“Should you be drinking that if you’re about to plummet to your death?” I ask, mentally cursing myself for breaking my promise to ignore him.
The corner of his lip tilts up, but instead of answering me, he turns to Ralph. “Did you really inviteOakwoodskids?” He says the name of my private school like it’s a curse. “Now it’s only a matter of time before they all invade and ruin it for the rest of us like they always do.”
“Relax, man,” Ralph answers in that breezy way of his. “Daphne vouched for them. They’re cool.”
Pink Shorts scoffs in disbelief, and I choose to pretend I didn’t hear the snarky comment about my school.
“How far up are we?” I can’t stop myself from asking. I might not like him, but I might as well satisfy my curiosity while I’m not ignoring him.
Creeping closer to the edge of the cliff, I peer down. The drop seems bottomless, and the longer I look, the further and further up I feel, as if the cliff is moving and stretching toward the clouds. I scoot away from the edge immediately.
Pink Shorts pops open the tab on his beer. “Only about sixty feet, give or take.”
Onlysixty feet? I’m dizzy. Emmett appears beside me and places a steadying hand on my shoulder. “You all right, Carina?”
Pink Shorts looks between me and Emmett. He shakes his head, though there’s a smirk plastered on his face. “Knew it.” He turns his back on us and joins his friends, hands one of them his beer, then runs to the edge of the cliff and throws himself off it.
Before I can help myself, I’m at the edge to witness his drop, and he falls more gracefully than anyone has any business doing. He performs two flips before splashing into the water. Holding my breath, I count four whole painfully long Mississippis before his head emerges, and everyone cheers.
Rushing away from the edge as fast as my numb legs can take me, I rejoin my friends. Someone else yells out, “I can top that!” but I force myself not to watch them jump off.
“Do you not like heights, Carina?” Daphne asks gently, not at all condescendingly like Pink Shorts.
“Me? No, no. I’m fine. Totally fine.” Lies. I’m not totally fine. I want to hug a tree in case the wind throws me off-balance and I plummet to my death.
“You know how Carina gets with heights, Emi,” Kalani reprimands. “And you didn’t tell me to bring my swimsuit! You know I can’t swim, but I could’ve at least tanned before the sun disappears.”
“Shit, I’m sorry, Carina. I totally forgot,” Emi says, her shoulders slumping.
“It’s okay, really!” I rush out. They’re already including me in nights out, so I don’t complain about the activities they’ve picked. All I want to do is hang out with my friends and get in as much quality time with them as I can, especially before we head off in opposite directions. “You guys go . . . jump . . . or whatever.” I can barely even say the word. “I’ll hang here.”
I see a log nearby, and it doesn’t seem dirty or anything, so I lay my jacket down and sit, setting my purse beside me. Ralph grabs a beer from his cooler and offers it to me, but I shake my head. “Driving, but thanks anyway.”
He shrugs and removes his hideous shirt, handing it to me for some reason. I drop it on the log beside me.
“Let’s go then!” he calls over to his other friends. “Emi, Daph, ready?”
“Hell yes!” Emi chucks off her leather jacket and jean shorts, tossing them to the ground. I wonder what she did with her car keys? Daphne removes her white dress but is more meticulous than Emi, folding it tidily and setting it on top of her purse and shoes.
“I’ll stay with Carina,” Emmett says, sitting down beside me on the log, and my stomach tightens. If I look at him, they’ll all see the adoration in my eyes, so I stare at Ralph’s ugly shirt, trying to find a discernable pattern. “That doesn’t look safe, anyway. Are there rocks under the water?”
Ralph shrugs, unbothered, and Kalani huffs. “Pass me a beer.”
She sits beside Emmett on the other side as Ralph hands her a beer and then introduces Emi to some of his friends. The whole time, others have been jumping, but I’ve forced myself not to pay attention, not to count the seconds between the yells and the splashes, not to listen to them cheering when they emerge from the water. I’ve been failing.
A few people who’ve jumped have come back to the top following some path, plopping down to drink, and I can’t help the nagging voice in my head saying you shouldn’t drink and swim. My leg hasn’t stopped bouncing, and my skin feels itchy. Some people engage Kalani and Emmett in conversation, but I’m too busy staring at Emi and Daphne.
They hold hands, and before I can even blink, they run and launch themselves off the cliff. My heart stops. Scrambling to the ledge, I land on my hands and knees and peer down just in time to watch them splash into the water. I hold my breath the entire time, frantically scanning the surface. It’s been five torturous Mississippis and still no sign.Where are they?At seven Mississippis, Daphne’s head emerges, followed shortly by Emi a few feet away. She spits out water, and I finally exhale.
“That was awesome! Carina! Come on! Just do it!” Emi calls up to me, and now that my fear of my BFF dying isn’t occupying my mind, my fear of heights comes back tenfold. I’m on my hands and knees with the top half of my body suspended overnothing.My vision blurs, and my arms turn to jelly. This is it. This is how I’m going to die: fainting over the side of a cliff. The world spins, and before my arms give out, large hands grab me by the waist and haul me up and away from the edge.
Emmett. My hero, as always. Leaning against him while I wait for the dizziness to pass, I register that Emmett feels more toned than he looks, that his body against mine feels better than I could’ve imagined. With my back pressed against his front, his hands still on my waist holding me steady, I’m in heaven, but I’m also a terrible friend. Now that my legs don’t feel like overcooked spaghetti and I can stand on my own, I move off him before I get any ideas and turn around to thank him for quite literally saving my life.
I freeze. It’s not Emmett. It’s Pink Shorts, and he’s looking at me with an annoyed frown. I step away from him, surprised at how much I enjoyed his touch.
“You obviously don’t want to be here and hate heights, but you keep looking over the edge,” he states, his eyebrows furrowing.
Does he know I waited for him to break the water’s surface too? I say nothing, instead just staring up at him. His eyes are dark, and his hair is shaved close to his scalp. He’s got a nice jawline, nicer than Emmett’s even, but I shove that thought down.