Chapter 10 #2
“Three,” we count in unison.
Using my leg strength, I pull and Holly scrambles up. She reaches the landing on her knees just as I fall back on my butt.
“We did it,” I cheer.
“We did,” Holly agrees, breathless. But she’s smiling.
“Okay to stand?”
“I think so.”
Slowly, we both get to our feet and press our backs against the rock. I point at our boat. “There’s Marco.” He waves at us. I wave back.
“Why’d you help me?” Holly’s eyes are squeezed shut.
“Why would I not help you?” She’s my friend. At least, I want her to be, again. And I really wanted her to be here with me.
“Answer the question, Anna.” Her eyes are still closed.
I take a deep breath. “Zoe,” I say instead, which is also the truth, but the one Holly would believe. “It was important to her that we’re both up here. She wanted you to come last time.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever get over this fear of heights.” Her breathing is rapid, and her lips are white.
My head whips to her. “You’re afraid of heights?”
“Always have been.”
What?
I rewind through years of memories looking for evidence I may have missed.
We went to the top of the Eiffel Tower. But now that I think about it, Holly didn’t join us at the railing to take pictures.
And on the gondola up the mountain in Colorado?
She spent the entire ride fussing with her boots, looking down at the floor and not out the window. How’d I miss this?
“Why didn’t you ever tell us?”
She shrugs. “I don’t like talking about it.”
Holly and her insecurities. I always forget how deep they run. She was so good at covering up her fears.
I sigh, trying to understand while at the same time hoping to make her understand.
“Your fear doesn’t make you weak, Holly.
It makes you human. I hate confined spaces,” I confess.
“People who talk with their mouths full disgust me. And I get really grossed out when they chew with their mouths open. The sound of food smacking? Ick. Oh! And guys who blow their noses in pools and rinse their fingers in the water.”
“People do that?”
“You’d be amazed. I also—”
Holly waves a hand, cutting me off. “Would you… would you just be quiet?” She steadily breathes in and out as if calming her racing heart.
I fish my phone from its waterproof case to distract myself from talking, the familiar weight of the phone in my hand comforting.
I get chatty when I’m nervous, and right now Holly’s phobia is making me jumpy.
Heights are no biggie as long as I don’t overthink them.
I take photos of Marco and the boat, the shoreline.
A close-up of myself. Each photo is a hit of dopamine that reminds me of the fun we had mugging for pictures on those early trips together.
“These are going to be amazing,” I say. Click, click, click.
“Would you stop?” She exhales roughly. “Just stop.”
I put the phone away. I look at the bridal-pink polish on my toes, the cloudless sky, the grayish-green ocean. I then look at Holly. She’s finally opened her eyes, and she’s looking dead ahead.
“Is now a good time to let Zoe go?” I ask. Climbers are waiting below us.
“Thirty seconds,” she says, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
“Huh?” I ask, distracted by her appearance, her curly hair taking on a life of its own, spiraling in the wind. Holly never lets her hair down, literally or figuratively. Even when we roomed together in college, she’d slept with it braided.
“You lasted thirty seconds before taking a picture.” She’s still fighting a curl that refuses to stay contained in the clip I associate as part of her hair.
I shut up. She’s right. I shouldn’t be using my phone around her.
Upset with myself that I’d forgotten, I tilt my head at the people below. It’s getting more crowded.
Cautiously, steadily, Holly retrieves the baggie from her suit.
“Should we say something first?” I ask when she shakes the baggie so Zoe’s remains gather at the bottom.
“Zoe didn’t tell us to.”
“I feel like we should say something.”
“Then say it.” She opens the baggie.
Whatever I’d been thinking leaves my head. We’re really doing this, letting a part of Zoe go. “I—uh… Goodbye, Zoe.”
Holly looks at me, incredulous. “That’s it?”
“That’s all I could think of.”
She rolls her eyes, holds the bag before us. “Let’s do this together.”
She pinches one bottom corner and I pinch the other.
“Bye, Zoe,” she says as we give the baggie a good shake. Zoe drops out in a cloud of ash just as a gust of wind hits the rock, plastering Zoe against our damp skin and wet bathing suits. We are covered in dust from cheeks to thighs.
We don’t move. The people below us don’t move. Even the wind stops.
Then—
“Ohmygod!” Holly gasps.
“She’s all over me,” I wail, flapping my hands.
“What the hell?” Holly looks down at her suit.
“How are we supposed to get her off?”
Holly looks below us and whimpers.
Water. We need to jump in. A head pops over the landing.
“We’ve got to jump.”
Holly glances at the water again before pressing her back to the rock. “Shit.”
“You can do this.” I offer her my hand. She stares at my palm then silently takes it in a death grip.
“On three. One… two—”
“Three,” we shout together.
We leap over the edge and from the corner of my eye, I swear I see Zoe jumping with us.