5. age ten
age ten
“You have to push off hard.” Atlas’s voice was gravely serious.
We stood on the bank of his family’s lake house, him holding the rope swing between both hands.
He leaned back to keep from falling down the steep incline.
“If you don’t push off hard, you won’t make it.
So push off hard, wait until you’re right above the water, and then let go. ”
“What happens if I don’t make it to the water?”
“You’ll break your leg.” He held the rope toward me. “That’s what happened to my dad’s friend when they were kids. He went off a rope swing and missed the water. Broke his whole leg and couldn’t walk for months.”
I swallowed. “I’m not sure I want to do this.”
“You’ll be fine.” Atlas shook the rope gently, urging me to take it. He was wearing a pair of bright orange swim trunks, and they were dripping water all over our feet. He’d already been several times, and every time he went, it seemed easy. Fun, even.
I looked down at myself. I was wearing Nat’s old swimsuit, the color worn out and ugly. I was still dry. I dipped my toe in the water earlier but it was cold and I chickened out from jumping in with everyone else.
I wasn’t sure why this seemed like the better idea.
“You can do it, Vi.”
“And if I don’t want to?” My voice shook, and I could feel the embarrassment creeping up my neck.
Where Nat and Phoebe had become instant best friends the day we all met two years ago, my friendship with Atlas was slower.
Boredom won out, more than anything else.
We didn’t like many of the same things. I liked drawing and playing my mom’s old keyboard and painting my nails.
Atlas liked catching bugs and throwing his baseball and attempting to skateboard. Still, we hung out all the time.
Doing something boring with Atlas turned out to be more fun than doing anything else by myself.
“Then I’ll do it and you can watch.” He shrugged, pulling the rope back toward himself. “You can try tomorrow instead.”
I nodded. Looked out at the lake beyond us.
It was so pretty when we were boating on the water with his dad.
Right now, it was terrifying. The drop seemed impossibly far.
And who even put this rope here? How did we know it was meant to hold my weight?
I might weigh more than Atlas. He was taller, but he was so skinny he—
“Violet?” Atlas asked.
Before I could reply, Phoebe and Nat came stomping through the trees. They were thirteen and fourteen now, and they got to wear bikinis. I didn’t think I’d care, but my hand-me-down one piece was so ugly in comparison. I felt like a big baby. Then again, wasn’t I acting like a big baby?
“Are you two almost done?” Phoebe asked. She had a green popsicle. Nat’s was yellow. “Nat and I want a turn.”
“I was teaching Violet how to do it.” Atlas twisted to look at them, tugging the rope with him. “She’s never gone off a rope swing before.”
“Violet can do it,” Nat said proudly. “She’s good at everything.”
That wasn’t true at all, but her confidence made me want to be brave.
“Just come get us when you’re done.” Phoebe started back up the slope, and Nat followed dutifully behind her.
I stared after the older girls as they disappeared between the trees before turning back to Atlas. He was smiling goofily at me. He was cute, or as Mom said, handsome. Not that I’d ever repeat that to him.
I gestured for the rope, and his eyebrows shot up toward his hairline.
“We can just get popsicles if you want. This will be here later.”
“I can do it.” I grabbed the rope from him and positioned it in front of myself. With a deep breath, and not another second of hesitation, I launched myself off the steep edge.
I pushed hard, just like Atlas said. I swung up and up, higher and higher, until I was definitely above the water. I knew I needed to let go, but I was so impossibly high, I felt like I might die if I did.
“Let go!” Atlas screamed. “Vi, you have to let go!”
With a sharp jerk, the rope swung back toward the rocky ledge. I had to let go. There was no more time. Instead, I clung to the rope harder. My stomach dropped as the rope spun me around in dizzying circles.
“I can’t!” I wailed. “I can’t!”
“Vi!”
I pinched my eyes shut, and moments later, I collided with a tree.
At least, I assumed it was a tree, but the whole thing fell with me.
I crashed into the dirt, and rolled several feet before getting caught in the bushes.
The air knocked from my lungs, and it took several ugly breaths to feel like I wasn’t going to pass out.
Once the sky stopped spinning, I pushed onto my elbows. A few feet away, Atlas sat in the dirt, eyes wide and hands clasped over his nose. Blood ran between his fingers and dotted his bare chest.
I started crying before I reached him. I wanted to ask if he was okay, but I couldn’t remember how to work my mouth. I only fluttered my hands uselessly over him, too afraid to touch him in case I made it worse.
“It hurts,” he groaned. His eyes watered, and I could tell he was trying his hardest not to cry. He removed his hands from his face, and his hands were shaking. “Is it broken? Does it look broken?”
I realized his nose wasn’t the only thing bleeding. There was a gash in one of his eyebrows, so deep it made me want to puke.
“Are you okay?” I asked but my words barely sounded like words. I was crying too hard. “It’s bleeding so much.”
A broken sob cracked from his lips. He was crying, and I’d never seen him do that before. It split something in my chest, cutting deeper than I knew existed. It was that, more than anything, that made me get it together.
“You’re okay. It’s not that bad.” I wiped at the blood on his face, as gently as I could. “Don’t cry, Atlas. I’ll fix it. I’ll get you to—”
“I’m not crying, Vi.” He sniffled hard then winced. “Don’t you tell anyone I was crying.”
“It’s not bad to cry. I do it all the time.” I wiped at his face again. “But I won’t tell anyone. Okay? Just…are you okay? Can you stand up?”
Atlas nodded, but he waited a minute before he actually tried. First he patted his ribs and his arms. Maybe checking for broken bones or more cuts. When he started prodding at his nose, I pulled his hands away.
“Don’t touch your face. There’s blood everywhere. You’re just spreading it around.”
“Does it look cool?”
“No, it’s awful.”
“I bet it looks cool.”
He staggered to his feet then and I stuck close to his side, ready to catch him if he stumbled. He was several inches taller than me by now, and I wasn’t entirely sure I could catch him.
“I’m really sorry.” I swallowed, staring hard at the trees in front of me. But because I was stubborn and mean and a little more guilty than I could handle, I added, “You should’ve gotten out of the way, once you realized I was coming back.”
“I had to catch you.” Atlas scowled at me. He was holding his face again, grimacing with pain. “You would’ve died if I didn’t.”
It wasn’t exactly high praise, the fact my neighbor didn’t want me to die. But the fact he was willing to risk himself to keep it from happening?
It ignited something deep in the pit of my belly, and before long, that spark consumed me whole.