Page 34 of When The Mountains Held Us

Oakley takes a running start and jumps, leaping with abandon into the open air. Her blonde hair fans out behind her, and I watch her fly through the sky, but it’s not her body that holds my rapt attention.

It’s the blissful look on her face as she falls.

It’s like she’s left whatever’s haunting her up there on that cliff, sprinting from it and jumping—maybe for the first time—without fear, and relishing the fall as she soars through the air.

I’ve never been in love, but I imagine it must feel something like this.

A bone-chilling terror balanced by a potent dose of straight adrenaline. And though she's the one jumping, it feels like I’m the one falling.

When she finally emerges, breaking through the surface of the water, it’s like witnessing a rebirth.

It’s the closest thing to a religious experience I've ever had, and I will gladly worship at her altar.

I’ve seen the light, and she is magnificent.

Eighteen

Oakley

Jessie was right. The water is cold as ice, but on such a hot day, it’s a welcome reprieve from the sticky humidity that hangs in the air, especially after the sweat I worked up from hiking and climbing up the rocks.

After jumping from the cliff the first time, I wanted to do it again and again. I must have jumped ten more times, and the group—my friends—encouraged me each time with cheers and hollers.

Levi even jumped a few times with me, holding my hand as we launched ourselves off the steep cliff, never letting go, not even for a second on the way down.

I’m not sure when I stopped tiptoeing around him, but being near him makes me feel like I can suddenly breathe again after months of feeling like I was drowning.

Even so, worry still gnaws at my insides when I consider where to go from here, and that I’m not anxious about what might come of this connection we’re forging.

Something about today, with these people, makes me want to fight for the courage buried deep within me. To grasp onto what little of it I can and wrench it to the surface, so I can start living life the way I want to—emboldened and not constantly searching the shadows for the next pitfall.

I think my “initiation,” as Levi called it, worked wonders.

I’m floating in the water, head tipped back, eyes closed, soaking in the sunshine and the sound of the rushing waterfall, when Jessie calls my name from the shore. I pop my head up, squinting my eyes open and shielding them from the blazing sun with my hand while I tread in place.

“Justin and I are going to hike up to the top of the waterfall! Want to come with?”

Already, soreness has seeped into my bones from the hike and the jumping, my body clearly not used to strenuous physical activity. The water feels too good wrapped around me that I don’t even consider accepting her invitation.

“That’s okay! I’ll just hang here while you go!”

She throws a thumbs up in my direction, and she and Justin disappear around a large boulder where the trail to the top must start. Sighing, I lean my head back again and close my eyes.

This must be what peace feels like. After so long without any semblance of it in my day-to-day life, the feeling is foreign, but not unwelcome. I remind myself again that it’s just a matter of taking things day by day.

The shifting water around me lets me know I’m not alone, and my stomach does a little flip, knowing who it is before my eyes can confirm. My eyes find him immediately upon opening, almost like my head and heart are searching for him without my body making a conscious effort to do so. He floats on his back the same as me, his head turned to face me as his piercing green eyes stare right into mine.

“You seem different today.”

I know he picked up on it earlier by the way he seemed to be studying me intensely as I jumped from the cliff. Normally, I’d shy away from the observation, retreat into myself for fear of what he might see if he looked too closely, but I don’t. The way he seems to see right through me, right through the walls I’ve erected around my battered heart, fills me with a sense of ease and comfort.

I think it says more about him than it does about me.

“Do I?”

“Yeah. Care to share?”

“Maybe.” I give him a sly smile.