“Childrenare doing it!”
“Childrendon’t have fully developed prefrontal cortexes.”
“You’re cooler than this. I know you are.” He faces me, walking backward on the narrow footpath. “I know you were scared back then…but it’s different now.” His words dropme on the top of that waterfall in Lewellen with him. Just two kids who had no idea that the world was going to kick them in the teeth.
I shake my head. “It’s not—”
“Do you trust me?” he asks.
“Okay, you’re seriously going to kill yourself walking like that.”
He stops short, and it takes all of my lower-body strength not to collide right into him.
“Chuck?” He pierces me with that unfairly striking stare. “Do you trust me?”
“Yes.” I say it without thinking, because that’s never been a question for me. Of course I trust Ethan. He’s Ethan.
My chin tilts up with a confidence I don’t actually possess. Could I bring myself to trust him with every part of me? Even the dark places that repel love like opposing poles? What if I could? I know it’s crazy, but even at the edge of a cliff, I feel safe with him.
His eyes dart around my face, like he might not believe me, but then he blinks. “Okay, then,” he says.
We know we’re at the right spot from the piles of clothes and towels dotting the jagged rock that juts out from the edge. There’s no sign of the teens who left them there, which is troubling, but I refuse to dwell on it.
Ethan lowers his pack to the ground before stripping to his boxers. I keep my eyes on the water and follow suit, pulling down my shorts until I’m in nothing but underwear and a T-shirt.
“Wait,” I tell him, reaching down for his bag. There’s a fog bank in the distance, hovering over the enormous trees like a gauzy curtain in the sunshine. Our little rock seems tiny incomparison, the surrounding pines hugging the stone like a benevolent presence. On top of the forest, I can admire the way the trees and rock roll straight into the clouds. We’re on the edge of the planet with water dotting the landscape, craters of serene blue. “I want to take a picture of this real quick.”
“Without pants on?” he asks through a frozen jaw. The chill off the lake is getting to him.
“Is there a dress code?”
He sighs, like my brief interlude is derailing his perfect sequence of spontaneity. After a couple of shots, I stow the camera away, but I pause at the sound of my vibrating phone.
I look up at him. “This is torture. I have enough service up here to see that I have billions of emails coming through from Bob, but not enough to open them.” Is this ledge the cork between heaven and hell?
His inhale flares his nostrils. “Put it away,” he commands, and I throw the phone back in the bag with resignation.
“No more stalling, Beekman.” When he says it, I can’t help butnoticehim. The way he’s standing close and how the light touches the lines of his bare shoulders, the smattering of hair on his chest and the way it rises and falls with his breaths.
I lick my lips and face ahead. He’s right, I’m stalling. I don’t mean to, but suddenly, we feel very high up, and I’ve already made the rookie mistake of looking straight down into the water. Fear rips through my insides like an invasive plant. This water is nothing like Lake Lewellen. It’s wild and dark and bottomless.
“We shouldn’t do this,” I whisper, peering over the ledge, but I might as well be talking about this moment, last night, this whole damn trip. I’m never reckless like this. I’m neverthis out of control. My breath has grown ragged, and I’m failing miserably at concealing the unsteadiness of it.
“Look at me, Charley.” Ethan’s voice is steady, a buoy in choppy waters. “Charley,” he repeats, grabbing my face, the tips of his fingers threading into my hair. His hands are so much bigger on my cheeks. Warmer than I’m used to. “I won’t let go of your hand. I promise.”
I nod, watching the bob of his Adam’s apple. Intellectually, I know we’ll survive this drop with little more than a bruised ass, but I catalog every crease in his face, the way his lip twitches, every small part of him, like it might be the last time I ever see it. I think he does it to me too. His eyes trail everywhere on my face like little featherlight touches.
We’ve been barreling toward this jump since the day we met, and now, after everything this year has thrown at me, Iwantto take this leap with him. Ineedto.
“Don’t let go,” I tell him, right before we jump into the air.
We kick our legs as though they might land on the surface and keep running like one of those water striders. We’re weightless, existing somewhere between water and air, until the momentum and gravity split us apart, and Ethan plummets into the lake a half second before me.
He smacks the surface hard; the splash of his body against the dark water sounds like a cracking tree trunk. It’s the last thing I hear before the freezing lake swallows me whole too, pressing me down like a needle through silk, silencing my senses until I’m caught by the water.
For the span of a single heartbeat, I’m disorientingly buoyant, as though I’m water too. The tension in my muscles spills into the surrounding liquid. By the next beat, my stillness is replaced by the instinct to kick myself back up.
We reach the surface at the same time, both of us gasping for air. He releases an exhilarated whoop and whips his hair to the side. “Holy shit. Can you believe that? Was it everything you imagined, Chuck?”
