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Zayn plops a burger onto the empty bun on my plate before taking his seat next to me. I let out a sigh of relief before grabbing the ketchup. He smiles. After I’ve finished reaching for the condiments and stacking chips onto the plate, I’m met with his hand on my lower back. My body feels like it’s on fire and it’s not just this North Carolina heat.
He leans in close to my ear and whispers, “Want to share a tent with me, Miss Parker?”
My eyes widen with excitement. I guess I didn’t really consider the sleeping arrangements, but it does make the most sense for me to bunk with Zayn. Natalie must have heard him; she nudges me with her elbow.
I clear my throat. “Um, yeah. Sounds great.”
He smiles.
“Well, under one condition,” I add.
He closes his eyes and shakes his head. “Always a condition. I wouldn’t expect anything else.”
“You have to make sure it’s bug free before we go to sleep. Deal?”
Zayn laughs. “Bug free camping? I’ll see what I can do.”
I nod. “I’m trusting you with this one, Z.”
He winks and I glance a final time at him before taking a giant bite into my burger.Maybe camping won’t be so bad after all.
* * *
Zayn pullshis truck up to a well-known cliff, Sunrise Rock—a huge tourist destination for cliff-diving. I think it’s roughly thirty feet tall. This is one on the list that I’m most terrified of. Well, this and getting a tattoo.
“You ready to do some cliff diving?” Zayn asks me.
I exhale loudly. “Ah, I don’t know. This is one of the top scariest things for me on the list.”
“Don’t worry, Autumn. I’m with you,” he assures me, grabbing my hand in his and kissing the back of it.
“We are, too,” our friends start shouting from the bed of his truck, which they all pile into. I laugh. I can’t believe it, but I feel more at home here than I did my whole life I had planned out in Connecticut.
We all hop out of the truck and start heading toward the cliff. There are a lot more people here than I anticipated, and I’m not sure if that comforts me or makes me more nervous.
Zayn and I walk closer to the edge and peer over it.
“Whew, that looks steeper than I remember,” he says.
“Wait, have you done this before?” I ask.
He nods as our friends gather around us, peeking over the ledge too. “Yup. Right, Ryker? He and I used to come out here all the time, dive off it, and swim for a while.”
“Good times for sure,” Ryker replies.
I take relief knowing they’ve done it quite a few times already. I look to Mason and Natalie. “What about you guys?” I ask. “Ever jumped this?”
Natalie looks at me. “I haven’t, but I’ve always wanted to. I’m a bit scared, too.”
“I’ve done it a few times, but it’s been a while,” Mason shares. “I’m also almost thirty, though, so I feel like I won’t be able to handle an accidental belly flop as well as I used to in my teens and early twenties.”
“Fair point,” Zayn says to Mason.
“Mhmm, that’s true.” I take a final look over the edge and take a deep breath. I walk a few steps back and Zayn follows.
He asks, “So, what do you think? We doin’ it?”
What would Summer say to me right now?I think about it for a while. I know she already would have dived in and come back up, begging me to join her in the fun. Or, like she said in her letter, that even as her ghost self, she’d remind me I’m still alive, andwe only get one life . . . don’t waste it being too afraid to live.
