10
We both sat quietly as Nathan pulled away from the parking lot. As we made our way back onto the road, his eyes kept flicking to me. My face still felt flushed and the nervous tension in my bones made me jittery. I tapped my fingers against my thigh in a staccato rhythm.
Nathan reached over and placed his large palm over mine, stilling it.
"I'm sorry," he said again.
"Not your fault. I should have known. I can't even handle amusement park roller coasters," I joked weakly.
Nathan squeezed my hand and returned his attention to the road.
When I noticed the route he was taking, I spoke up.
"Can you take me back to your place?" I asked.
He looked taken aback, before nodding. "No problem."
"I don't want to go home right now." Not feeling like the way I did. My mom would take one look at me and know something was wrong. "I just—"
"You don't need to explain," Nathan said.
When we arrived at his apartment, he situated me on his living room sofa. He draped a small throw blanket over my lap and went to get me a bottle of water from the fridge.
"You're a good nurse," I said as I took the bottle. He'd even unscrewed the cap for me.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
I flashed him a smile I hoped wasn't as forced as it felt. "I'm fine." I tucked my clammy hands under my thighs so he wouldn't see them shake.
He took a seat next to me on the sofa.
"You want to explain to me what happened back there?" he asked.
"I guess I'm not used to the extreme sports adrenaline thing," I said. It wasn't a lie.
Nathan still looked concerned.
"I knew it would be exciting," I continued, "but I didn't realize it would be so—"
"Heart stopping?" he filled in.
I stared at him, examining his expression, but from the wry smile on his face, he was only joking. I breathed a little easier. The last thing I wanted was for Nathan to start suspecting.
"I guess this means no more extreme sports," he said.
"No." I surprised myself even as I said it. "I had fun. I think I just need to mentally prepare myself for something like that beforehand."
"Makes sense. This kind of thing is new to you. Good thing we didn't start off with sky diving."
"No way," I said. "I have limits and that's one of them. Throwing myself down a hill is one thing. It's an entirely different thing to throw myself out of a plane and plummet to earth."
"You'd have a parachute," he said.
"And with my luck, it would be the one parachute that malfunctions. Nope." I shook my head vehemently. "Never doing it."
"What about indoor skydiving?" he asked. "You don't actually board a plane. It's just a giant wind tunnel. Or rock climbing. You're strapped into a harness the whole time. Those don't sound so bad, right?"
"You're like the connoisseur of extreme sports."
