My whole body feels tingly at the thought, but I’m still feeling unsure. He must see it on my face because he just grabs my hand. “Make room, Rebecca! We’re coming,” he hollers.
He pulls me slightly and I willingly walk toward the cliff. I move to peer over the ledge again, and he grabs my chin, pulling my face to look at him. “Don’t look down again.”
“I have to know where I’m jumping,” I argue.
“Do you trust me?”
“Of course, I do, but this is about a little more than trusting you,” I claim.
“There’s nothing down there to get caught on. Just jump out, and you’ll be fine,” he instructs. I nod my head the slightest bit. He smiles. “Good. On the count of three. One…two…three!”
He leaps out with my hand still in his, and I have no choice but to jump too. Rebecca’s right. There’s a moment or two when I think I should be hitting the water by now, but we are still suspended in the air. Then comes the shock of the cool water, rushing up my nose and swallowing me up from my toes to my head.
I rush up to the water, gasping for air. “Holy crap!”I just did that!
Andrew comes up shortly after me, looking much calmer. He is beaming. “You did it, Em!”
Rebecca interjects, “We all did it, and not a single one of us died.” I narrow my eyes in a glare at Rebecca, but she isn’t deterred. “What’d you think? Want to do it again?”
“It was exciting, but I’m not going to tell you that you were right.” I chuckle.
Rebecca begins splashing to get out of the water. She reaches a hand out to me as she gets to my side. “Come on. We are so doing that again.”
Rebecca drags me out of the water to climb back up the cliff. Getting up is way harder than coming down. We are soaking wet and barefoot as we clamor up the dirt path, grabbing onto the occasional tree root jutting out from the ground to help pull ourselves up the steep slope.
At the top, Rebecca leans into me. “He looooves you,” she teases.
“What are you talking about?”
She gestures out to the cliff edge where we jumped a couple minutes ago. “I know Andrew. He would’ve wanted to be the tough guy who jumped first, but instead, he stayed back and helped you get in. He held your hand and was patient with you. He adores you. I can see it.”
I shake my head. “I told you, I already screwed it up, and things have been back to normal again between us, so I’m not going to try anything. Andrew and I are just friends, and that’s all we’ll ever be.”
She smirks. “I can’t wait to be the maid of honor at your wedding and tell everyone about this exact moment during my speech.”
A smile breaks out on my face, and I lean my shoulder into her. “Alright, Miss Daredevil, let’s see you jump again.”
“Wow, you want to get rid of me that badlythat you’re sentencing me to cliff-jumping now?” she says with a lighthearted tone.
I give her a look indicating she’s being ridiculous. She reaches her hand out to me. “Alright, bestie, I want my turn jumping in with you.”
“Do I have to?”
“Hell yes you have to,” she insists. “If you’ll do it with Andrew, then you have to do it with me.” She pouts. “Please.”
I grab her hand in answer, and she instantly becomes cheery again. “You know I only push you because you get in your head too much, right? I know you want to do these things but won’t on your own. I’m proud of you. Look at all you’ve done just this summer.”
Her words touch me and make me want to jump five more times just for her. I know Rebecca would do a lot for me, and I hope she knows I’d do the same. “Thanks, Becs.”
She acts nonchalant as if she isn’t an absolute gift in my life, and we walk a little closer to the edge.
“Should we count to three?”
“Yeah. One… two… three!”
We push off the edge. As we are falling, I notice Andrew still in the water. I had assumed he was following us up the trail, but there he is, treading water right where Rebecca is about to land.
The whole moment moves in slow motion, and yet it doesn’t go slow enough for me to say anything.
