As Cece and I approached the beach, instantly I felt fulfilled. With the bright blue surfboard in my hand and my beach bag in the other, I walked onto the warm, soft sand spread in front of the large, blue, ocean, waves crashing repeatedly. Although I was excited to surf, butterflies continuously swarmed through my stomach.

“The waves look great, lets go!”, Cece cheered, while dropping her bags down into the sand.

“Ok, but I’m just warning you now, I’m not the best surfer,” I explained. Cece responded with a laugh while preparing to make her way down to the water. The beach was sweltering, and it felt as though we were cookies baking inside an oven. I wanted to stall, and wait to surf, but the heat was forcing me otherwise. I placed my bag in the sand, dropped the surfboard down, and peeled off my coverup and sunglasses. In the distance I could hear the seagulls singing, as a cool, salty breeze blew past me.

“Come on Brooke, it's time to surf”, Cece said as she ran down to the waves, surfboard in hand. I traced her steps, and followed her to the edge of the water preparing for what I thought was going to be the death of me. Thoughts of sharks swirled through my head, and getting toppled by waves, and weird creatures, which began to freak me out even though none of this seemed to slightly even phase Cece. “I’m going in, come on Brooke. Pleaseeeee”, she pleaded, running and splashing through the ice cold waves.

“I don’t know, think about all the surfers who have gotten bitten by sharks. I really don’t want to become one of them”, I stated, and Cece erupted in laughter.

“Seriously, nothing is going to happen to you. Why are you even thinking about that stuff? Just get in the water”, she begged.

I slowly made my way into the water, the waves crashing at my ankles, and splashing up my legs giving me the chills. I waded through the waves and made it up to my waist, and dove under water. I started nervously laughing, but I knew that I had to stay in the ocean. A wave was approaching us, and Cece yelled, “Alright I’m gonna take this one.” I barely even blinked and she already had hopped on the board and started paddling, and attempted to stand, yet she tumbled off and flew into the water. I couldn't help myself but laugh, and knew that I needed to try. Yet right when I thought that, a huge wave began its way towards me, and my first instinct was to run the other way. Before I knew it, I was already at the shore. “What are you doing?” Cece asked, “Come back in”, she said.

Knowing that I needed to face it, and live a little, I said, “Maybe, but you need to ride another wave first.” As I said that she turned around and began paddling once again, this time making it to a stance but toppling over after a few seconds. Again I laughed and ran back into the water, surprisingly excited to try it myself. I took hold of the surfboard, and was on the lookout for a good, tiny, wave for me to try and ride.

“Look at that one coming! Come on, you can ride this one”, Cece said, pointing to the small wave coming towards us. Although I could not surf for my life, and the butterflies had returned, I hopped on the board and began to paddle, praying that I would make it to shore in one piece. As the wave began to curl, I tried my best to stand up, the nerves slowly leaving me, as Cece laughed and cheered for me. And, before I knew it I was in the water because, as I expected, I could not stand. But when I came up from the salty water, I was ecstatic and had fun and so did she and that's all that mattered to me.