Ooh, if that happens, do I get to skip the plane ride and jumping-out part?
This whole getup is also heavier than expected, and I dart a hopeful glance at Wanda, waiting for her to decide this is too much for her eighty-two-year-old body…
Only to be met with her widest, most dazzling grin. Given she’s all smiles, all the time, that’s saying really something. Flyaway strands swirl around her face in the breeze, and she gives an enthusiastic squeal that means yep, I’m very much leaping out of an airplane today.
I glance at Grandma Helen and raise both eyebrows—with meaning.Are you seriously letting us jump out of a plane without you?
“Skydiving’s never anything I wanted to do,” she says.
“Yeah, me neither, and that goes for salsa dancing, performing standup, and a photo shoot in my underwear, too.” Their zany adventures put me through the social interaction wringer, and while my pits are sweating a river over what Wanda and I are about to do, I truly am braver and more confident than ever with my accomplishments under my belt. “But my grandmother told me I needed to take more risks and actually live my life. Surely you’re not saying it doesn’t apply to you, too?”
She purses her lips, and I see where my mom gets it, though I know better than to mention it. “Well,granddaughter, I’ve lived my life plenty, and I meant follow your heart, not fall thousands of feet through the air.”
“While strapped to some dude,” I point out. “That’s right up your alley.”
Our instructor pauses his adjustments on Wanda, and I meet his gaze, practically daring him to contradict me before we’re packed together in a tin-can plane.
Then it hits me I shouldn’t do any threatening of people involved in my future safety, even with my eyeballs. Luckily, Wanda’s already charmed him into forgetting I exist, and that’s how I prefer it.
Until the parachutes get passed around—that’s a yes from me, except only our instructors will technically be wearing them, which is totally okay and not terrifying at all.
Then again, I’d rather not have to figure out that timing or yank the cord, and if I let my GAD and my OCD combine forces then I’ll be all QRSLMNOP.
My lungs constrict tighter no matter how many breaths I take, and holy shit, what-if-the-parachute-doesn’t-open?
I look to my grandma, feeling like the scared thirteen-year-old in a secondhand leotard again.I just want to be safe.
Physically, financially, and mentally.
“How do you think I ended up in small town, Indiana?”I hear my mom’s parting words over and over again.
It’s not like I can stay in my grandma’s and Wanda’s guestroom forever—I’m most definitely not retired, nor do I have the financial means to lease any of the houses that are filling up quickly. Stability, a salary that eases the strain of surviving month to month, and enough reassurance and control for me to feel free enough to be me. Those are all things I need, desperately, which is why I can’t pass them up.
It’s a pity I won’t be here to settle in Mags.
As usual, any concerns that filter in bring friends.
“Mia.” I don’t realize I’ve bent and braced my forearms on my thighs, until Grandma Helen places her hand on my back and rubs. “Hey, I’m here. Deep breaths. Do I start with things you touch or see? I can never remember.”
I open my mouth to answer, but nothing comes out besides the shallow gasps of air and the resulting dizziness. But her question has an image forming in my mind, of the thing I most want to both see and touch.
God,I wish Noah were here.It’s a thought I don’t want to have, and a longing that nearly consumes me. I got in too deep, but I refuse to call it a bad thing, because this past week has been one of my favorite weeks ever.
“What is it about him?”I’d asked Mom while hugging her goodbye, only for her to crinkle her brow in confusion. She might’ve forgotten what she said that night after the open house, but it’d worn a nettlesome path in my brain.
“Noah,” I reminded her, and the stacked-up seconds she took to reply left me irritated and on edge, my heart so vulnerable and bared.
“I’ve always been a bit jealous of what you’ve accomplished. You’re driven and go after what you want, undeterred by how much you fumble and flail.”
There it was, a backhanded compliment that smacked the confidence I’d rebuilt back down to the ground. It recovered faster than ever, though, a pang that was immediately eclipsed by the information Wanda had let slip, purposely in front of me, if I had to guess.
I never picked up that my summers with the grannies began after my confession about creepy men leering at me in my tutu. Before that I’d get only a week or two to feel like a kid. Evidently, my grandmother threatened not to give me back if she wasn’t going to protect me better, so my mom showed up and surprised everybody with her father.
“I also spent decades dealing with Mother’s and Wanda’s shenanigans,” my mom continued while I flipped through emotions like a TV remote. “I didn’t have a mom because she had a best friend, and I was just baggage from the asshole.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” I automatically said, but she just shook her head, shoulders so slumped and defeated.
“I spent so many years wishing I could join their duo, thinking once I was older, they’d finally let me in.” Beneath the surface, her deeper emotions roil, but she buries them before they can take hold, similar to how she trained me to repress mine. “Instead, they chose you.”
