Chapter 4: Champions

Chapter 4 — Parguito

She dreamt that she walked though the path and there was no end to it, only palm trees and bushes. The night sky moved fast, as if she stood on a shooting star, traveling through space. “I have something to do” finally a thought to set her free and wake up. She woke before dawn, her eyes felt salty and tired. She sat up in her bed and convinced herself to get up. She hated waking up so early, but today was a speacial day: champion’s breakfast and later Parguito’s annual surfing competition.

She took a cold shower, wich she also hated but was the remedy to a lazy beggining. Got dressed quickly, pulling on her raggy jean shorts, a loose roxy top, and her bag with swimm suits and surf gear, she stepped out of the house just as the sky was beginning to shift into that deep blue before sunrise, the air cooler at that hour and the sound of the ocean carrying easily across the street. Salado was already having his breakfast with the other cats by the fishing boats.

As she walked a few steps outside her house, she saw her dad pulling up in his old pickup truck, the one she liked to call el camión de papas because it looked like the trucks farmers used to carry potatoes, the engine louder than it needed to be at that time of the morning, and when he leaned over to open the passenger door, he said, “Perfect timing.” Her surf board already in the back of the truck.

Her dad wasn’t a fan of her spending so much time with afitos (Local word for non magical people) But he did aproove of sports. Even in the magical world, health is something you can cheat.

She walked over to the passinger’s door and when she looked inside, she saw him.

Fabian.

He sat there with a backpack on his lap, looking slightly out of place and when he noticed her, he gave her a small, polite smile and moved closer to her dad so that she could hop in.

“Hi Marisol.” He sounded a lot more friendly than the last time they met. She though that was probably because her dad was there. He always acted so perfect in front of the parents.

She paused for a second before getting in. “Hi.”

Her dad didn’t seem to notice the tension in her face, or maybe he chose not to, as he pulled back onto the road and said, “I’m dropping him off with you. He’s staying with his family in Pampatar for the summer break, so I asked him if he wanted a job. He’s going to help you study for the test from now on.”

Of course he was.

Fabian was the kind of person parents liked. He studied at the school abroad where she was supposed to go, had won academic awards, always did well, always knew what he was doing, and people talked about him like he was already on his way to becoming something important, and she had always assumed he would come and tell her what she was doing wrong.

She remembered the first time she met him, in Glasgow, when their parents had gone to a reunion and spent time together, and he had been so composed and certain of everything, speaking carefully, correcting small things, answering questions before anyone else could. And the way he dressed… His dad was Italian and he dressed to prove it. He always looked like he was on his way to the opera. She though it was so pretensious for a 15 year old to dress like that. That spring they met, she had started calling him Prince Fabian in her head, and sometimes out loud to her dad when he compared him to her, with a tone that made it clear she didn’t mean it as a compliment.

They rode in silence for a moment, the truck moving slowly through the quiet streets, until they reached the small restaurant where everyone gathered every year before the competition at Playa Parguito, and her dad parked, looked at both of them, and said, “Have fun,” as if this was simple.

Marisol got out first, and Fabian followed. He tried to help her get her board out of the back of the pick up truck, but she quickly jump in and said “I got it, but you can help with this” throwing him a huge case of water bottles. He struggled carrying it. He was tall and fit but Marisol realized she never heard of him doing any kinds of sports, he was mostly known for his academic achivements.

Up close, he looked different than she expected, wearing a long-sleeve sun shirt, a wide hat, and what looked like too much sunscreen for that early in the morning, and instead of looking confident, he looked uncomfortable, like he wasn’t sure what to do with himself there, and for the first time, he didn’t seem perfect, just out of place. “It’s incredible how much power clothes can give a person” She reflected. Seen him in shorts and flip flops defenetly felt less intimidating.

They walked toward the restaurant together, a tipical bright pink caribbean house, with a few plastic tables and chairs out front and a sign with all the types of empanadas they offered. Fabian looked at everything with detail, as if he had just landed on the moon. “We painted those last month” Marisol pointed out the mural on one wall that carried the sign of the restaurant “La Cocina de Parguito”. Marisol could already smell the food from the street, warm and familiar, and hear the low voices of her friends inside, still sleepy but already laughing about something, while Fabian slowed hard as they got closer, looking toward the group and then back at her.

“Do they… surf every day?” he asked.

“Pretty much,” she said.

He nodded, as if trying to understand something he wasn’t used to.

When they stepped inside, the place was already alive with movement, Adrian’s mom senora Laura working behind the counter, shaping arepas and frying empanadas, while plates filled the table with guayanés cheese, shredded chicken, cazón, black beans and butter. Little blue plates with slices of orange and mangoes adorned the table. There was also papaya and guava juice in the beverage fountains. Fabian said good morning and introduced himself to senora Laura first. Marisol rolled her eyes slightly.

Marisol greeted her friends just a tonge mochery and asked a “Bendicion” from senora Laura. Fabian just stood there awkardly.

“Oh right, this is Fabian” she said.

“Hola” charlote smiled and gave him a little wave before shaking his hand.

“Eeepa, que tal?” Adrian shook his hand and gave him one of those weird boy arm greetings Marisol and Charlotte always watched closely as if tryint to decode every movement.

Senora Laura gave Fabian everyone 1 arepa on a plate and 3 to Fabian “You can eat all you want, they can't eat too much today because of the contest”

Adria let out a big aaaahhhh in disappointment, “We need to start making a champion’s lunch instead of a champions breakfast every year”

“And dont forget about potasium” she left a hand of bananas in the middle of the table.

Fabian thanked senora Laura several times. They sat down with the others, chairs pulling closer, hands reaching across the table without asking, everyone taking what they wanted to fill their arepa with, the conversation moving easily around them, and Fabian stayed quiet at first, watching more than speaking, hesitating slightly when someone handed butter or cheese, his words careful and a little old-fashioned when he did speak, which made it harder for him to fit into the rhythm of the group.

Marisol noticed, and it made her look at him differently, because he wasn’t acting like someone who had come to judge them, but like someone trying to understand how to be there. She hated the idea that she once though that he was so handsome, in Glasgow he had looked so elegant and serious, but here he kind of looked like a vampire trying to hide from the sun. He was very pale so she couldn't judge him for wearing all this clothes and sunscreen. She looked a little deeper and saw that she was still handsome, beneeth all of that. Not that it mattered, he was probably still annoying.

After a while, when the conversation split into smaller pieces and no one was paying much attention, Fabian leaned slightly toward her and spoke in a lower voice.

“How are you doing with the asigment?”

She didn’t look at him right away. “I haven’t figured it out yet.”

He nodded once, then again, as if measuring his words. “You don’t have much time.”

“I know.”

“You have, what, three months until the end of summer?” he said quietly. “And you still need to study the material, review the texts, practice—”

“I said I know,” she replied, a little sharper this time, keeping her voice low.

He paused, then lowered his voice even more. “I’m just saying it’s a lot to manage if you haven’t started.”

“I have started,” she said, even though she hadn’t really.

He looked at her for a moment, not unkindly, but not entirely convinced either, and for a second the tension between them returned, familiar and quiet, like something they both recognized.

“Just… don’t wait too long,” he said.

She didn’t answer, and after a moment, someone called her name from the other side of the table, breaking the conversation before it could go any further.

By the time the sky began to lighten, turning from deep blue to soft gold, they were finishing their plates and getting ready to leave, grabbing boards, towels, and whatever they needed before heading out together toward the beach.

They thank Adrian’s mom senora Laura and walked to Parguito beach. First through the town and then through the palmtrees until they met with the bright blue sky and the ocean that seemed to merge in the horizon. The Guayamuri mountain on the left as green as it could be, made the day look fresh and exiting. The sun shun so bright, their eyes squinting but exited to see the infinite beauty of the beach at that hour. No other place felt more alive than Margarita in the morning sun. A clutch of parrots made a racket of noise above, them on a tree. How privilaged of them to have first row seats every morning in this paradise. Marisol and her friends began to set up camp before anyone else got there. After a few minutes, as they began to strech, she started looking around for Fabian and finally spotted him back at the tree, offering peaces of a banana to the parrots.

He might look out of place and clumsy, but also entusiastic and fascinated with the island. Maybe he had changed. She though that maybe she could be more friendly with him, after all he was getting paid to help her, if he annoyed her it was only his job.

Marisol walked with her friends to the water, her board under her arm, the sound of the ocean growing louder with each step, and for a moment, everything felt simple again.

Just the beach.

Just the waves.

Just them.

The beach fill up quicly after they got in the water, reggae music drifting through the air from somewhere unseen and blending with the sound of the waves and the low hum of voices gathering in clusters along the shore, where people moved easily between sand and water with boards tucked under their arms, laughter rising and falling as naturally as the tide. It didn’t feel like a competition so much as a celebration, something shared and familiar, as if everyone there already understood each other without needing to explain.

They entered the competition early, just after the first sets began to roll in, and the hours passed almost without her noticing, carried forward by the rhythm of the waves and the constant motion of the water, where time seemed to dissolve into movement and repetition. Marisol surfed the way she always did, not perfectly, not carefully, but fully throwing herself into each wave, adjusting as she went, falling without hesitation and trying again, her body learning and responding in ways that couldn’t be taught, only felt.

She loved that, more than anything.

There was no spell for it, no shortcut, no way to force the ocean to meet her halfway, and if she wanted the wave, she had to earn it through effort and patience, through the quiet understanding that came from watching, waiting, and trusting her own body to respond at the right moment. She had to paddle, to fall, to climb back up again, over and over, until something aligned—not just outside of her, but within her as well—and when it did, even if it only lasted a few seconds, it felt like something close to magic, though not the kind she had been taught.

Something else. Something human.

Marisol had always believed that normal people carried their own kind of magic, even if they didn’t have spells or training or names for it, because there was something powerful in the way they created, in the way they learned, in the way they kept trying even when something was difficult, something that required effort and time and choice. Sometimes she thought that kind of magic was even more special, because it wasn’t given.

It was made.

She felt it most clearly in moments like this, moving with the ocean while her muscles burned and her breath came uneven, her balance shifting constantly as she stayed present inside her own body and inside the water at the same time, with no separation between her and the movement around her, only instinct and rhythm and trust. Around her, Charlotte’s laughter carried across the water when she wiped out, Martín’s voice rose somewhere behind her, and their shared glances when a good set was coming felt like part of the same language, something understood without words.

They stayed in the water until a little past noon, long enough for the sun to rise higher and the light to sharpen, long enough for the energy of the morning to settle into something slower, heavier, more still—and it was in that shift, almost without thinking, that Marisol finally looked toward La Azulita.

The moment she did, something inside her tightened.

Out in the distance, near the island, there were boats—larger than the ones she was used to seeing, heavier, built for work rather than fishing, sitting low in the water as they carried equipment and machinery that felt completely out of place there, their presence quiet but undeniable, like something that had already begun without asking permission.

The feeling that followed wasn’t loud, wasn’t sharp, but it settled deeply, like something misaligned beneath the surface of everything she knew. Without saying anything, she let the next wave pass beneath her and turned back toward the shore, paddling with a growing urgency she didn’t try to explain, the water loosening its hold on her as she reached the sand and stood, grabbing her things more quickly than she meant to.

“Marisol?” Charlotte called after her.

She didn’t stop, and the absence of an answer was enough to make both Charlotte and Martín exchange a quick look before following her.

“What’s going on?” Martín asked as he caught up beside her, still trying to read something in the way she moved.

Marisol kept walking for a few steps before finally stopping, turning toward them as if she had reached the point where holding everything in was no longer possible, the words already forming before she fully decided to say them.

“I need to go back.”

“To where?” Charlotte asked, more carefully now.

Marisol hesitated only for a moment before answering, “Can I borrow your skate?”

“Sure, yeah” charlotte sounded like she wanted to be helpful but fearful.

Marisol grabbed her surf board and asked “Can you guys bring Fabian back to El Tirano?”

“Yes, Yeah” They both answered. Fabian looked like his old self for a moment, serious, with those piercing blue eyes that seemed to understand everything before you said a word. She tried to look relaxed for a moment, and told him,

“Everything is fine, I just forgot to take care of something, I’ll see you later back at the house to study” Dad will make lunch and then we’ll study” She hoped on the long board and left. She could feel them looking at her as she left.

When she got home, Fabian was sitting on the sidewalk of her house.

“How did you…? She didn't finish the sentence before realizing the answer.

“Take a wild guess” He sounded like his snobby old self again.

“Aren’t you too young to evaporate?”

He ignored that. “What’s going on?”

“Non of your business” she said as she walked in the house.

He sight. “Marisol, you looked really scared back there. You didn't tell your (-) friends about it which leads me to think it’s a magic issue, but you didn't call your parents either, so it must be something you should’nt be doing.

She looked anoyed and discovered.

“We come from a different world than your friends. They’re great and all, but who do you have to rely on when deeper issues arise? You can’t even begin to tell them about it. Who do you have in the magical world”

“I know my parents”

He grabber her backpack and pulled out her phone. “Call your dad then”

She went quiet and looked at the floor.

He paused and said softly “I won't tell your parents unless it’s truly an emergency”

She made eye contact with him for a few seconds, as if making a contract that binded him to her side. He understood and noded.

She had grown up away from the magical world, that was true. Her parents had raised her on the island and she had mostly had been home schooled. She even attended (_) kindergarden and 1-5 grades, which was not common in the wizarding world. She didn't have anyone to talk about this, let alone the support she needed to handle it. Fabian wasn’t a close friend and she did’t know if she could trust him not telling her parents, but she trusted his character and that was enough for now.