Page 125 of Possibly Texas

“Jordan!” Auggie shook his head. “This is dumb.”

“Then why do you not want me to do it?” I asked, looking down at him.

Auggie screamed over the thunder and rain.

“It’s just an old wives’ tale, Jordan!” he demanded. “It’s not real!”

I snorted with amusement, though I was certain he couldn’t hear.

“You really have to find something to believe in, Auggie,” I said.

He glowered up at me, though a hint of a smile played at the corner of his mouth. I threw my arms out wide.

“AUG—”

I didn’t have time to finish my exclamation. Auggie’s arms were suddenly reaching up and wrapping around me. His actions caught me off guard and I startled. And one foot slipped from the rail like I’d stepped on a banana peel. A blink of the eye later, I was falling backwards from the bridge. I had just enough sense about me to realize that Auggie was spilling over to the creek below with me, dragged over the railing by my weight.

I’ve never jumped from a bridge before. For any reason. I’d never jumped from anything if I wasn’t certain there was something there to keep me from certain doom. So, it was curious to me that the short fall from the bridge to the creek below seemed to last forever. As if I was falling in slow motion, my arms and legs flailing wildly as I waited for the impact with the water. To see if, like everyone else before me, the creek would safely catch me.

When I felt my back connect with the water’s surface, and then the creek gushed up around me in a tidal wave of water kept warm by the summer sun, my breath was ejected from my body. If I’d known when to expect the impact, I might have held my breath in better. The suddenness and shock of it all sent me under the water with no safety net. No way to make sure that I would be able to kick to the surface before I was gasping in lungfuls of water, sealing my doom.

Surprisingly—though it shouldn’t have been—I popped to the surface seconds later. The fall, though it felt infinite, wasn’t nearly far enough to push me too deep under the surface. Then again, I’d landed on my back—like a reverse belly flop—that had probably helped, even if it had stung. Immediately, I began spinning in the water, searching out Auggie.

Lightning ripped through the sky and the thunder purred like a cat, illuminating the creek around me. Auggie was bobbing in the water a few yards away, glowering at me. I couldn’t help it. I began to laugh. Uproarious, uninhibited laughter poured forth as I bobbed up and down in the creek, treading water with my swirling arms and legs. It took him a second to find the humor in it, but Auggie’s laughter finally pealed through the air.

Once again, lightning flashed, bright, but weaker than before, and the thunder sounded—though it seemed to be coming from much further away. Auggie and I continued treading water and laughing until our eyes met again, and a silent agreement passed between us. Simultaneously, we spun in the water and began paddling towards the western bank of Susurrus Creek as the rain eased up, turning into a light sprinkle as we made our way to the shore.

By the time we had reached the western bank and were crawling up it in tandem, the rain was barely a mist and the thunder that rolled through the sky sounded like it was coming from a million miles away. When we reached solid ground again, out of breath, but still laughing, Auggie and I plopped down on the muddy bank of Susurrus Creek, our legs dangling over. When our laughter finally died off, and both of us were catching our breath, soaked like drowned rats, I turned to look at him.

Auggie was already turned to meet my eyes.

“You’re brilliant,” I said, though I’d had no idea what I was going to say until that moment. “You’re absolutely brilliant. That’s what I think. And I’m not embarrassed of you.”

Auggie started to look away, but stopped himself. His eyes came back to mine.

“And I know what I want,” I said. “It just…took me a while.”

“Jordan—”

“I’m not like you,” I said. “I’m not always so sure of myself. But when I figure things out, I don’t change my mind.”

Auggie stared into my eyes, a small smile on his face.

“I guess I’d never thought that I’d feel this way about a boy, but—”

“You know,” Auggie said, chewing at his lip, “I’m not a boy.”

I stared at him for a second.

“You’re not a girl,” I said, stupidly.

“Exactly,” Auggie’s smile broadened a bit.

For a few moments, we stared into each other’s eyes. The rain stopped and thunder sounded a final time in the distance.

“I can work with that,” I grinned goofily at them.

“You’re not weirded out by that?” they asked, though they didn’t avert their eyes. “You’re not going to call me weird?”