Epilogue
one up.”
“What?”
After three glorious days in Barcelona and two more weeks of Nash and me hopping around the European countryside, Crystal
decided the fun should absolutely continue, given the celebratory circumstances of my induction into the group and all.
Which is how exactly two months later I’ve ended up somewhere in the , with some stranger yanking me up by a harness
at my hip.
Some would call the view glorious.
I can only bestow such a term when my feet are firmly back on solid ground.
Today, as we’ve ziplined through the rainforest, we’ve finally begun to dig into all the secret rules.
And yes, apparently there is also a secret handshake.
It’s quite laborious to learn actually.
Took me three solid weeks.
“How many rules are there exactly?”
“Ninety-six,” Neena trills.
“Ninety-seven,” Crystal amends. “I added one last meeting, remember? The Mandatory Fondue Christmas Eve Party.”
The rules, for the record, are unreal.
They say that writing is an isolating experience.
Maybe that’s the case for other people, but when you’re part of The Magnificent Seven, there is never (and I mean never) a dull moment.
“Are we absolutely sure we should be doing this?” I say, trying my best to avoid looking down. “I thought I would be doing less of these moments
when I wasn’t getting paid to do it for Hugh.”
“Now you’re just doing it for free,” Neena says, grinning.
“It’s called friendship,” Gordon says. “We do stupid things for friends because we love them.”
“Bottoms up,” Crystal calls, and the whole platform lurches as she hops off it and into thin air.
She free-falls for about twenty terrifying feet before her line finally catches.
“But this has ten reviews on Google,” I say.
“Wheeeee,” Crystal says.
“Total!” I say louder to everyone.
They all ignore me.
“And half of them were two stars!” I add.
“They lived to write those two stars, didn’t they?” Neena says, as though this is an excellent point.
Neena hops off next.
Then Gordon.
Then Hugh (who isn’t quite so “retired” after all).
“C’mon, Pip! It’s your turn!”
Crystal’s voice echoes through the trees. I can’t see her. All I see is the green foliage everywhere. The thick scent of mangoes
and fresh dirt and slithering snakes hidden in trees.
“Want me to nudge you?” Nash says with a whisper in my ear. I feel his hand gently on my back and turn toward him.
“Don’t you dare,” I hiss.
As it turns out, I have a natural fear of two very logical things: being underwater in confined spaces, and being one hundred
feet in the air zipping through tree lines and narrowly avoiding death by tree trunk.
Gordon’s nearing seventy-six and did this like a breeze.
But they all have an easier time living than me.
Just in general, I have to work harder in life to be free.
“We’ve got time,” Nash says. He leans against the tree trunk of the tiny stand we’re on as if to say, No really, Pip, we absolutely can be here all day. I smile a little because he means it, and for that reason, and roughly a thousand more, I love him.
“I can do this,” I say, bouncing my shoulders. Hyping myself up.
“You can do this,” he echoes.
“Why are we here again?”
“Because Crystal wanted to do research for her YA series while celebrating your induction, and you said last week, and I quote,
‘Oh wow, that sounds like fun.’ Despite the fact I told you we would end up in this situation—”
“At the time, she implied we would be staying at a resort—”
“Sleeping on the ground in tents.”
“She said the food would be unparalleled.”
“And now here we are. In a tree.”
“Can someone explain to me why I continue to go on all these things?”
Nash grins. “Because you’re a part of the group now, and like seven-year-olds in a treehouse club, we’ve decided to take our
secret-yet-completely-public club entirely too seriously. And,” he adds, “life’s more fun with people who aren’t afraid to
be completely and utterly, and eccentrically, themselves.”
“Of which this lot certainly is.” I sigh and look down just past my toes to the bitter, bitter fall one hundred feet below.
I bite my lip and swivel round. “Nash.”
“Yes?”
“I love you.”
Nash’s eyes crinkle as he smiles.
“And I’m going to need you to push me off.”
Nash saunters slowly up to me. Reaches behind my sticky, braided ponytail and lifts my chin gently. His kiss is long and deep
and the kind of kiss that makes the world swirl for just a little bit. “I love you too, Pip,” he says. “More than anything
else in all the world.”
And then he pushes me off the ledge.
That’s the thing about friends.
They may pull a little Willy Wonka on you, challenge you, and for a moment you may really think they are going to murder you.
But if they really love you, like the friends I have do, they’re friends in good times and bad.
In moments of triumph and in moments of tragedy.
Friends, when done right, can be closer than family, can be the first people you think of to call in those big moments, and little. They love you despite your faults and flaws. They see you, all the little bits of you that you try to keep tucked so secretly in the corner, and they stay.
They always keep the light on for you.
They always answer the call.
Friends can even, if you are very, very lucky, fake a death.
All for you.