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Chapter One
Kylee
“If this won’t snap you out of your funk,” my cousin Nerf says as he tosses me the packed parachute, “nothing will.”
My heart starts pounding as I look down at the pack. I’m literally holding my life in my hands.
“Shully packed it,” Nerf says with a confident nod. “He’s the best packer we got.”
I swallow hard as I glance over at Shully who’s bent over and picking his teeth in the reflection of the Jeep’s filthy side mirror.
My life depends on that guy folding a huge piece of nylon properly.
“Great,” I mutter as the guys head into the General Store to grab some snacks and drinks.
I place the pack in the back of the Jeep and follow my cousin inside. The guy behind the counter gives him a double take when we walk in. Nerf is used to it. He’s a tall lanky redhead with huge ears and a very distinctive face. People are always staring at him, but it’s not really the good kind of staring. It’s the kind that you’d do if a four-year-old showed you her clay sculpture and you’re trying to figure out what it is.
The guys are attacking the chip aisle. They’re grabbing as much as they can hold before they head over to the soda fridge and start loading up on Mountain Dew. I laugh because these guys are exactly the type of guys who are in Mountain Dew commercials—crazy adventurous nuts who spend their free time doing activities that are trying to kill them.
“You want?” Nerf asks as he tosses me a cold red bottle of Mountain Dew Code Red.
I catch it with a chuckle. “Sure.”
I’ve never had this before and I’m not exactly sure if it’s even meant for human consumption, but when in Rome, you do as the Romans do, and when you’re hanging out with wild adrenaline junkies, you risk it all, even indigestion.
It’s been a tough month for me. I’ve been in a dark place.
Laying in bed and feeling sorry for myself has been my coping method of choice, but it’s not working. I’m not feeling any better. It’s just making everything worse.
I knew it was serious when my mother came over and suggested I hang out with Nerf for the weekend. Nerf and his buddies are not the type of people you want your kids hanging out with. Not because you’re more likely to get into trouble, but because you’re more likely to die. They’re always doing crazy shit. They were doing parkour before it had a name. They weren’t even videotaping it and putting it on YouTube for clicks and fame. They were jumping from building to building and climbing up radio towers and dangling from one hand for fun. They just do all this crazy shit for themselves.
I needed something to snap me out of my somber daze after the life I worked my ass off to build came tumbling down, so I sent him a text.
He sent me five words and one number back:
Be ready on Saturday at 8
I was too afraid to ask what he had planned. It could be anything. Riding dirt bikes along the edge of cliffs, paragliding through the mountains, wingsuiting over the forest, surfing monster waves, swimming with deadly sharks, rock climbing with no ropes. They’ve done it all.
So, I was actually relieved when he picked me up and announced that we were going skydiving out of a little airplane in the Greene Mountains.
Jumping out of a plane is better than floating next to a Great White shark, but it’s still terrifying. We’ll be hurtling through the atmosphere with only a pack strapped to our backs. I’m starting to realize that now, and I’m getting really nervous.
“Are you sure this is safe?” I whisper to Nerf as his buddy Tito pays for everything. Tito made a fortune from Bitcoin and he finances all of the group’s wild activities, including the excessive amount of Mountain Dew.
Nerf gives me that cocky grin. “You’re bummed out, right?”
I sigh. “Yeah.”
“You got a dark cloud hanging over your head after what happened, right?”
I nod.
“What you need is an adrenaline rush to shake all that dark shit out of you,” he says with a shrug of his slender shoulders. “You’ll see. Your brain will be so flooded with endorphins, you won’t be able to stop smiling, and then you can close this chapter and start a new one having done something crazy and adventurous.”
I’m not quite sure if I agree with his logic, but everyone starts running back to the jeep and I suck it up and follow them.
I hope he’s right. I do need something to shake my life up.
