Alan, 15, believes that the things that happen should fit on a postage stamp.
Something is real... but try and figure it out and it won't leave you any better off than when you started.
Writer’s note
Just because you didn't get someone's name, it doesn't mean they didn't carve out a place in your life. So this story is about those people. They are giants because they stake out both the real and the unreal place in your mind. You don't have to know their name.
When a surfer gets rescued in the California waves - a stranger carries him out - it could be the perfect start to a relationship for these sophomore boys. Each one desperately needs something from the other. For Alan that is one thing; for the stranger it's way more complicated, and Alan will have to puzzle his way in a very sweet relationship that he doesn't understand.
Passage at Amazon Alan’s Date
The beginning of the story…
ME AND Seth are going to want so much from each other that we might not be able to handle it. He starts out as this random guy who comes to rescue me in the Pacific Ocean. I don't really find out his name until later.
The way it all begins is that I want to get in some rides after school, surfing. I don't expect to get in trouble but my calf muscles cramp up and it's pulling me down hard.
I get my board unhooked and push it to shore. I'm not that far away, but I can't get there. I'm screaming for help. The waves are hitting me in the back now because I'm down on my knees.
I feel like I'm the only boy in California. I'm trying to look up and down the beach, or somewhere in the water. There has to be another surfer.
It's hard to say why I let my board go, I could probably use it right about now. I don't claim to be making all the right moves. Things are not looking that good.
I am 15 or 20 feet from dry land and I'm not going to make it. My board is there, yellow and green and safe. Here I am out here, waiting for the guy who will turn out to be Seth. But he is nowhere to be found.
My only hope is that he is looking for me as hard as I am looking for him. The thing is, he has no reason to. He does not yet know how deeply involved we are going to get. I am a random surfer, I can't be that visible in the waves of a flowing tide.
But he finds me. I can't tell where he came from. All I know is that he is there, and my guess is that he was probably in the water to the north. The cramps ease up a bit. I think I can walk out on my own.
Before I can stand, I feel myself taken in his arms. He raises me up. He tips me back until his left arm is behind my knees and he has his right arm under my back. His hand cradles my head. This is how you carry the weak and the young.
I'm 15 and he must be a man, is how it seems.
Mainly what I see is a blue sky that has called me from the water. It is air and it is dry. It is everything I need in the world.
We are moving toward the shore. This is someone I trust from the start. It doesn't happen like that very often.
Lime stripes ripple with the arm motion of his wetsuit. They are like the display of a beautiful animal, the brighter the color the more dangerous the snake. It's just that I never felt more safe.
"Are you okay?" he says.
"Yeah."
I sound like somebody else saying it. I don't feel that close to where I am. I feel closer to him than I do to myself.
"You were really yelling," he says.
His voice is younger than I thought, like he's a kid.
"I got scared," I say.
It's the truth. I don't mind telling him.