The parking lot is half-full of beat-up cars and trucks, tailgates down and stereos competing. Someone’s playing Kings of Leon too loud. Someone else is yelling for more ice.

Max’s friends are a blur of movement behind him—Jacob trying to open a beer with his teeth, Slater tossing a football that bounces off a minivan’s roof.

Max doesn't turn around.

He’s fixed on the shoreline, where the tide is pulling out slow and lazy, dragging the last of the day’s heat with it.

That’s when he sees her.

She walks out of the water like she was born in it—longboard tucked under her arm, turquoise hair plastered to her shoulders, dripping salt down her tan skin. She doesn't shake off like most people do. She just lets the ocean fall away from her.

Fifty yards off, she reaches a towel spread with girls and fruit. One of them holds up a little bottle of white paint. Alani laughs, drops her board, and extends her leg like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

The first stroke of the jellyfish begins on her shin.

The girl on the beach hasn't looked up once. She’s too busy watching the white bloom under the brush on her skin, like she’s creating something that already existed.