It was another scorching day in Australia, as Jennie and her friends stepped onto the beach at Thornton Bay; a small, beautiful beach, which the group of girls was told about by their hotel receptionist. It’s much quieter and more peaceful than the main beaches, and in my opinion, are far more stunning. The receptionist’s words spoke in Jennie’s mind as she let her eyes scan the surrounding sand, and couldn’t help but agree. How could such a stunning beach be so quiet? Why don’t many tourists come here too? Jennie couldn’t help but question. She guessed it had something to do with it being a few miles further up the coast. Most tourists were happy just to follow the crowd. But Jennie and her friends preferred a little less noise, especially during the day, and especially when they were trying to have fun in the sun. They didn’t want to have to compete for a part of the sand, or a portion of the water to surf and swim in.

 

They were only spending two weeks in Australia, and this was their fourth day. Among the four girls, Jennie and Chahee had made sure their plans for learning to surf began early on, whereas the other two girls, Jisoo and Lisa, were just happy to sunbathe, chat and laugh, a lot, at their friends’ terrible attempts at staying on their boards. Honestly, the first two days, they spent more time in the water than on their boards. On the third day, they started to get the hang of it, especially Chahee, who seemed to have an innate skill for balance. Jennie also improved on the third day, but her balance wasn’t quite as good. 

 

By the fourth day, their surfing instructor, who they hired for an hour per day, told them that they could probably continue without lessons, as they already knew the basics. They just needed to practice them more, and he suggested a quieter beach to sharpen their skills before surfing in more congested waters. That evening, armed with a list of quieter beaches, recommended by their surfing instructor, they harnessed the power of Google, and that’s when they found the stunning and not-so-far Thornton Beach.

 

“This spot looks good,” Jisoo said, before starting to unroll her beach towel.

 

“Yeah, this’ll do nicely,” Lisa agreed. “You two little surfers leave your stuff here with us and go hit those waves, dudes,” she continued, trying to sound like a stereotypical chilled surfer type that she had seen on American sitcoms. 

 

“Right, yeah, we’ll do that,” Jennie rolled her eyes at her wannabe-actress friend.

 

“I can’t believe it’s so quiet. People would really rather not travel an extra few miles and settle for a beach with a bigger crowd than a football game,” Chahee said, as she looked up and down the short beach. It couldn’t have been longer than a hundred and fifty metres, and doing a rough headcount, Jennie estimated there to be only about a hundred people. Mostly couples, the odd family, and a few groups of young men and women, who she assumed were locals. It was a grain of sand on a beach compared to the swarm of thousands of people on the main beach, where they had spent the past few days. 

 

“Yeah, well that definitely works out for us,” Jennie smiled. 

 

“Yeah, but that means a lot fewer hunks and babes to check out,” Jisoo pouted in dramatic fashion, competing with Lisa for the maknae of the group. 

 

“Since when do you check out babes?” Lisa said with confused brows.

 

“Not me. For Jennie,” Jisoo rebutted with a look that screamed ‘Duh!’ “Doofus!” Jisoo joked before playfully smacking the back of Lisa’s head. 

 

“Ah, unnie! I’m gonna get you back for that when you say something stupid!” Lisa whined her warning to Jisoo.

 

“You’ll be waiting a long time, then.”

 

“Ok, while you two have your little fight, me and Chahee are gonna “hit those waves, dude”” Jennie said, mocking Lisa for her earlier surfer impression.

 

Jennie and Chahee waded into the water. The water surprisingly felt a bit warmer than at the main beach the past few days, which made it even more inviting. Jennie looked down and she could see the seabed as clear as if she was looking through tap water. She had a perfect view of her feet dragging through the water, as slow as she imagined someone would be while walking on the moon. 

 

“The waves seem a bit bigger than yesterday,” Chahee observed, snapping Jennie out of her observation of her feet. 

 

“Oh yeah, I think you’re right.”

 

As they walked further out into the water, the deeper it became, and the harder the waves felt. Two-inch high ripples that washed up on the sand were getting bigger the further out the girls went. Jennie giggled as she jumped into the waves. The top of which went over her shoulders. She then decided that this was the perfect depth for her to start paddling. She lifted herself onto her pink board with a black pattern with ease and smiled at the memory of struggling to mount her board on the first day. She had either not jumped high enough, causing her to miss the board, and stumble over, or jump with too much determination, causing herself to mount the board for a second before flipping into the water on the other side. In the end, it took her seven attempts, and she now classed herself as a master of mounting boards compared to then. 

 

Chahee had also mounted her board, and they were both paddling out, riding the waves, as they grew bigger. As soon as they felt that they were further out enough, they both turned around and prepared themselves for the next set of waves. 

 

Jennie looked behind herself, judging when the next set was coming. As soon as she saw it heading her way, she readied herself. As she felt the beginning of the wave push her, she braced herself. Then as the wave started to carry her, she jumped up onto her feet and assumed the position that she had been practicing the last few days. She was doing it! She was surfing! All by herself! She couldn’t help but smile in glee, and she then started to giggle in glee as she looked up and saw Chahee riding the wave metres away from her. 

 

She only managed to stay up for ten seconds or so until she lost her balance and fell into the water, but she didn’t care about that. She was so happy she had done it. Learning to surf was one of the items on her holiday bucket list, and she was doing it!

 

Roseanne was no rookie at surfing. She hadn’t been a rookie for sixteen years, when she got her first surfboard at the tender age of eight. Since then, surfing had been a huge part of her life, and it still was. In fact, she participated in surfing tournaments every year and even had a shelf in her room dedicated to the trophies that she had collected over the years. Twenty-one in total. Twelve first places. Seven seconds. Three thirds. They don’t give out trophies for anyone who came less than third, but that didn’t happen often to Roseanne. She had the ability to surf like no other. People watching her would say it was as if the surfboard was a part of her body. It was as if they shared one mind, others would say.

 

But unfortunately, she hasn’t surfed competitively for almost two years, since her mother fell sick with cancer. She told herself she couldn’t leave her family to travel around the country surfing, as her mum stayed at home fighting for her life. Even though her mum and dad told her to do it because it’s something Roseanne loved, the blonde simply couldn’t justify it to herself. She had to stay at home and be there for her mum. So that’s why she took a job as a lifeguard at one of the local beaches. It allowed her to stay at home, and also earn money somewhere she loved to be - the sea, the beach. Yeah, she wasn’t surfing all day, but she still got to get in the water every day, and even though she wasn’t having fun, she was saving lives; and that has become the most important thing to her, especially after her mother’s diagnosis. 

 

So she has been working as a lifeguard for just over a year and a half, and since she works on a fairly quiet beach, it’s a fairly easy job. There are some days she doesn’t make a single rescue, but she still has to keep a keen eye on the water, because if you learn one thing from being a surfer and a lifeguard, it’s that trouble can happen in the blink of an eye. 

 

She sat in her chair, in the shelter of the lifeguard tower in the middle of Thornton Beach. The hut on stilts was big enough for two people, but there was only ever one person. Blame budget cuts. Saving money is more important than saving lives, apparently. There was a desk with a monitor linked up to a few CCTV cameras that were dotted along the beach, and a phone for when calling for emergency services was required. 

 

Looking through her binoculars, she could see everyone in the ocean, as she scanned the water for people in potential danger, and cursed the people who were paddling outside of the flags. The safety flags were there for a reason. Swimming between the flags guaranteed calmer waters. Outside of the flags, the water was more treacherous. Sudden rips, swells, and sharp rocks could all spell the end of a fun day at the beach. And they all had for some ignorant people in the past. Luckily, Roseanne has never had anyone die on her watch, but there have been close calls. And 90% of them got into trouble outside of the safety flags.

 

In total, there were about twenty-five people in the water. For a small, private beach, that was normal. She could see couples swimming together, children splashing in the shallows, and a few people catching waves on their surfboards - all between the flags. She wasn’t that worried about them. 

 

Her attention went to two men struggling to swim. Outside of the flags. Of course! They were trying to swim back to shore, but were seemingly getting nowhere as the rip was pulling water out to sea, keeping the two men in the same position, fighting against a current. They were beginning to panic. Roseanne knew what she had to do. She threw her binoculars onto the desk, and ran out of the hut, down the stairs, and onto the beach. She grabbed a rescue board and sprinted across the sand as fast as her feet could carry her. The rescue board was basically a long surfboard, designed to carry two or more people.

 

As soon as her feet touched the water, she stopped to take her t-shirt off. It would only become extra weight if she fell in, and the dark blue swimsuit beneath would make her more streamlined if she lost her board and needed to swim.

 

Top off, she lunged herself forward but stopped. The two men who were panicking before were now being helped by a kind surfer who saw them in distress. He must have been close to them and offered them aid. Roseanne smiled and shouted a thank you to the surfer who was now sat upright, paddling his board to the shore, with the two men clinging on, looking thankful for the floating device, and shocked at their encounter with the force of the ocean.

 

Breathing a sigh of relief, Roseanne turned and started walking back to the lifeguard tower to continue observing the people on the beach and in the water. She picked up her yellow and red t-shirt and was about to put it back on. 

 

“HELP! HELP!”

 

A woman was running towards Roseanne, screaming and waving her hands in distress. Her hair and light-blue bikini were wet as if she had just got out of the water. Her feet and ankles were covered in moist sand. As she got closer, her voice lost a decibel or two but was still loud and panicked. The woman grabbed ahold of Roseanne’s upper arm and pulled her, gesturing her to follow. 

 

“Please help! My friend's unconscious!”

 

This wasn’t the first time she had ever heard that. So Roseanne wasn’t as worried as she was the first time she heard it, a year and four months ago, but it still sent a ripple of anxiety through her core. Hearing that someone was unconscious was never good.

 

“Okay,” Roseanne answered calmly. “Where’s your friend?” Roseanne looked past the woman, scanning the sand for someone who looked passed out on the beach. But the woman in front of her didn’t point to a spot along the sand. 

 

“She’s in the water.”

 

.

 

Roseanne went into full hero mode. 

 

“Where exactly?” She needed to know that second in order to save her friend’s life.

 

“Over there!” The woman shouted, still panicked, pointing away from the sand, into the water, and to Roseanne’s surprise, between the safety flags. 

 

As Roseanne followed the woman’s finger, her vision narrowed in on a woman floating in the water, forty or fifty meters away from shore. Without another word to the woman, she sprinted into the water. Threw the rescue board in front of her and pounced on it, before paddling her way out to the unconscious girl. Except, she wasn’t using her hands to make gentle paddles. She was pushing the water back with as much force as possible, trying her hardest to reach the girl as quickly as possible. Every. Second. Mattered.

 

As she got closer to the girl, she realised she was face down. 

 

. . 

 

She maneuvered the rescue board next to the girl, and while still sitting on the board, used all her strength to pull the girl out of the water. She grabbed her underneath her armpits, and dragged the girl onto the board. The girl was limp. Roseanne had to manoever her, so that she faced up and lay lengthways on the board. That’s when Roseanne realised something. The girl wasn’t breathing. 

 

. She had to get her to land. The girl might need a defibrillator. 

 

The blonde lifeguard paddled with all of her might. Each another breath the girl wasn’t taking. She didn’t know how she got to shore so quickly. She just knew that she had. Roseanne jumped off the board and hooked her hands beneath the girl’s armpits and dragged her on the beach. As soon as she was away from the water, Roseanne lay the girl down and got to work. 

 

She put her fingers on the girl’s neck, searching for a pulse. Where is it?

 

C’mon, C’mon. 

 

. 

 

After determining there was no pulse, Roseanne knew what she had to do. She put her left palm in between the girl’s s, at the bottom of the sternum, and then put her right hand on top, interlacing her fingers together. She then leaned over the girl and straightened her arms. 

 

"What happened?!" Roseanne yelled while not taking her eyes off of the cute unconscious girl while starting chest compressions.

 

One. Two. Three.

 

She began counting as she pushed down on the girl’s rib cage, trying her best to pump the girl’s blood around her body. Trying her best to restart her system. The girl was so pale. Roseanne didn’t know the girl, but she guessed she wasn’t that pale normally. Her lips were almost blue. Roseanne didn’t want to think too much about that just now. She only needed to focus on performing CPR.

 

Four. Five. Six.

 

"She fell off her board, and then, I don't know...she was just floating in the water," the girl who came to get Roseanne explained through quivering words.

 

She might have hit her head, Roseanne thought. That meant she could have damaged the spine in her neck. She regretted being so forceful with the cute girl, as she knew you had to be gentle when dealing with a suspected spinal. But bringing the girl back to life was the most important thing, and the girl's head was now aligned with her body. So Roseanne could check her head and neck later on if she brings this cute girl back to life. No, not if. When.

 

She was putting all of her upper-body weight behind every chest compression, which was required to get deep enough to pump the heart.

 

Midway through the chest compressions, Roseanne's eye caught a glimmer of red beneath damp black hair, on the side of the cute brunette's head, just above her temple. While still focusing on the chest compressions, she felt slight relief that the expected blow to her head was on the side of her head and not the back. She should be okay if she can bring her back. No, not if. When.

 

As Roseanne got to thirty pumps, the unconscious girl’s black bikini top was riding down her s. Roseanne pulled it up again, giving the girl some decency from the eyes of the growing crowd around them. 

 

At thirty, she stopped. Some people in the crowd were worried that Roseanne had given up, but Roseanne was not a quitter. It was time to breathe oxygen into the girl. 

 

“How long has she been unconscious?” Roseanne asked anyone as she pulled the girl’s head back and opened . 

 

“Erm…maybe a minute,” a concerned voice said. She assumed from the girl who came to get her. 

 

Roseanne didn’t respond. She didn’t need to. All she needed to do was save this cute girl’s life. 

 

She bent down and put their lips together and breathed into her. Twice. 

 

With a prayer to God, she raised her head and looked at the girl’s face, praying for her to come back. 

 

. 

 

One. Two. Three. 

 

She began thirty more chest compressions. A routine that was drilled into her during lifeguard training. A routine that she had never had to do more than twice before a patient woke up. And they always woke up. They always came back. Roseanne has never lost a patient. And she wasn’t going to start now. 

 

And on the seventh compression, as if someone answered her prayers, the cute girl in the black bikini came back to life. A watery cough was her first sound after rebirth, as the crowd all released a collective sigh of relief. The girl instinctively titled her head to the side as she coughed up seawater. She continued coughing up seawater for over thirty seconds before she lay back down. 

 

Roseanne knew the girl wasn’t out of the woods just yet. She needed to make sure there was no cognitive impairment. 

 

“Hi. What’s your name?”

 

“Hmmm?” The cute girl replied, disorientated as her body and mind came back to life. 

 

“What’s your name?” Roseanne repeated as she bent down over the girl’s face, checking her senses were okay.

 

“Erm…J…Jennie.”

 

“Hi, Jennie. What’s the day today?” What might have seemed like such a trivial question for someone who had just come back to life, was actually routine for making sure someone still had mental capacity. 

 

But the girl, seemingly and obviously in a state of shock, wasn’t responding quickly. Roseanne knew this was normal, so she wasn’t worried. She was just so happy that this gorgeous brunette was back to life. 

 

“What’s the day today?” Roseanne repeated, looking almost longingly at the girl's face. 

 

“My…my birthday.”

 

Roseanne was surprised by the answer, which also stabbed her heart with a knife of sympathy. This was no way to spend your birthday. Almost dead in the sea. 

 

Unfortunately, Roseanne didn’t know this girl, so she didn’t know if it was her birthday, or if she was being delusional. She needed clarification. She scanned the crowd for the girl that approached her, finding her closest to her, with two other girls beside her. 

 

“Is it her birthday today?”

 

They all nodded. 

 

“Yeah, she wanted to learn how to surf before her birthday,” Lisa said, with tears in her eyes. In fact, all three of them were on the verge of tears. Even Jisoo, who would go on to continuously deny it. 

 

Relieved with the verification of the girl’s birthday, Roseanne turned back to look at Jennie, and for some random reason, felt the urge to run a thumb over the girl's cheek and a hand over the girl’s wet hair. Jennie was just about regaining her cognition as her eyes met Roseanne’s.

 

“Happy birthday,” Roseanne whispered, which made Jennie smile, as the blonde still the brunette’s hair. Roseanne didn’t know why she was still doing that. 

 

“Thank you,” Jennie managed through a shaky whisper. Shaken with a slither of shock, but mostly with sheer gratitude for Roseanne. But her thank you wasn't in response to the happy birthday. Her thank you was deeper. It was the deepest thank you Jennie had ever given anyone. It was deeper than the deepest part of the ocean. It was for her life being saved.