Page 17 of Vitamin Sea

She sent a text reply letting Lala know she would message her when she was on the way back from her walk, to which she received an emoji thumbs-up. With a sigh she pushed the empty glass away from her and slid two American dollar bills towards the bartender and got up to leave.

“Gracias!” she said loudly to Juan who was busy mixing up drinks.

He turned and gave her a wave.

“Gracias, senorita!”

Chloe smiled, slipped her phone in the pocket of her shorts, and headed for the beach. To get there she had to pass the main pool. Which also meant a hoard of sunbathers. She averted her eyes as she walked through a salsa dancing party that one of the activities coordinators was currently hosting.

It really was a sight to be seen and averting her eyes from that was more of a struggle. She marveled at how much the human body wiggled and jiggled while dancing. Naked yoga, she knew, was on that afternoon and she hoped she wouldn’t be around to see that one.

Shiny sand-coloured tiles trimmed the perimeter of the pool and they were covered in an expanse of sun loungers. Almost all of them were occupied, with people either oiled up and soaking up the sun, under umbrellas reading books, sleeping, or talking with other guests and spouses.

One thing she had noticed about the resort was that most people seemed to either be alone or a part of a couple. Aside from the two women they had met that morning, there didn’t seem to be many people who were vacationing there with their friends. Which made sense when she thought about it.

Unless you were used to no-pants parties with your friends, there would be no reason to go to Costa Morpho together.

That is, of course, unless your boss, with a sick sense of humor, sent you there on assignment and you, unaware, chose to bring a friend.

She loved Lala, Opal, and Alejandra dearly, but a naked vacation together was not something she wanted.

Palm trees lined the outer edges of the pool and four tiled steps led down to the sandy beach—also nude, of course.

Lounge chairs dotted the sand, some of which were occupied with towels, people, or both, and wait staff wandered around bringing drinks and snacks for the guests and clearing away empty plates and glasses.

She walked down the wide steps and onto the sand, which spilled over the top of her flip-flops and onto her feet. She slid off her shoes and took them in one hand before setting off along the shoreline.

The calming roar of ocean waves crashing against the sand mingled with the squawking of birds and the laughter of people playing in the water. She had intentionally not brought her AirPods with her that morning. She was looking to soak up the experience and immerse herself in the here and now.

It was something she had learned from the mindfulness classes Lala had started dragging her to shortly after the inaugural hot-yoga session.

Well—she had dragged Chloe to the first couple of classes.

After that, Chloe had gone willingly with nary a threat or a nag.

Leaving her headphones behind was her putting into practice the tools she had taken from the classes—focusing on the present and centering herself to avoid getting overwhelmed by thoughts of her past or her future.

Along with keeping a busy schedule and a clean home, if she stayed in a mindful headspace, she was able to stop herself from spiraling out of control and heading back into the land of sadness.

Sand squished between her toes and cold water rushed up and covered her feet, providing a welcome respite from the heat.

Boats of different sizes dotted the shoreline—small, motorized fishing boats, catamarans with large sails, yachts, diving boats, and jet skis.

Waves crashed over the bow of a yacht that was cutting through the water, hurrying on its way to a different part of the ocean.

A strong wind picked up and her blonde locks blew around her head. She could almost taste the ocean air and was confident she was now rocking an authentic beach ‘do’ that people pay a pretty penny for in a salon.

While the Costa Morpho property was located on a peninsula, the resort itself was situated on the edge of a long, sandy cove.

Eventually Chloe came to a rocky area that required her to climb carefully amongst the water-drenched boulders to get around the cliffs to, presumably, a beach on the other side.

It didn’t look too far and the boulders didn’t look too difficult to traverse.

Her flip-flops in hand, she climbed her way up onto a tall rock and eased her way down onto a neighbouring one with a flat surface.

The boulders were wet with ocean water, and she made her way from one rock to the next until she had made it several meters from the shore.

As she climbed along the jagged rocks, a barrage of waves hit her in rapid succession.

She climbed unsteadily on top of one sharp-edged rock as water crashed around her and she and looked around to try and figure out which one to go to next.

The boulders, which had looked so friendly when she had first started out, were starting to look more lethal.

They wouldn’t be so bad to climb across if it wasn’t for all the water; it made the rocks slippery and made her unsteady on her feet.

A hint of doubt crept into Chloe’s head as a spray of ocean struck her in the face. Maybe heading this way hadn’t been such a good idea.

She glanced behind her to see if she should head back towards the resort when a rogue wave knocked her off balance and smashed her onto the rocks. She floundered for a second, her body throbbing, before another wave hit her and pulled her off the rock and towards the ocean.

She thrashed around blindly. Salt water obscured her vision and stung what she presumed were cuts sustained from the fall. Her knee and ankle were throbbing and so was her right shoulder. Tomorrow, she knew she would have some nice big bruises to show for her little beach adventure.

If, that was, she managed to get out of this situation alive. Water sloshed around her as she tried to grasp onto a boulder, and she flailed around helplessly as another wave crashed overtop of her head.

A thought flitted through her brain as she fought to keep her head above the water.

This is bad.

It was followed by a succession of absurdities. What a tragedy it would be, her mind whispered, to go all the way to Costa Rica to get over her ex—okay, mostly for work—and, in a cruel twist of fate, meet a watery, oceanic demise.

She wasn’t trying to be melodramatic, but her limited vision combined with her injuries and not knowing how to navigate her way out of and away from the water had her scared.

She could tell she was bleeding in several places from the sting of the salt water, but how badly she was injured was a mystery.

It also wasn’t exactly low tide right then, and people died from drowning all the time.

As she had climbed her way amongst the rocky outpost it hadn’t occurred to her that the waves might knock her off balance and drag her into the water.

Another wave crashed over her and slammed her into the rocks below. As the water receded, she tried to claw her way up onto one of them and reached up to wipe her eyes with the bottom of her shirt.

It was about as useful as rubbing salt in a wound, given her clothing was just as soaked with ocean water as she was.

“Fuck!” she said aggressively, trying to squint through the stinging in her eyes as another wave crashed into her.

It smashed her against another rock and her heart began to quicken as another wall of water hit her seconds later.

Her hands slid across the rock, slick with ocean slime and salt water, as she desperately tried to find something to hold onto to.

She was smarter than this, she cursed herself. She knew better than this. How could she have been so stupid?

She thought of Lala waking up to find her friend missing and the entire resort sending out a search party. And what they would find? Her flip-flops or her body, if they managed to find any evidence of her at all.

A shiver went through her.

“HELP!” she yelled, hoping against hell that someone around would hear her. Once she had walked past the resort, she had found it to be pretty secluded. She hadn’t seen anyone else around, but she didn’t have many options at this point.

With her eyes squinted shut because of the salt, she tried to climb her way closer to the rocks she had been dragged from. It wasn’t easy going and her body throbbed as she slipped, tripped, and stumbled while waves broke around her.

“HELP!” she yelled again, taking refuge on a rock she thought she had a good grip on. Her heart was in her throat and she yelled another cry for help that was suddenly cut off by a huge wave that smashed into her and pulled her back into the ocean.

No! she thought to herself, panicking. No! This could not be happening. This could not be how she died.

She cried as she tried to tread water and keep her head above the water, which felt like an impossibility with all the waves.

Would it be worse to die from the blunt-force trauma of being repeatedly smashed into rocks or from being dragged out to sea and drowning?

Terror gripped her as she sobbed and a wave crashed over her head and dragged her under the ocean.

Her arms flailed about as she tried to navigate her way to the surface, but she was so disoriented she couldn’t tell which way was up.

She thrashed wildly as the current dragged her this way and that and her final thought before she gave up the fight was of her mom and dad.

How heartbroken they would be when they were told that their only daughter drowned.