Chapter 16
Sixteen
I’m fine, I just enjoy jumping from great heights, that’s all
Max
‘You don’t have to jump if you don’t want to, D,’ Bertie says, wrapping an arm around Dylan’s torso and squeezing her shoulder,
which she pulls away from almost imperceptibly.
He doesn’t know she slept funny last night and woke up with an ache in her shoulder. I do, because I was the first person
she told, during her uncharacteristically talkative early-morning ramble I’ve come to expect over the past few days. She’s
requested I keep our new sleeping arrangement to ourselves, and so far I’ve complied.
We stay apart as we fall asleep–her softly snoring, me tossing and turning–but while we’re unconscious, all attempts to stay
apart go out the window; I inevitably hog the duvet, she pushes me up to the very edge of the bed, and there’s usually at
least one limb slung over someone else’s when we wake. Despite all that, I’ve been sleeping better. It’s not that sharing
with Dylan has cured years-long insomnia, but the even flow of her breathing soothes the chaos in my brain to a gentle lapping
of waves, rather than the raging tumult of an ocean storm. I still don’t sleep much, but at least it’s peaceful.
‘It’s not as bad as you think,’ Jude says to Dylan, gesturing to where a wetsuit-clad Fiona and Greg are about to jump off a set of ruins on the edge of the Blue Lagoon.
It’s an old slate quarry that’s been left to the waves, the minerals turning the frigid seawater an impossible shade of turquoise.
I’ve already jumped twice, but Dylan’s been hovering at the edge the whole time.
‘Life is a series of open doors. Closed ones, too,’ Bertie says with a smile that informs me he’s sure he’s said something
profound, and not profoundly stupid. He gives Dylan’s shoulder another patronising squeeze and says, ‘It’s okay. Don’t feel pressured to jump.’
I squint in her direction against the early-September sun. ‘You’ll regret not doing the high one, though.’
She scowls weakly at my suggestion, teeth beginning to chatter.
‘I’m going from this lower spot,’ Bertie says, releasing Dylan and stepping to the edge, shaking his shoulder-length hair
like a dog and looking out at the sheer cliffs that line the perimeter of the quarry. ‘Watch how I do it.’
With that, he jumps the metre or so into the ocean, limbs flailing like they’re barely attached to his body.
‘Didn’t know we had a stuntman with us,’ I say, which elicits a cackle from Jude.
Dylan turns to scold us, but Jude offers an apologetic grimace and says, ‘It was a bit . . . rag doll.’
‘I’ll look worse,’ Dylan says, distress in her eyes as she leans over the edge to look at the water. I notice she doesn’t
deny the fact he looked like a rag doll.
‘Don’t undersell yourself. You have far more grace,’ Jude replies, before making her way up towards the higher jump-off point.
‘Fiona and Greg did it.’ I point towards the two of them bobbing in the water below. ‘And they’re in their sixties.’
‘Yeah, well, Fiona and Greg also went bungee jumping last month.’
A shriek and a splash tell us Jude’s just jumped in. Someone else follows a few moments later.
‘At least check out the view from up there,’ I suggest after a few moments, and Dylan follows me up.
I step closer to her and try a different tactic. ‘Let’s go together.’
She shakes her head. ‘We’re not allowed to jump so close to each other–we have to go from two separate points. They went through
this in the safety briefing, remember?’
I decide now is not the time to inform her that I missed most of what was said during the briefing because I was preoccupied
looking at her in that wetsuit. I had to list capital cities in my head to keep myself in check. And I’m both easily distracted
and shit with capital cities, so that didn’t go great.
‘Come on,’ I urge. ‘Just once. Otherwise, years from now, you’re going to be falling asleep one night, and your brain will
go, Wow, remember that time I got cold feet about jumping off those ruins in Wales even though I told myself I’d try new things every
day on that trip? And you won’t be able to fall asleep ever again because you’ll be turning it over in your head forevermore. This can be today’s
new thing. Cross it off your bucket list.’
‘It’s not a bucket list, it’s a series of new experiences I’m mentally keeping track of so that I can return to London satisfied
with all the things I’ve done, then move forward with everything else I have planned for my life without what-ifs plaguing me.’
‘Of course, silly me.’
‘Go from the lower one!’ Bertie calls up to us.
‘Go ahead,’ I say. ‘Take advice from the weasel.’
‘Stop being so horrible to him.’
‘What’s he gonna do? Build a dam?’
‘That’s a beaver,’ she mutters.
I move to the edge. Now I’m here, the urge to jump hits a fever pitch. A calling to leap out and let the universe hold me.
‘I’m scared,’ she admits.
‘You’re allowed to be.’ I shrug. ‘But you do it anyway.’
She releases a long breath. ‘And I don’t trust you.’
‘Good. You shouldn’t.’ I meet her eye with a grin. ‘Ready?’
‘No,’ she replies, but she’s at the edge at last, hair shifting in the breeze.
I count down from three, then launch myself off. My adrenaline spikes, and in those moments of freefall, I feel it. I am impossibly,
truly, earth-shatteringly alive, wholly at the mercy of the elements, of physics, of the pull of gravity dragging me down.
I’m not thinking about the darkness, not living in the in-between, not holding myself together with distractions. I’m just
here.
When my head breaks the surface, the first thing I notice is that Dylan’s not down here with me. For the briefest second,
my heart speeds with something like panic, but then I look up and see she’s still standing on the ruins.
‘Don’t make me use bad words,’ I shout, swimming backwards and covering my eyes with my hand to block the sun.
‘I’m going to die,’ she calls back, her voice trailing off at the end, like speaking loudly isn’t natural for her.
‘You’re not gonna die, Tiny.’
‘I might,’ she snaps, folding her arms.
I swim until I’m treading water with the rest of the group, a safe distance away if she does decide to jump.
Jude starts chanting, ‘Dylan, Dylan, Dylan.’
And then everyone joins in, and I know Dylan well enough by now to know that if people are chanting her name, there’s no way
she’s going to let them down, even if it’s to her detriment.
A few seconds pass, and she jumps.
By the time she surfaces, we’ve already broken out into cheers, and she swims towards us. But through the gritted teeth of
her slightly manic smile, she says under her breath to me, ‘Never again.’
’Knew you could do it,’ I reply, our legs colliding underwater as we both kick to stay afloat. ‘How was it?’
‘My life flashed before my eyes.’
‘And isn’t that liberating?’
Sunlight bounces off the water, sending shadows rippling across her face the same way a droplet moves down her cheek. ‘You’re a menace.’
‘Is that an insult?’ When I spread my arms, my hand grazes hers, and the touch of her skin sends a jolt of electricity through
me just like when I jumped off the ruins. It’s an effort not to intentionally touch her again, to fill my veins with that
feeling.
‘I don’t know,’ she admits, chewing the inside of her mouth.
I propel away and look over my shoulder to say, ‘If being a menace means forcing you to understand what you’re capable of,
then so be it.’
Her eyes flash, and I could get addicted to the thrill it gives me. Maybe I’m so drawn to getting a reaction out of her for
the same reason I hurl myself from planes and swim with sharks and test all possible boundaries of my body. It makes me feel
alive.