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Plus it felt amazing.
There was no turbulence today. Only a smooth glide that set my mind free.
Less than a minute after I left the cliff, the trees cleared into a meadow. I pulled my head up and pushed my muscles, creating enough drag to slow down for the landing. The parachute deployed and the moment the canopy was fully inflated, I unzipped my arms and legs to reach the steering toggles.
Everything happened fast. My feet touched the ground in a soft landing.
I pulled off my helmet and breathed.
I was alive.
And for this one precious moment, I didn’t have any regrets about that.
I stripped out of my wingsuit, leaving me in my long-sleeved thermal and joggers, before texting Mateo that I had landed safely and would see him in about twenty minutes. It was only a ten-minute hike to the dirt road where he parked, but I needed to pack up my gear and catch my breath.
I lay down in the grass and felt the sun on my face. This was why I did it. This moment right here when I knew I was alive and I was glad for it. These few moments of peace were worth the risk of death—they wouldn’t exist without it.
This feeling wouldn’t last. It never did.
But for now, I was here. I was alive. And I was glad I was alive.
So I closed my eyes and breathed.
28
LILA
“Lila! Don’t just stand there. I have you in a literal chokehold, and if you don’t wake up, I’m going to cut off your air supply.” Tamilee’s voice cut through my brain fog.
I blinked. She did indeed have me in a chokehold, and I hadn’t even noticed. My body was here but my mind was with Seb.
His white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel. The haunted look in his eyes.
He’d told me he was all right, but I knew it was a lie.
Four years ago, I would have accepted it at face value and let it go. That was what I always did. What was the point in pushing and prodding someone to talk? Seb was an adult. If he wanted to talk, he’d talk. If he wanted to leave, he’d leave.
I was good at that, taking people as they were. I didn’t try to change them or shape them into something that was easier for me to handle. Maybe it came from years of documenting animals being exactly themselves. Or maybe this career suited me because I innately understood that you can’t control people; you can only control your reaction to them.
Sometimes I thought about how those first weeks of my life were almost my last. Mom didn’t talk much about it, but I could imagine. The cold porcelain against my skin as my father placed me in the bathtub. Mom begging for my life. The water lapping my toes and then rising higher. I bet I’d screamed myself red in the face. It hadn’t done any good. I should have saved my breath.
Maybe I learned my lesson too well, because it felt like I’d been saving my breath ever since.
I’d always considered that my superpower. It meant I didn’t put up with anyone treating me like shit. Not boyfriends, or clients, or random people on the street.
But Seb was…Seb. He was the one who pulled jellyfish tentacles off my calf. He was the one who held my hair back when I puked from eating gluten. He was the one who made me my favorite snack every night. He was the one I ran to when my life was in danger because I knew, deep in the marrow of my bones, that no matter what had happened between us, he would always come through for me.
And I knew now that he hadn’t walked away because he got off on treating people like shit. He’d been struggling with his own demons. Looking back, the signs were there. I should have asked. I should have pushed.
Especially when he left. That should have been a neon warning sign that something was very, very wrong. I should have pushed. I should have fought for us. Instead, I’d let him walk out the door without a fuss.
And now I was doing the same thing. Not pushing when he said he was all right. Leaving him there on the ground when he froze after I asked if he would stay—twice.
Seb had left me once. But I’d been the one walking away ever since.
I kept saving my breath when I should have screamed the house down.
“Lila? Are you having a stroke?” Tamilee asked.
