Chapter 21 #2
She moved with such ease, such naturalness. There was no fear in touching me, no hesitation. I wondered where the hell she got that kind of confidence, and where I could find some.
Gia had begun her final checks, chatting with her assistant in low tones as the burner roared again and the balloon began to fully inflate.
I took a shaky breath and swapped hands on the internal handle, turning on my heel to face Dove, whose eyes were already on me. She grinned, her cheeks flushing slightly as she realized she’d been caught.
“You good?” she asked, turning to face me fully, her arm still stretched along the basket’s edge.
I nodded, tightening my grip on the handle. I knew Dove didn’t miss it—judging by the slight tug at her lips when I did.
“I’m fine,” I murmured, blinking a little frantically. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”
“I can,” Dove said, leaning a little closer, her lips at my ear. My skin tingled. “You’re a lot braver than you think, Ellis Langley—and you want to see the world. This is just part one of a very big adventure you’re about to have.”
Her words stoked that simmering fire that had been building inside me—that slow-growing need to see more—and reminded me, all over again, of just how big the world really was.
My cheeks burned when she pressed a chaste kiss to the shell of my ear and leaned back, her eyes dancing as she looked toward Gia, who clapped her hands.
“All right, everyone,” Gia said with a grin. “Let’s go find some sky.”
I held on as we began to lift, and Dove squeaked with muffled excitement, also gripping the handle. The ground drifted away from us so effortlessly, and my stomach flipped.
As Albuquerque fell away beneath us, becoming nothing more than a sun-washed sprawl of city, my heart fluttered in my chest and butterflies danced in my stomach. The roads spread out like veins, and cars became nothing more than scuttling dots—almost like ants.
When Gia finally told us the balloon had hit full altitude, I let out a long breath, and Dove laughed, rubbing my back softly. I watched as the world opened out beneath us, trying to ignore the searing heat of her palm as I focused instead on the vast and layered earth below.
The Rio Grande cut through the land like a lazy, effortless thread of silver—quiet, still, and endless.
It made everything else feel insignificant.
I peered over my shoulder.
Liv was upside down, dangling off the side of the basket, her long, boot-clad legs hooked over the top as she hung—what I could only compare to a bat—her pink hair swaying beneath her like silk.
Something in my chest spiked at the sight of her. Fear.
“She’s fine,” Dove murmured beside me, her voice low so Gia or the assistant couldn’t hear. “Dead, remember?”
I blinked and let out a soft laugh. “Why do I always forget that part?”
Dove’s face held a gently amused expression, her hand moving to just barely brush mine as she rested them on the basket’s edge. “Because she does things so un-human it goes against all our physical and mental wiring of survival.”
“You’re cute when you worry about me,” Liv called loudly from over the side of the basket, and I refrained from saying anything out loud, lest I scare Gia and her assistant, Leon.
“I’m not cute,” I muttered under my breath, so faintly only Dove could hear.
“Yes, you are,” Dove mumbled beside me, so low I almost missed it.
I swallowed as heat crept up the back of my neck.
“Come on,” Dove said suddenly. “Let’s get some pictures for your granddad.” She stepped away and lined up her phone as I blinked at her. “You look amazing with terror etched on your face, but I bet he’d love a smile.”
I snorted and rolled my eyes as Gia laughed.
I fixed my expression and stared down Dove’s camera lens, watching as she frantically snapped what had to be a thousand pictures. Her need to take fifty just to get one perfect shot was mind-boggling.
“Great, now face the sky and pretend you’re thinking super deeply,” Dove instructed. “If you don’t get a whimsical photo in a hot-air balloon that’s totally not staged, did you even go in a hot-air balloon?”
“Facts,” Liv called out.
A laugh escaped me, and I turned to face the view, my hands resting on the edge of the basket.
“Pretend you’re deeply poetic,” Dove said. “Thinking deep, important thoughts.”
I tried to look as natural as I could for a staged photo, and as soon as Dove released me, I turned the camera on her—capturing a shot of her backlit by an endless stretch of sky, that soft blue fading into clouds.
She never looked like someone who was faking anything.
Leon offered to get a picture of us together, so we found ourselves pressed shoulder to shoulder in the basket, our arms brushing as she angled her head slightly toward mine.
I leaned in too, my mind racing at the feel of her palm against the small of my back—the way her thumb gently brushed as we smiled for the camera.
When we parted, Dove shot me a wide smile before heading over to where Liv still hung. I caught my breath and turned back to the view, my eyes drifting over the expanse of the world below.
Everything just looked so small. The world. Me. The people I knew. The problems I thought were insurmountable. From way up here, it all felt so insignificant.
At the end of the day, we were just on a floating rock, hurtling through space, tied to a sun that would one day burn out.
And somehow, that thought filled me with a strange lightness.
A flashing reminder that none of this mattered—the fear of dying, the fear of hurting people, the grief.
None of it could hold permanent power unless I let it.
I blinked, the wind cool against my skin at the thought.
My mind drifted to my brother, the tension between us that had lingered for years now. Years lost to silence and misunderstanding. Moments we’d never get back because of fear. At least, fear for me. I had told myself it was all too far gone and that trying to fix things would only make it worse.
But that was just me giving myself a scapegoat. An easy way out of something I knew would make me uncomfortable.
Hiding behind the idea that it was all too late had stopped me from having to take any accountability and to do something about it. To take a risk and maybe get it wrong. To try anyway.
But the trying was what it was all about. Trying because we’re still here to try. Because we’re still breathing. Because we can.
There was this small moment for me then, as the world stretched out below—lifting the veil off my bullshit—where it felt like anything was possible.
I wasn’t locked into the life I was currently living.
I didn’t have to be. And sure, maybe one day I would die—earlier than most people. But we all die.
Right now, though, I was here. Alive. And anything was possible.
I looked over at Dove, who was staring out as well, and at Liv, who had pulled herself upright, now sitting beside Dove. But she wasn’t looking at the sky.
She was looking at me.
And as our eyes met, she gave me an almost imperceptible nod—a firm look of determination in her eyes. My heart stuttered as she nodded again, like she was responding to a silent conversation in her mind. Then, gripping the edge of the basket, she turned her gaze back to the sky.
And as the world drifted below us, the sky wrapped around us, and my eyes landed on Dove, the feeling of possibility filled my chest with such velocity I almost stumbled from the overwhelming sensation of it.
I felt like I could do anything.