I love the ocean. The ocean has been good to me. Why would it now hurt me like this? It’s like a sucker punch to the gut: I should have seen it coming and now I can’t breathe.

The next day, I still have to go to work even if I can barely move. Others notice my pain and ask. “I’m fine,” I say, because denial seems a good way to go. They ask me how the waves are. “Fine.” They ask me why my hair is dry. I pause. When two simple words like ‘hair dryer’ don’t come to my lying rescue, I crack and tell the truth. That’s when it happens: the writhing face, the consoling hug, and, worst of all, the sympathetic voice. I hate it. I don’t want their pity. I want to take it all back. I want to tell them everything is great. I want it the way it was.

But that just ain’t happening. I can’t get that adrenaline rush that my body requires now. I count the days since I was last in the water: 1-2-3-4-5-6. Until day 3 there were no waves. Day 4 brought rain. But now on day 6, there’s sun and big waves. The surfer boys upstairs bang on my door, but I don’t hear them. I also don’t hear their hooting and hollering as they rush to the beach to be with my love. Life is cruel.

So I make it crueler. I go back to our old haunts to torture myself. I don Billabong T-shirts and Roxy flip-flops. I look at photos of us, happy together in a tube. I fumble with my necklace of a silver surfer remembering how I used to be that surfer. All the while, I eat too much, and reading just doesn’t burn calories like surfing did.

My only respite comes at night when I dream I’m riding waves. In the morning, for a split second, I forget. As I flip off the cover to pop up out of bed, the pain shoots through me just like it did that day. Wailing through clenched teeth, I drop back into bed and remember.

My friends tell me it will get better, that I will get better. “Time heals all wounds,” they say. I roll my eyes. As their well-intended clichés roll under me like mushy waves, I dig my fingernails into the flesh of my palms and think, “Screw the pain! I’m going back in.”

But then this whole little “I’m tougher than that” attitude is what got me into trouble in the first place. I knew that last wave was a bad idea, but I went for it anyway. Then the ocean kicked me to the curb; well, if that’s the way it has to be, fine.

Except that it’s not fine. I’m mad and I’m scared. I keep telling myself that I’ll be happy again, but I’m not sure I believe it. I know it only feels this bad because it felt that good. And it’ll feel good again. It has to. I have to believe that.

My best friend is grinning at me,  but I have no idea why, because I zoned out for minute.  So she repeats the line that made her smile. “Maybe that’s what you get for smacking your lover on the lip.”