'At Seventeen' Alternate Ending

The Youth followed a safe distance behind as she drove down the winding highway along the dunes scattered with shrubs, the walls that safeguarded the beach. He wanted to get through them. He wanted to be back at his beach, where things were simple. Where he knew no fear and had complete control. But this wasn’t his beach and he didn’t have control in this situation. The voice inside him told him to let the fear go, but it wasn’t as easy as it was out in the waves.

He drove behind her for about an hour. He waited for her while she stopped at a petrol station. “What are you doing?” he asked himself out loud, but not even the voice inside him could answer that question. Once she was off again so was he and they drove down the coast for another hour until she turned off the highway into a suburban area. Once he realised that she was heading to her house, he began to panic. ‘What would I say to her when I get there?’ ‘What would she think of me when she realises that I had followed her?’ He kept asking the voice these questions but got no reply.

She pulled into the driveway of a small house, bricks red and rusted, while the Youth pulled up onto the curb, still a safe distance behind her. He tried to get himself together and decided to get out of his car and approach her, say something to her. He built up his confidence, reached for the door handle but pulled back when he saw the front door of her house swing open. A young man stepped through the doorway and hugged her. She hugged him back. The Youth's smile faded. His heart sank. He felt far worse than being beaten by any wave and to surrender to it. He started his car up and drove back to the highway, back to his beach.

“What are you doing back home?” the boy said with a grin. “I thought you’d be surfing up the coast for the rest of the summer”
“I just felt like coming back for a while” she said. As she followed her brother into her house she turned around for just a moment and wondered how things would have turned out if that surfer had followed her.