutes

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If you age with somebody, you go through so many roles – you’re lovers, friends, enemies, colleagues, strangers; you’re brother and sister. That’s what intimacy is, if you’re with your soulmate.

— Cate Blanchett

Sometimes you meet a person and find a part of yourself you hadn’t known was missing. I have a friend who turned out to be the annoying little brother I didn’t know I needed. I met him when he was a student at my work, and we quickly became inseparable. Well, until he moved back to his home state. He and I are tight, but if there’s anyone he’s tighter with from his time at my work, it’s my Work Bestie. So it came to be that the Work Bestie, Little Brother (and some other friends, and the Little Brother’s girlfriend at the time), and I were hanging out all over San Diego one day.

By the end of the day it was just the four of us. This was when the Work Bestie and I were still friends-who-flirt. So it wasn’t a double date dynamic so much as three close friends and one’s significant other. I like the significant other and did my best to be welcoming, but it’s a weird dynamic with the three of us enthusiastically chatting about people and places she didn’t know and that we couldn’t adequately explain. I hope she had a good time anyway. She was the first to abandon the ocean and return to the beach.

The Little Brother has the impulse control of a small child who’s had a large bag of pixie sticks for breakfast. I don’t know why we let him lead, but he often does. As such, we (The Little Brother, The Work Bestie, and I) had hopped many waves and made it pretty far out before the Little Brother realized that his girlfriend was an almost indistinguishable dot on a distant shore. Okay, maybe we weren’t quite that far out, but we weren’t near either.

First, the girlfriend went back to shore with the implication that she would be back. Then the Little Brother left to check on her, saying he’d come right back. We were separating horror movie style.

The Little Brother does not consider himself a good swimmer, but he is exceptionally strong. He can make up for whatever he lacks in technique with brute strength. Which is to say, he had no problem swimming back to shore. I thought nothing of it until he didn’t come back, and the Work Bestie and I decided we would just join the others on the beach. I’m not sure the ocean agreed with our plans.

Us being beach besties, but like three Mexican-Americans and one of us is a girl

I am not fast. I can swim for ages, but I’ll never win a race. At a comfortable swimming speed, it seemed I wasn’t getting any closer, or further, from land. In the ocean I find that sometimes swimming underwater helps. Like if the water is deep, and my luck is good, I can find a layer of water moving the right direction, or at the very least not pulling the wrong way. I knew it would freak out the Work Bestie if I disappeared from view though. So, I kept slogging along on the surface. Eventually, it occurred to me that this is how people exhaust themselves, and that’s dangerous.

Then I remembered something I’ve always known, something I believe every native Southern Californian grows up knowing. When the ocean pulls you one way, you don’t swim in the opposite direction. You’ll never win in a tug-o-war with the sea. Swim on the diagonal.

I’d already embarrassed myself at the parkour gym earlier that day. The trouble with hanging out with people significantly fitter than myself is that even when my spirit is all for it my body cannot keep up, at least not by the same rules.

I didn’t want to make the Work Bestie take the long way just because I didn’t have the upper body strength to do it the hard way. So I told him to carry on, and I made my compromise with the ocean, aiming at a different spot on the shore. We had different paths, but we each got to our shared destination.

It’s strange how I can forget the things I know I know when I’m with him. Heading back to his car, the Work Bestie asked me if I could see myself living in a place like this. I mean, who wouldn’t want to live near the beach? But I don’t think that’s what he meant.

San Diego isn’t really my cup of tea. The relentless sunshine would wear on me, and yet, once the Work Bestie mentioned it, I couldn’t imagine any place I would rather spend my life. It’s amazing just how easily I get lost when I’m with him.