And over what I had once written, what I can no longer read, someone
has scrawled
their handwriting almost illegible:
GET
THEM
BACK.
14.
once
When we came running into the parking lot at the entrance to the trail, Sam was standing by his car, a beat-up old black Jeep. He was even better-looking than I’d remembered him from Verity, and he had that good-guy look that I like—kind eyes, great smile. Plus: dark hair, broad shoulders, dimple.
I couldn’t believe he was here.
Two days before, he’d taken my order at Verity Ice Cream. He’d asked for my number when I’d finished up and we’d been texting ever since. On a whim, I’d told him about the run.
“Wow,” Syd said under her breath. Sam noticed her, because guys always did, but his eyes slid right over to meet mine. Ella stopped a few feet behind us, shy.
Good things usually happened to Syd. But this time it wasn’t for her. Sam was forme.
“So what exactly are we doing?” Sam asked, taking a step in my direction. “Jumping off a cliff?”
“Yup,” I said. He wore shorts and a T-shirt and flip-flops. His eyes were bright blue and his hair was a just-woke-up tangle of dark brown.
I saw him look, take me in. My T-shirt, stuck to my chest, my legs, my ponytail, the way the sun hit my hair, the sweat on my skin.
“Is this legal?” he asked.
“It’s public property,” I said as we threaded our way down the trail, Syd leading out, Ella looking over her shoulder with a thrilled expression, Sam and me behind.
“That’s not an answer,” he said.
“No, it’s not,” I agreed. “Follow me.”
Lacy tangles of white flowers brushed our legs, and I ran my hand along the tops of the yellow and purple ones that bordered the path. The grass on the trail smelled sweet and full. We had to go single file, so I went ahead of Sam.
I felt strong and alive and knew I would always be both.
We came to the cliff and stood there, looking down at the pool above the spillway. Alex and Colton and some of the other guys had beaten us there and were already jumping, one after another after another. People had taken off their T-shirts and abandoned them in clusters at the top, draped over branches. The people who’d already jumped were swimming to the edge of the spillway and leaning over it, talking, the water going past them, down Fall Creek, and all the way to Cayuga Lake.
“It’s higher up than I thought,” Ella said, sounding nervous. She was young, just a freshman. I’d been giving her a ride to practice since the first week, when I’d noticed her walking all the way down to the high school from her house.
Sam stayed next to me on the slate-colored rock, the two of us looking down.
The water was deep emerald green, the color of a wine bottle, a tangle of jungle leaves, a piece of velvet slumped in a display window with old books scattered across it. Later today, when the heat came up, there would be bodies all over the rocks andthe small sandy beach below—suntanned college and graduate students who had stuck around for the summer, and townies like us.
It wasn’t crowded now, but at first I wanted them all gone, even the girls from the team, even my friends, even Syd and Alex.
I wanted them all gone.
But then I realized that people were seeing Sam, and me, and in a way it was even better than if we’d been alone.
Sam pulled off his flip-flops. I knew he was getting ready to jump, so I did it first. I heard Alex cheering when I went over.
