The Moment of Letting Go

  Luke shows me several of these videos, and I can’t understand how I can feel so afraid and inspired at the same time. I can see how Luke can say that BASE jumping is the most freeing experience, just by watching them do it. A part of me, a part so small yet so powerful wishes I were that brave, because I’d love to drink the sky and feel what they feel, but I know I never could.

  “No disappointment,” Luke says beside me.

  “Huh?” I glance over, snapping out of my spinning thoughts and back into the moment.

  “Kendra”—he reaches out and presses stop on the DVD—“there’s no disappointment in that girl after any of those jumps.”

  “Definitely not,” I say. “She seemed as happy as the rest of you.”

  Seth’s bad brakes whine briefly, sharply, as his Jeep pulls into the drive out front.

  Luke turns the television off.

  “Don’t say anything about those videos with Kendra here,” he suggests. “She’ll want to watch them. I told her I got rid of them.” He crouches in front of the television again and puts the DVDs away, sliding them back in between other clear, square jewel cases.

  I get up from the couch.

  “Maybe she needs to watch them,” I say. “It might give her some closure. You can watch them and he was your brother; maybe she can handle it, too.”

  Luke pushes himself to his feet and looks at me, a somber expression in his eyes.

  “Kendra watched my brother die, Sienna.”

  I gasp sharply, quietly, and my heart stops.

  “She was at the bottom,” he goes on, “not experienced enough to make that jump in China herself, but she was there, standing two thousand feet below him, waiting for him. When he hit the ground she saw and heard everything.” He says this all so casually, with absolutely no emotion, as though he’s worked very hard toward being able to explain without breaking down, despite working even harder to never have to talk about it at all. This I find incredibly sad, that Luke would ever have to work to suppress such emotion because he knows it’ll kill him if he can’t.

  Seth and Kendra’s voices move toward the front door, and seconds later there’s a knock.

  I can’t move, or breathe, and I’m trying so hard to force down the tears burning their way to the surface of my eyes. I feel as if I’m looking through Landon’s eyes, seeing the ground, two thousand feet beneath me, coming up to meet me in the most violent way imaginable. I can’t fathom what he must’ve been thinking, the terror in his heart, knowing that he was about to die—he faced my worst nightmare.

  And I picture Kendra, looking up at him from the bottom, knowing something is wrong—the horrific sight and sound of his body hitting the ground. My God, how can she hold herself together? I can barely hold it together just imagining it.

  My breath finally releases in a shuddering exhalation; my hand flies up, pressing against my breast.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Sienna

  Seth lets himself in after the second knock, peeking his shaved head around the corner of the door, the scar running along the side more prominent in the light. I wonder how he got it, if it was from this crazy stuff they all do.

  “Knock, knock,” he says with a big grin. “Get your clothes on!”

  “Come on in,” Luke says and reaches out to grab Seth’s hand. They bump chests and let go.

  “Feels odd knocking, bro,” Seth says.

  Kendra comes in behind him, long blond hair pulled into a ponytail, tanned skin stark against the white tank top and red ball shorts she wears. Seth is like a gorgeous, bald-headed giant standing next to her, with buff bronzed arms and strong calves rippling with muscles underneath his knee-length cargo shorts. When my eyes fall on Kendra’s for the first time since I saw her last in the hotel, mine aren’t holding as much of a smile as I had wanted. There’s more sadness in them, I know, but I try my best not to let it show.

  Stepping up, I pull Kendra into an awkward hug—awkward because she apparently isn’t much the hugging type, but she doesn’t push me away, and pats my back and says, “Yeah, uh, it’s good to see you too,” and then she chuckles.

  I can’t imagine what’s going on inside of her, what she’s been keeping down, the nightmares she must wake up to in a sweat at night, the replay of Landon’s horrific death going over and over in her mind, all while at the same time putting on this brave face and pretending, every single day of her life, that she’s OK.

  Kendra is anything but OK.

  I take a step back and look between her and Luke. Seth walks past us all and goes straight into the kitchen.

  “Please tell me you have beer,” he calls out.

  I decide to follow, to give Luke and Kendra a moment alone, and I pass Luke a soft smile as I walk by, which he returns.

  “Yeah, he just got back with beer,” I tell Seth as he’s pulling the fridge door open.

  That makes him happy, but then again, Seth always seems happy. Nothing much ever seems to bother the guy. “Awesome,” he says and pulls two bottles out, wedged between the fingers of one hand.

  I sit down at the table after Seth gives me a beer. He joins me in an empty chair, slouching his tall height against the back, stretching his long legs out in front of him.

  “So you’re afraid of heights, huh?” Seth laughs lightly, his broad shoulders bouncing as he puts the bottle to his lips, but he’s not at all making fun of me. “I guess asking you to go skydiving with us tomorrow is out of the question, then.” He sets the bottle on the table.

  “Uh, well, yeah, I’d say that’s not gonna happen.” I take a quick sip, making a slight face as the beer sours on my taste buds. “But Luke has really helped me out a lot with my fear of heights.”

  “He’s good like that,” Seth says with a nod and winks at me. “I guarantee you that if you give him a few months, you’ll be jumping out of planes and shit.”

  I laugh corrosively and choke a little on my beer.

  “That’ll never happen.” I point at him, shaking my head.

  He grins and takes another drink.

  I leave it at that because something tells me Seth is the type of guy who believes what he wants, confident beyond my understanding, but not in a conceited way, just a positive way. And if he’s ever wrong, he laughs it off, sucks it up, admits it, and just tries to be right about the next thing. Seth is a strange one, I admit, but I can’t find a single thing about him that I don’t like. Not even his habitual brief encounters with girls, which anyone who’s never even officially met him can see a mile away. I picture him as the type who tells them up front that it’s a one-time thing. It’s their own damn fault if they ignore that and think they can change him.

  I notice the scar running along the side of his head again, though it’s kind of hard not to notice.

  “How did you get that?” I don’t have to point at it for him to know what I’m talking about. “BASE jumping?”

  He chuckles. “Nah. If I got it BASE jumping, it probably would’ve opened my head up the rest of the way.” He laughs and swigs a quick drink—I don’t laugh, I just swallow nervously. “Got this one rock climbing. Misjudged the terrain, grabbed some loose rock, and one about the size of my fist”—he makes a fist with a rather large hand—“came off with it and knocked me unconscious. If I hadn’t been secured in my harness, I would’ve fallen about three hundred feet.”

  I wince.

  Just as I start to ask Seth more about BASE jumping (because the comment he just made about it planted another dark seed in my brain), Luke and Kendra walk into the kitchen.

  Luke comes straight over, leans down behind me and kisses me on the cheek, his way of thanking me without words for insisting they make up.

  Kendra sits in a chair on my right.

  “So we’re cool,” she announces. “He’s still an ass because he won’t go skydiving with us tomorrow, but”—she grins at me—“since I like his girlfriend, I’ll let it slide.”

  I blush and smile back at her. Girlfriend—I like the sound of
that.

  Luke gets two beers from the fridge.

  “I’ll go next time,” he says. “While Sienna is here I’m spending all of my time with her.”

  “She could go with us and watch,” Kendra says. “It’ll be fun.”

  Luke hands Kendra a beer, and then instead of taking the empty chair on my left, he helps me out of mine, sits down on it, putting me on his lap.

  Already I’m shaking my head, rejecting the skydiving idea.

  “She won’t be able to see much,” Seth points out.

  “No,” Luke says, “I don’t think that’s her idea of fun—don’t let them talk you into it; there’s plenty of other stuff to do.”

  I swallow nervously and speak up.

  “No offense, but Luke’s right,” I say. “It’s just not my idea of fun; sounds really terrifying, to be honest.”

  “Well, you don’t have to jump or anything,” Kendra says.

  My expression darkens a little and I shake my head. “I’m just not into that BASE jumping stuff—sorry.”

  Kendra waves a hand at me, brushing my comment off. “Nah, it’s not like BASE. Skydiving is really safe; you see eighty-year-old ladies out there doing it.” She looks over at Seth quickly. “Remember that one lady who jumped like three times?”

  Seth and Luke laugh, nodding and pointing their beers at each other.

  “I remember her,” Luke says.

  “That was pretty insane,” Seth adds.

  Luke rubs my leg with the palm of his hand.

  “Skydiving is safe,” he says, “but don’t worry about it; I want to do whatever you want to do, all right?”

  I begin to contemplate it: OK, it’s not BASE jumping, so maybe I should go and at least watch; they say it’s really safe, and if eighty-year-olds can do it, then it must be. Besides, maybe watching them will help me a little more with my fear of heights.

  “I don’t know. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to go.” I can’t believe I’m saying this. “I-I mean, not to jump, of course, but I think I’d like to go and watch.”

  Kendra looks at Luke and then at Seth. Seth looks at Luke and shrugs and swigs his beer. Luke’s hand squeezes my waist again.

  “Sienna, if you don’t—”

  “No, I’m really OK with it,” I cut in. “If you want to go, I’m all for tagging along.” If that’s true, why do I still feel this dread in my heart?

  Come on, Sienna, you can do this, I tell myself. I know I’ll probably never accept the BASE jumping, but I at least want to be supportive in the other things Luke loves to do: cliff-diving, a little dangerous surfing every now and then, skydiving—I want to make an effort to accept these things, because Luke’s worth it. And I have to remind myself that when it comes to heights, my fears are more irrational than most people’s.

  “I think we have a verdict!” Seth says.

  Kendra beams across the table at me.

  “You’re all right,” she says, her way of thanking me not only for wanting me and Luke to go with them, but for everything else, too.

  Luke’s lips fall on the side of my neck.

  “I guess it’s settled then,” he says and he can’t mask the excitement in his voice.

  It’s not until they start talking about Norway that I become the quiet one, sitting on Luke’s lap, listening, and trying to take it all in. They go on and on about it—things I sort of get, most of it I don’t: Equipment. Gear. This and that. Jumping off the Troll Wall. July ninth. And more about Landon.

  Finally, when I can’t sit silently any longer, I ask, “Why is July ninth so important?”

  The table gets quiet.

  “It would’ve been Landon’s twenty-third birthday,” Luke says.

  Kendra speaks up, all traces of excitement from before gone from her face. “It was something Landon wanted us all to do after China.”

  “To honor Landon,” Luke says as he combs his fingers through my hair, “we agreed to go ahead with the plans and jump in Norway on his birthday.”

  “Oh,” I say.

  “And then next year,” Seth joins in, always with a smile, “we’ll be heading to Mexico and Australia, baby!” He leans his long arm across the table and bumps fists with Luke. I smile and laugh … No, I fake smile and fake laugh. Then Seth drinks down the last of his beer and heads toward the fridge. Kendra, without realizing it, saves me from having to explain the look creeping up on my face, the one I know is akin to another kind of fear—fear for Luke’s life. She jumps up from the table, trying to get to the fridge before Seth.

  “Hey! Back off, Ken-doll!” He puts his big arm out and easily holds her at bay.

  “Stop calling me that!” she growls, grabs him around the waist, worms her way past his giant form, and snatches the last two beers right out of his hand.

  “Those are mine!” Luke calls out, and Seth and Kendra both freeze in their steps. “You want one?” he asks me quietly.

  I shake my head. “No. I’m good.”

  “Have at ’em,” he says, and their bodies reanimate as they scuffle a moment, only to end up with a beer each in the end.

  I often wonder why the two of them aren’t together because they really seem into each other, but maybe they are holding everything back for the sake of friendship; I don’t know. I’d probably ask them about it right now, put them on the spot and join in on their fun, but this whole Norway thing in a couple of weeks is too heavy on my mind.

  Luke tightens his arms around me.

  “You sure you want to go with us tomorrow?” he asks.

  His smile and those beautiful eyes that regard me with emotions I can’t begin to explain are enough to erase my newfound fear. Even if only for a little while.

  I lean in and kiss his lips. “Yeah, definitely,” I say. “I look forward to seeing some of this world above the clouds that makes you the way you are.”

  He presses his lips to my forehead.

  “I can’t wait to show you,” he says, and I get lost in his smile.

  It’s important to me that Luke know I’m not in his life to change his life, and I don’t want to be the reason he doesn’t go out with his friends and do the things that make him happy. I like him the way he is and I respect his close relationship with his friends. But another part of me is so afraid for him, for all of them; a part of me, as much as I want to be supportive, makes me feel like I don’t know what I’m getting myself into, and more than that, I don’t know if I can truly handle it.

  Later I lie curled up next to Luke, listening to the steady sound of his breath as he sleeps, the thrumming of his heartbeat against my cheek, and I don’t recall ever having so many profound thoughts running through my head all at one time. So many decisions that I have to make. So many unavoidable consequences of each and every one of them.

  I want to stay here with Luke, but I can’t. I want to prove Seth right about Luke’s persuasive abilities and be stripped of my fear once and for all so I can experience the things they experience no matter how reckless and dangerous, but I won’t. I want to shake Kendra and tell her that she’ll be OK and in order to let Landon go she should talk about him, but I’m afraid. I want to stop spending all my time working and start photographing more, but I’m conflicted. I want to be able to know Landon Everett as closely as Luke and Seth and Kendra because he was so loved by them all and seemed like such an extraordinary person, but I know that’s impossible. But most of all, I want to stop feeling this strange darkness inside of me, this looming sense of fear and worry for Luke, and even Kendra and Seth, because of what they do, but I have a feeling that darkness will never go away.

  “Why are you crying?” I hear Luke’s voice in the darkness. I hadn’t realized he was awake.

  He rolls over and drapes his arm over my chest, wiping the tears from my cheeks.

  “Ummm …” I can’t find the right words.

  “Sienna?” He nudges his head closer to me. I can feel his warm breath on the side of my face, exhaling from his nose. “Tell me what’s wrong.” r />
  I sniffle and wipe my tears.

  “I uh … well, I was just thinking about your brother.”

  “What about him?” he says softly, the pad of his thumb moving deftly across my chin.

  Silence fills the space between us. I’m still unsure of what to say.

  “I … just can’t get over how he died.” My voice is quiet, distant. “It’s just really sad.”

  It was true: I was thinking about Landon, but mostly I was thinking about Luke. Seems there’s something now I fear more than heights or losing my way in the financial world: I’m afraid of losing Luke the same way he lost his brother. I want to tell him—I tried to the morning after we slept together the first time—but something tells me it’s the one thing he doesn’t want to hear. That wounded look on his face, that air of dread and disappointment. I don’t see me being able to hold this in forever. I won’t be able to hold it in for long.

  Luke

  Sienna is a special girl—my special girl, the one I think I’ve been waiting for all my life. I knew it before. I knew she was the one long before this moment. I knew. With her here, in my arms, I feel peace again that I never thought I’d feel.

  But there’s also something there that threatens that peace—Sienna’s worry over my BASE jumping. I can take it from my past girlfriends, but not with Sienna. I need to make her understand how safe I am about it, how OK I’ll be, before she decides she can’t be with me because of it. I need to make her understand. I hope that I can. Sienna is different; I have to believe that she can accept it.

  No, I do believe it.

  I refuse to believe otherwise.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “I know it’s hard for you to talk about it.”

  I roll carefully on top of her and take her into a kiss, cupping her face firmly within my hands. The kiss breaks and I look down into her eyes, searching them through tears and conflict and the sweetness she harbors as naturally as I harbor risk.