“No.”
“Wine tasting?”
“No.”
“Ziplining?”
“I’m not answering anymore. You’re making me sound ridiculous.”
“You’re standing on a cliff arguing about adventure instead of taking three steps.”
I stare at him. He stares back. This man has known me for less than twenty-four hours and has somehow identified the exact shape of my problem.
I talk. I plan. I promise myself later. I make lists about the life I want, then fold them into drawers and live the life that requires the least disruption.
Three steps. That’s all he is asking from me. Three steps to the edge. I turn toward the water. My legs feel unreliable, but they move.
One step.
The rock is warm beneath my bare feet.
Two.
My toes spread instinctively, gripping the sun-heated stone, and some traitorous part of me notices Hudson was right. I can feel the ledge better this way. Every rough patch. Every steady place. Every warning my body knows how to read when I stop trying to protect it from everything.
Three.
The edge.
My breath catches so sharply it hurts.
“Oh,” I whisper.
The drop is not enormous. I know that. I can see the lower rocks, the far ledge, the water waiting beneath me. People have jumped from here before. Hudson checked. Hudson knows.
My body does not care. My body thinks we have made a terrible mistake.
A breeze slips along my arms. My knees tremble. The lake seems to inhale below me.
Hudson steps behind me, but not touching. Close enough that I feel him anyway.
“Look across the water,” he says.
“I’m looking down.”
“I know. Stop.”
“I’m concerned about where I’m going.”
“You’re going into the water. We covered that.”
A weak laugh shakes out of me.
“Look across, Layla.”
I force my eyes up.
Across the cove, pine trees climb the slope in dense green layers. Morning light spills between the branches. A bird glides low over the surface, touches the water once, then lifts.
