I know Heath won’t be there, but I go to our tree anyway. The early-morning mist hovering over the grass hasn’t fully dissipated. It almost swirls as I walk through it. When I reach the trunk, I let my fingers linger over the scarred remains of Jason’s initials.
I don’t know what to do about Laura. I feel like every time I try, I make our relationship worse. Jason would have known what to say to her. If I were where he is and he were home, the two of them would be on their way to that carnival right now. I turn, sliding my back down the trunk until I’m sitting on the dew-damp grass. I don’t know if she just can’t deal with Jason’s confession or if she blames me somehow or resents the fact that her favorite sibling is gone and she’s stuck with me. We’re so different. She’d always been the wild, impetuous one, leaping off bridges, whereas I start to panic when I’m a few feet off the ground.
I doubt I would have been able to set foot on that Ferris wheel no matter how determined I’d sounded earlier. It was one of those fleeting thoughts that I’d grabbed on to because I wanted it. Me and Laura, taking a mini road trip, eating fried everything and maybe, just maybe, helping me try something a little less extreme than a Ferris wheel, like a merry-go-round. I laugh to myself thinking about it, because Laura and I would have laughed too.
The sound trails off. It could have been a nice day. It could have been the start of a lot of nice days. I’m trying and she’s not. I keep looking for ways to show her that I care, and she keeps showing me over and over again that she doesn’t, that she won’t. Nothing I say or do seems to change anything. I reach out and she pulls back, literally. I really thought it would be different this time, that she wouldn’t be able to deny me asking for help, but she did. She more than did. She was worse than indifferent. And for the first time since Jason left, it doesn’t make me feel sorry for her.
Filling my lungs with resolve as much as air, I push to my feet and, without letting myself think about it, climb onto the waist-high branch in front of me.
Okay. This is fine. I can do three feet off the ground.
I step up on a higher branch, wrapping my arms around the trunk like a human koala bear.
Four feet off the ground. Still okay. Five...dizzier, dizzier.Don’t fall, don’t fall.
I flatten my belly on the branch I was standing on, sucking in air until my vision is steady and the ringing in my ears has stopped. Then, instead of climbing down, I stand back up again.
CHAPTER 26
“Why do you hate my face?”
“I don’t hate your face,” I tell Heath. It’s nearing sunset the following day and even though I never made it above seven feet off the ground the day before when I was practicing on my own, I’m done with letting my fear of heights ground me. I need to acclimate to ten feet off the ground—not just getting my head ten feet off the ground, it’s being that high while balancing on my stomach Superman style. I feel like I’m ready for more, which is why I just told Heath I want to start practicing overhead lifts.
“What happened to sticking with the low lifts? The ones that don’t end up nearly breaking my nose?”
“The low lifts aren’t good enough. It’s the high ones that I need to be able to do.” Then in a quieter voice, I add, “It’s the high ones I’m afraid of.”
Heath huffs a little. “Yeah, me too.”
My nerves still feel somewhat frayed from the day before, what with Laura and the fact that I nearly fell out of that stupid tree more times than I can count. I’m annoyed and I don’t care if Heath knows it. “Look, I have to learn this, okay? If you’re not going to help me then say something now so I can start looking for someone who will.”
Rather than draw back at my combativeness, Heath leans forward. “When did I say I wasn’t going to help you?”
“You’re complaining.”
“Yeah, so? You’ve smashed into my face a bunch trying this stuff.” He shrugs. “I’m going to complain about that and I’m not exactly psyched by the prospect of it happening again.”
“That’s my point,” I say, a little too loudly.
“No,” Heath says, keeping his voice steady if a little patronizing. “It’s mine. You’re afraid of heights—”
“I’m working on that.”
“—and,” he says without acknowledging that I said anything, “you’re asking me to put you in a position where you’re afraid and where that fear tends to cause me a decent amount of pain. I’m just stating the facts.”
And I’m just grinding my teeth. “I have to film my audition video in five weeks. I have to do lifts—and not little beginner lifts—in that video. I have to do them on the ice, which means I really can’t afford to fall. Falls are inevitable when learning lifts. I’d rather fall now, on the grass, with—” I’d been about to saywith you, because unlike Anton, Heath’s proved himself strong enough and quick enough to keep both of us from suffering any serious injuries, but something keeps me from admitting that “—enough time to get them right.”
Heath doesn’t act like he noticed the amended statement. “And I get that, I do, but how are you going to learn anything when you nearly pass out every time your feet leave the ground?”
I narrow my eyes at him. “I am not that bad.”
He narrows his eyes back at me. “You’re not that good either.”
“I seriously want to scream at you right now.”
“Yeah? Go ahead.”
I don’t scream at him. I let my nails dig into my palms until the urge passes. “I tried, okay? Yesterday I asked my sister to come ride a Ferris wheel with me.”
