The Moment of Letting Go

  “OK …” He doesn’t have to tell me twice.

  He pushes my leg over the side of the hammock, where it hangs at the bend of my knee.

  Every muscle in my body begins to tense. I feel like I need to raise my arms above me and grab on to something, but we’re too tangled, lying in the hammock, closely compacted together, preventing much movement.

  My mouth falls open and my breath comes out in a shudder. “Oh my God … Luke … seriously.”

  He manages somehow to get his mouth near mine and his tongue touches the corner of my lips. I try to roll to the side to kiss him, but it’s nearly impossible. My chest rises and falls with a deep, unsteady breath.

  “What would you do if I stopped right now?”

  “I’d cry.”

  “You’d cry?”

  I gasp and moan, digging the tips of my fingers into his abs. “Yes, I’d probably cry—please don’t stop.”

  “But what if I stopped and took you inside,” he says with his mouth still near mine and his fingers still moving below, “and I laid you out on my bed and stripped off all your clothes and spread you open and finished you off with my tongue?”

  My eyes roll into the back of my head.

  My body goes rigid underneath his hand, my neck arcing over the side of the hammock, and Luke’s warm, wet mouth falls on my exposed throat. I let out a moan as a tiny explosion goes off inside of me, my legs shaking, my hands gripping on to something—I don’t even know what at this point. He drags his teeth gently down my throat, and then his tongue, a low growl moving through his lungs. As my body slowly calms and my breathing begins to even out again, his fingers move more slowly until finally he pulls his hand from my panties. We lie here quietly together, looking up at the blue sky peeking through the green palm leaves above us.

  He kisses me.

  “I’m going to miss you, Sienna.”

  “I’m going to miss you too.”

  I feel like crying. Maybe it’s the overwhelming emotion I always feel after an intense orgasm, but I know it’s not only that—I don’t want to leave.

  I shake off the tears and choose to make our last few moments together more fun and memorable than sad and dark. Carefully, I try to roll over on top of him, but it’s not an easy thing to do in a hammock and it sways precariously side to side, threatening to spill us both. But he catches me, wrapping his arms around me, steadying the hammock and us within it, his long, tanned leg dangling over one side.

  I kiss his lips. He smiles.

  “I think since I have to leave soon,” I say with a coy grin, dragging the tip of my index finger over his bottom lip, “maybe we should spend what time we have left in bed.”

  He grins.

  “That is so tempting,” he says, grabbing my butt with both hands and squeezing.

  “Well, the offer still stands,” he says and kisses me again. “Let me take you inside—unless you want to do it out here. I don’t mind either way.”

  My cheeks feel hot. “No, let’s go inside.”

  After very carefully finding our way out of the hammock without falling out of it, Luke carries me piggyback up the steps of the lanai and into the house. And instead of hiking, we spend the entire day in bed. Sometimes napping. Sometimes lying curled up next to each other listening to the rain patter on the roof. Sometimes having sex. But mostly what we do with our time left together is talk. We talk about everything. And the more we talk, the more we feel like we’ve known each other forever and the more we know that my leaving is going to crush us both.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Luke

  Why didn’t you tell me before about the BASE jumping?” Sienna’s lying against my stomach, her cheek pressed near my navel; her long, soft hair is splayed outward against the mattress, tickling my side. I reach down and comb my fingers through her short bangs and trace the curvature of her jaw and chin with the edge of my thumb.

  She had asked this question before, the night she came back from Oahu and found me painting, the first night we slept together. I know she didn’t forget that she’d asked, so this must be about something else.

  “I didn’t think any of that mattered at first,” I say. “No reason to drop a shitload of drama on your lap if you were only going to be here for two weeks and we wouldn’t see each other again.”

  The palm of her hand is warm against my stomach muscles. Her eyes stray from mine and she looks off at the wall, seeming lost in thought. I get the feeling she’s all of a sudden rethinking the topic altogether.

  “What is it?” I ask curiously. She seems nervous, off in her own world.

  Finally she looks back at me and smiles warmly, the tips of her fingers brushing my abs.

  “Nothing,” she says. “I was just thinking.”

  “About what?”

  “I dunno,” she answers timidly, looking away from my eyes again. “I guess I just imagine it might be difficult for you to be in a relationship with a girl who doesn’t … do the things you do.”

  Oh, now I see what this is all about.

  I smile and brush her jawline again with my fingertips.

  “Sienna,” I say, and she looks right at me, “I’d rather be with a girl who doesn’t BASE jump—granted, if you were into it I’d still have a thing for you. Seriously, you couldn’t be more perfect the way you are.”

  Her smile is faint, but it’s there. I touch the tip of her cute freckled nose and then her lips.

  “But why don’t you want to be with a girl who BASE jumps?”

  I pause and then just tell her the truth.

  “Because I’m selfish. And I’m a hypocrite.”

  That surprises her; faint lines of confusion appear around her eyes.

  “Because BASE jumping is dangerous, Sienna,” I begin to elaborate. I sigh deeply, her head rising with my stomach. “It makes me sick with nerves when I know my girl is going to jump because I just don’t trust her to”—this isn’t coming out like I planned—“well, it just scares the shit out of me. I know I’m safe—well, as safe as I can be, considering. I’m OCD when it comes to packing my gear and making sure that the tiniest thing has been checked three times. I’m really careful, and it’s why I’m still alive. But not everybody is as careful as I am, or takes safety as seriously as I do. You wouldn’t believe how many people get into this sport thinking it’s just another sport and think they’re invincible. Well, it’s not just another sport and none of us are invincible. I just don’t want to be with a girl I have to worry about every time she steps off the edge.”

  She just looks at me, probably not sure what to say.

  “Hypocritical and selfish—I admit it. Maybe that’s my biggest flaw of all.”

  Her faint smile brightens a little and her lips fall on my stomach briefly.

  “What about the other stuff?” she asks. “Skydiving and rock climbing and all that?”

  “If you ever decided you wanted to skydive, I’d support you and be there for you.” She raises her head from my stomach and props the side of her cheek in her upraised hand, her elbow pressed into the mattress on my other side. “But don’t ever think I’d be disappointed that you never wanted to do it,” I go on. “I may be helping you out with your fear of heights, but I don’t ever expect you to do anything that your heart’s not into. I happen to like you just the way you are.”

  She smiles.

  “Come here,” I say, reaching out and grabbing her arms, pulling her on top of me, where she lies down fully across the length of my naked body, resting her chin on the tops of her hands lying flat against my chest so that she’s looking right into my eyes.

  “There’s something important I want you to know,” I tell her as I brush her hair behind both ears. “I never want you to feel like you have to be someone you’re not. Not for me, not for anyone. Do you understand?” I hold her face in my hands firmly, peering deep into her eyes. “Never change who you are, Sienna.” I know in my heart that she’s too strong for that, to change who she is for someone else,
but I still want her to know how I feel about it, that I’d never expect it of her.

  A profound smile warms her eyes.

  “Y’know,” she says as my hands slide away from her cheeks, “I don’t think I ever really knew who I was … I still don’t completely, Luke, but since I met you, for the first time in my life I’ve begun to find myself.”

  I smile thoughtfully and let her go on, needing to hear this as much as I know she needs to say it.

  “I majored in business, even though I had no idea why—no interest in it whatsoever. All I knew was that I needed to find a good job so I didn’t have to struggle the way my parents did. And I wanted to help them.” She laughs lightly with a hint of sarcasm, looking off at nothing. “And I did get a good job and I make enough that I can help them now, and my parents won’t even accept it.”

  “I can relate,” I say. “My parents were like that, but you know what I did?”

  “What?”

  “I paid for their shit anyway,” I say. “Behind their backs. I did what I had to do by getting them back on their feet before I gave up my half of the money.”

  She looks deeply in thought.

  “But finish what you were saying about finding yourself,” I tell her.

  She reaches out and traces my eyebrow with the tips of her fingers.

  “I’ve never really stopped long enough to think about what I want out of life—not a career, but life,” she says. “Of course, I’ve always been into photography. It’s my passion. But I’ve never let it go further than a hobby because … well, I guess I just never have time for it anymore. My job is demanding, but maybe I’m a little addicted to the ladder of success, too—do you know what I mean?” Her eyes harden with reflection, as if she’s going through all of the answers in her head for the first time, learning something more about herself that maybe she kind of always knew, deep down, but is finally admitting. “When I actually have a day off,” she continues, “I jump at the opportunity to fill in for someone else. I’m always on the go, looking ahead, wanting to prove not just to Cassandra, but to myself, that I have what it takes to be successful. I have this incessant drive, this need to climb higher and higher—but for what? What am I going to do when I get up there, y’know? Work some more and never have time to enjoy my life?” She pauses in thought, her eyes lit by self-realization, acceptance, even discouragement. Then she says, “I really admire Paige. She works hard even though financially she doesn’t have to, but she never lets work—or anything for that matter—get in the way of life. She always finds time for herself. And when something threatens to bring her down, she gets rid of it and moves on.”

  We sit in silence for a moment, her expression hard and concentrating, her eyes looking at the wall behind my head, but probably seeing something entirely different than the dingy white paint.

  “I just want something more out of my life,” she says distantly.

  “We all do at some point,” I respond, reaching out and taking her hand into mine. “And when we realize that, we have to accept that some things have to change in order to get it. You have to be willing to take that first step to making it happen.” I press my lips to her knuckles. “And I think yah kinda have.”

  Sienna’s smile is thoughtful and curious. She tilts her auburn head to one side. “How so?” she asks.

  I grin and place her arm down on my chest, rubbing the palm of my hand over her smooth, warm skin.

  “You finally used up that vacation time,” I say with the curve of my lips. “I have to say, I feel all special ’n’ stuff”—she giggles—“especially now, knowing about how you rarely ever take a day off. But here you are, spending two whole weeks with me. Either I’m a very convincing, charming, remarkable, and devilishly handsome guy”—I grin playfully at her, pursing my lips on one side while she tries to hold her laughter in—“or you know more about what you want than you think you do.” That last part I actually meant, and judging by the thoughtful smile in her eyes, she’s well aware.

  She wants to be with me—we want to be together.

  Sienna rises a little and moves closer, a teasing look lurking in her face.

  “Nah,” she says, scrunching up her pink lips and freckled nose. “I’m just as clueless about all that as I was yesterday.”

  “You don’t know anything you want?” I ask suggestively, trying to conceal the playfulness in my face and failing miserably.

  I reach out with both hands, carefully hooking them underneath the backs of her upper arms, and I pull her toward me.

  Sienna smiles faintly and close-lipped, then leans in and touches her lips to mine, her soft breasts pressing against my chest.

  “No,” she whispers. “I do know one thing I want.”

  I kiss her nose. “Oh? What do you want?” Then I kiss the edge of her mouth.

  She smiles and says, “A really good massage—wouldn’t happen to know anyone with magic hands, would you?”

  I laugh out loud and roll her over onto her stomach on the bed, straddling her, and although I’m as hard as a rock, and her cute, round little butt is … seriously right there—Jesus Christ—I ignore the easy access as much as I can and knead my hands into her back for nearly an hour—and then I put myself inside her.

  She falls asleep in my arms later, the same as the night before.

  I’m going to miss this.

  I’m really going to miss this.

  “You sure you’re OK to hang around here by yourself?” I ask, coming into the kitchen and opening the fridge. “Braedon will understand.”

  “No, you go on,” Sienna says, sitting at the bar eating a bowl of cereal. “I’m a big girl. I can stay by myself.”

  I grab an orange juice from the fridge and come around the counter toward her, leaning down and pressing my lips to her forehead.

  “I’ll only be gone a few hours,” I say. “Do whatever you want. Eat and drink whatever you can find. Hell, you can even trash Seth’s room for fun if you get bored—I’ll tell him I did it.”

  She laughs quietly and swallows her food before speaking up.

  “I’m more likely to clean his room than to trash it,” she says.

  “I’m sure he’d love that,” I tell her in jest and kiss her lips. “I’ll be back soon.”

  “All right,” she says and kisses me back. “I’ll be making myself at home.”

  Yeah, babe, you do that … I smile thoughtfully, kiss her one more time, grab my keys from the counter, and head out the front door.

  Braedon needs me to work at the shop today, and since I’ve pretty much been on vacation since Sienna came here, I didn’t want to let him down.

  On the drive to Big Wave Surf Shop not far from my house, I crank up the radio and sing like a loud idiot all the way there. Damn, it’s like I’m love-struck or something. And the funny thing is I’m not ashamed of it and feel like I could sing outside of the car, in the middle of the street in front of everyone and not give a damn that I suck.

  This girl has made me crazy. Good-crazy. The kind that makes you want to do dumb shit and forgive all your enemies and not flip the guy off who cut you off on the highway. I can’t stop smiling. It really feels like my face is sort of stuck like this. I try to not smile and it only makes me smile bigger. What the hell?

  I have the urge to paint all of a sudden. But with brighter colors. Sunlight. Blue water instead of gray or black. A breeze instead of a storm. A drizzle instead of a downpour. Sienna is a light in the darkness that my life has been since Landon died. I hoped that one day I could see it again, the light—I guess I just never knew how bright it could be.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Sienna

  It’s so quiet here with Luke gone, quiet in the sense that I can hear everything else: the ocean, the breeze brushing through the trees, the birds. But mostly what I hear are a hundred thoughts in my head, trying to get my attention. I hear a few of them screaming, and I know they’re there, but I’m not sure what they’re trying to tell me, and a big part of me
doesn’t want to know. I settle with the thoughts that make me smile. The ones of Luke and me and the amazing two weeks we’ve spent together, and the future I hope we spend together.

  Eventually I go out onto the lanai and look out at the ocean for a little while. I text Paige and my mom to let them know how I’m doing. And then I decide to clean the place up, though I stay away from Seth’s room—it scares me to think of what might be in there. After an hour I’ve run out of things to do, and I go into the living room and sift through the DVDs stacked in and around the small entertainment center. Running my fingers over the titles, I eventually come to a section of jewel cases that have no labels on the spine and one by one I pull them out and read the Sharpie text scribbled across the front.

  They’re all BASE jumping DVDs.

  I shove them back down into a neat stack, along with those thoughts in my head that suddenly started screaming again.

  Then I come to a small section of documentaries and stuff that originally aired on the History and Discovery and National Geographic channels. One in particular catches my attention—Journey to the Center.

  When I first look at the plastic cover, something heartbreaking washes over me, something familiar—a great wall of rock climbs two thousand feet into the sky in a deep tunnel-like formation, blanketed by lush green that crawls the stone, gripping and tearing its way to the top, where beams of bright sunlight pierce the shadows cast by the scaling rock above. And at the top, three figures hang from a cable that stretches from one side to the other.

  The image is the same as the giant painting of Luke’s that I saw on the wall at the community center, with just a few differences—the men on the cable the most noticeable. It’s also the same image as the one I saw Luke working on the night I came back here, and as many of the other paintings in that room just down the hall. Different angles. Different lighting. Different weather. Many differences, but all of them of the same thing, the place I privately called the Bottom of the World.

  My heart sinks into my stomach.