Chapter 3 #2
“Oh, we’re doing both?”
“You usually jump with both feet?”
“Unfortunately.”
I give him the other foot. His hand is warm, firm, careful. He checks quickly, but not carelessly, then sets my foot down on the sun-warmed rock. My toes curl instantly. Hudson looks at them.
I groan. “Can we please not make this a thing?”
“You’re making it a thing.”
“They’re butt-ugly.”
He looks up at me. There is no pity in his expression.
“Can they grip rock?”
I blink. “What?”
“Can they grip rock?”
“I mean… yes?”
“Can they balance you?”
“Yes.”
“Can they get you to the edge?”
My throat tightens, and I hate that. I hate that such a simple question lands somewhere deep inside me that has me wondering how it would feel to go over the edge with Hudson. And I’m not thinking about the cliff.
“Yes,” I say, quieter.
“Then they’re doing their job.”
I look down at my feet. Short, stubborn toes I have hidden in sandals, joked about, polished into respectability, and silently hated since I was old enough to compare myself to women who seemed delicate everywhere.
Hudson sees them as useful. It is a novel approach.
“Good,” he says, standing. “Now walk to the edge.”
My stomach flips. “Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“You know, when people say they want more adventure in life, they usually mean wine tasting or ziplining. Maybe salsa dancing.”
His gaze dips to my mouth for less than half a second. It might as well be a lightning strike.
“You want salsa dancing instead?”
“No.”
“Wine tasting?”
“No.”
“Ziplining?”
“I’m not answering anymore. You’re making me sound ridiculous.”
“You’re standing on a cliff arguing about adventure instead of taking three steps.”
I stare at him. He stares back. This man has known me for less than twenty-four hours and has somehow identified the exact shape of my problem.
I talk. I plan. I promise myself later. I make lists about the life I want, then fold them into drawers and live the life that requires the least disruption.
Three steps. That’s all he is asking from me. Three steps to the edge. I turn toward the water. My legs feel unreliable, but they move.
One step.
The rock is warm beneath my bare feet.
Two.
My toes spread instinctively, gripping the sun-heated stone, and some traitorous part of me notices Hudson was right. I can feel the ledge better this way. Every rough patch. Every steady place. Every warning my body knows how to read when I stop trying to protect it from everything.
Three.
The edge.
My breath catches so sharply it hurts.
“Oh,” I whisper.
The drop is not enormous. I know that. I can see the lower rocks, the far ledge, the water waiting beneath me. People have jumped from here before. Hudson checked. Hudson knows.
My body does not care. My body thinks we have made a terrible mistake.
A breeze slips along my arms. My knees tremble. The lake seems to inhale below me.
Hudson steps behind me, but not touching. Close enough that I feel him anyway.
“Look across the water,” he says.
“I’m looking down.”
“I know. Stop.”
“I’m concerned about where I’m going.”
“You’re going into the water. We covered that.”
A weak laugh shakes out of me.
“Look across, Layla.”
I force my eyes up.
Across the cove, pine trees climb the slope in dense green layers. Morning light spills between the branches. A bird glides low over the surface, touches the water once, then lifts.
“There,” Hudson says. “That’s where your eyes go. Not at your feet. Not straight down. Across.”
“Across,” I repeat.
“Good.”
His voice has changed. It is still low. Still calm.
But there is something in it that wraps around me better than reassurance.
Command, maybe. Not the obnoxious kind. Not the Harold kind, although Harold rarely commanded anything.
He suggested. He deferred. He made responsibility feel like a spreadsheet.
Hudson’s command feels different. It is physical, grounded, and certain. Like he is not taking my choice away. He is loaning me his nerve until mine shows up.
“Arms in close when you hit,” he says. “Don’t flail.”
“I’m excellent at flailing.”
“Not today.”
“Bossy.”
“Yes.”
At least he owns it.
My fingers curl at my sides. “What if I freeze?”
“Then we step back.”
“What if I don’t jump?”
“Then you don’t jump.”
“What if I’m embarrassed?”
“You’ll survive that too.”
I turn my head just enough to see him.
Hudson is watching me, not the water. His expression is focused, but not impatient.
That does something to me. It would almost be easier if he pushed.
If he teased me into proving him wrong. If he smirked and said something like, Come on, sweetheart, don’t be scared.
Then I could make him the enemy. But he doesn’t.
He just stands there, ready to catch me if I step back and ready to guide me if I leap.
“Why do you do that?” I ask.
His brow furrows. “Do what?”
“Make it my choice.”
For a second, he says nothing. The wind moves between us, carrying the scent of lake water and pine.
“Because it is,” he says.
Something inside me twists. I look away quickly. The water blurs. Oh, this is ridiculous. I am not crying on a cliff. Not here in front of him.
Here I am with a man younger than me who understands consent and choice better than the life I spent years trying to want.
“Layla,” he says quietly.
“I’m fine.”
“I didn’t ask.”
I laugh once, shaky and embarrassed. “That’s worse.”
“No, it isn’t.”
I turn toward him because if I stare at the water any longer, I might either jump or confess something terrible.
His face is closer than I expect, close enough that I can see a tiny scar near his jaw and a faint line almost hidden under stubble. Close enough to see that his eyes are not just blue. There is gray in them too, stormy around the edges.
“You can step back,” he says.
“I know.”
“You can try tomorrow.”
“I know.”
“You don’t have to prove anything to me.”
The words should help. Instead, they make me angry. Not at him. At myself. At Harold. At every later I accepted like it was reasonable. At every part of me that confused being agreeable with being loved.
“I’m not proving it to you,” I say.
Hudson goes still. My voice shakes, but I keep going.
“I’m proving it to me.”
His gaze sharpens, and for one second, I think he understands more than he should. Then he nods.
“All right.”
That’s all he says -- like my reason is enough. Like I am enough. He steps around me and moves to the edge.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Going first.”
“What if you hit something?”
“I won’t.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I checked.”
“Yes, well, I check my classroom floor for crayons before I walk across it, and I still step on one at least once a week.”
His mouth curves. “This isn’t a crayon.”
“Thank you, Hudson. That is very comforting.”
He faces the water, every line of his body relaxed. I hate him a little for that. I admire him more. Then he looks back at me. The sun catches his face, turning his skin warm and his eyes impossibly bright.
“Watch where I go in,” he says. “That’s your spot.”
“My spot,” I repeat.
“Right. When you jump, jump out. You don’t need to throw yourself. Just push.”
My throat feels tight.
“What do I do when I surface?”
“I’ll be there.”
Three words. Simple, but dangerous as anything.
Before I can answer, he jumps. No running start. No drama. He simply bends his knees, pushes off, and drops through the air like his body knows exactly how to belong to the space between rock and water.
For one suspended second, Hudson is all muscle and sunlight. Then he hits the cove cleanly. Water explodes around him. I gasp.
He disappears beneath the surface, and my heart lurches before I can remind myself this is a thing he does. A thing he has probably done hundreds of times. Then he surfaces, dark hair slicked back, water streaming down his face.
He looks up at me and grins. Oh no. Oh, that is unfair.
“You’re alive,” I call down.
“Disappointed?”
“Still deciding.”
His laugh echoes off the rocks, low and rough, and I feel it in places no laugh should reach. He swims a few yards back, giving me a clear path. Then his expression shifts again.
Hudson’s playfulness disappears.
“Your turn,” he calls.
My whole body goes cold.
“Nope,” I whisper.
Hudson cannot hear me from below, but somehow his eyes narrow like he can read lips, read minds, read whatever panic is currently rewriting my nervous system.
“Layla.”
“I know.”
“You’re thinking too much.”
“I have a very active brain.”
“Tell it to be quiet.”
“Oh, sure. Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Because you’re thinking too much.”
I make a strangled sound that might be a laugh or a sob. My legs will not move.
I am suddenly certain I have never moved before. Walking was a myth. I was carried here by poor decisions and male confidence. Hudson treads water below me.
“Look across,” he calls.
I force my eyes up. Trees. Light. Water bird. Sky.
“Good,” he says. “Arms close.”
I pull my arms tight.
“Knees soft.”
I bend them slightly.
“Breathe.”
“I hate when people tell me to breathe.”
“Do it anyway.”
I breathe. Once. Twice. The air shakes going in. A memory flashes, sharp and uninvited. Me at twenty-eight, sitting beside Harold in his immaculate car while he explained that the weekend trip we’d planned would have to wait. A client emergency. Nothing he could do. He promised we’d go next month.
Me at thirty-one, folding a tiny yellow baby blanket my mother bought before the last appointment made hope feel foolish.
Me at thirty-five, sitting at the kitchen table in the dark while Harold asked if someone had died.
Me saying, “Maybe me.”
I close my eyes. No. I’m not dead inside. Not anymore.
I open them and Hudson just waits.
For me.
My choice.
“One brave thing,” I whisper.
Then I jump.