“First of all, the last one was all you,” I say, raising my eyebrows at her. “And besides, cliff jumping is more than just being adventurous. I’m way too afraid of…” My voice trails off as I realize what I’m about to say.
“Heights?” Blake finishes, her eyes wide, that mischievous grin reappearing.
“No,” I say, shaking my head, even though that’s exactly what I was going to say.
“Like… what’s on the list? Like… we should probably go cliff jumping so you can check it off the list?” she asks.
I start to object, but I can feel the cracks starting to form, the Huckabee Lake trip getting closer and closer with each passing second. It is kind of perfect.
“Okay. Fine. It has to be a small one, though. I don’t want to break my neck or anything.”
“Medium, and you’ve got a deal,” she challenges, holding out her hand.
I stare at it before letting out a long huff of air and shaking on it. “Fine. Medium. ONE jump, and then we’re done.”
She pauses midshake. “Just one little detail. Are there, like, cliffs around here?”
I laugh and pull my hand away, looking back down at the water in the picture. I know this is an out. I know I can lie and say there aren’t.
But I think of the list, and I don’t take it.
“There’s a bunch of lakes and creeks around here. I’m sure we can find something.”
Matt would know. The thought comes to me despite myself. He would be thrilled to hear I was thinking about launching myself off a cliff.
The second-to-last time we broke up, he told me I’d been keeping myself in a little box the past three years.
“Because I won’t go backpacking with you this weekend?” I fired back at him.
He ran his fingers through his unkempt hair, frustrated. “It’s more than just the backpacking, Emily, and you know it.”
I did know it.
Back when we were just friends, we used to go mountain biking in Huckabee State Park, or hiking by the old bridge over Coal Creek. But after Mom was gone, none of it seemed the same to me. Instead of adventures, I’d just see the five most common mountain-bike injuries, or how if we got cut by the bridge metal, a tetanus shot is only 95 percent effective at protection against something like diphtheria.
Why seek out the chance for something to go terribly wrong when life was always threatening to do that without your help?
Eventually, he just stopped asking. I didn’t realize he’d felt boxed in with me until that fight. I realized then some part of him was bummed I wasn’t as adventurous as I used to be. That he was still hoping to get the daredevil Emily he had a crush on in middle school to reappear.
He was just too nice to outright say it. And I was too cowardly to bring it up again. So maybe if I did this… I could get a piece of that back. Maybe that’s what’s been so off between us.
I slowly put the photos away, watching Blake put together her easel, her dark eyebrows knit together in concentration as she works.
I wonder what someone like Blake is afraid of.
I wonder if she’d think less of me if she knew I was afraid of mostly everything now, the statistics and the unexpected worst-case scenarios.
I wonder if my mom would think less of me if she knew I was afraid of mostly everything.
I jump when there’s a knock on the door. Johnny’s and my dad’s heads pop inside, appearing stacked on top of each other.
“Em, we gotta head on down the road,” my dad says. “I’ve got work in the morning.”
I tap my phone to see it’s already almost ten. Wow, the hours with Blake completely flew by. That’s a good feeling in a summer I’ve pretty much watched the seconds tick away in.
“Thanks for the help,” Blake says when they’ve left the two of us to break down the now empty boxes. “I’m sure it wasn’t exactly the most entertaining night.”
I shrug as we shuffle off down the hall, each carrying an armful. “Honestly, it was the most enjoyable night I’ve had in a while.”
We drop them off in the living room, all the boxes now reduced to a flattened pile of cardboard.
As we say our goodbyes, my dad jingles his car keys in his pocket, a contented look on his face I haven’t seen in years. As we head for the door, Winston’s tail droops to half-mast, his brown eyes fixed on me mournfully.
Blake pats him on the head, right between his big, doofy ears. “She’s coming back, man. Don’t worry.”
He wags his tail slightly at her words, comforted by her hand on his head. Something about what she says comforts me, too. The fact that I’ll be back here, Blake’s friendship not ruined by Matt and the Huckabee Pool.
At least not yet.
“See you,” I say, more to Blake than Winston, although he wiggles a bit at my words.
“Medium cliff, Em,” she says, rehashing the terms of our cliff-jumping agreement. “Or else it doesn’t count. We can’t half-ass any of these.”
I think of how I felt putting that first check mark down at Hank’s. The rush it gave me. But it also kind of felt like a consolation prize.
I want this one to feel bigger. More earned.
“Might as well find the biggest cliff in Huckabee,” I say, and her face lights up mischievously. I’m completely going to regret that, but I can’t deny the fact that our small, shared adventure sends a little thrill through my spine, carrying me all the way out to my dad’s pickup truck and down the long driveway.
The ride home is dark, the sides of the road illuminated only by lightning bugs, but for once, the shadows beyond the trees feel a
