Blake stops short in front of a sign with an arrow pointing directly toward the sky, a shoulder-high ledge separating us from the jumping point.
“Oh, good,” I say, pointing at the arrow on the sign. “This is the part where we ascend straight to heaven.”
Blake rolls her eyes, but they crinkle with a secret smile. She takes a deep breath and effortlessly pushes herself up onto the cliff ledge like some kind of parkour expert, turning around once she’s at the top to offer me a hand. I reach out, our fingers interlacing in the spot where the shadows turn to light, hers soft and cool against my warm skin. She helps pull me up, and suddenly the entire world is far below us.
I instantly feel like I’m going to vomit.
I know, instinctually, that it’s beautiful. The blue of the lake, the sun high in the sky, the trees going for miles. Despite all of that, though, I feel super dizzy. I’m nowhere near the edge, but I feel like I’m teetering on it. It has to be a good twenty feet to the water below.
“Oh my God,” I groan, clutching Blake’s arm to steady myself, any attempt at remaining cool and collected in front of her suddenly being tossed out the window. “This was a terrible, terrible idea. Like… so stupid.”
“It’ll be fine,” she assures me, her voice confident but not dismissive. “What’s the worst thing that can happen?”
“Death,” I say without even a second thought. “Either from impact, or from some stick down there we can’t see stabbing through my chest, or from having a heart attack before I even jump or, or… whatever! Blake, my dad only knows how to cook pasta! And eggs! He’s done for without me!”
Blake grabs ahold of both my shoulders and leans forward, her face inches from mine. “Emily. You can do this.” She looks deep into my eyes, and I’ve never been this close to her before. Close enough to see the tiny freckle on her chin, the almost golden rays encircling her pupils, the cupid’s bow of her top lip. For a moment the fear completely disappears, replaced with a heart-hammering feeling, and I have to look away to escape from it. “You can’t obsess over the risks and the what-ifs, or else you won’t do anything. You’ll spend your life five spaces short of a bingo.”
I freeze, frowning, my head swinging back around to look at her. “You had me until that last bit. Five spaces short of a bingo? What does that even mean?”
“I don’t know,” Blake says. “I was going for something like ‘if you don’t even play the game, you can never win.’ You know?”
I bite my lip, processing. I do know. A bit too well.
She nods toward the edge of the cliff. “Do you want me to go first? Double-check for stray sticks?”
I give her a weak smile, nodding, but then I instantly want to take it back. I don’t want to be alone up here. “Well, that would be—”
But without even thinking twice or hearing the rest of my sentence, she lets go of my shoulders, turns, and launches herself off the cliff at a full sprint like an actual maniac.
I take a step back, clinging to the rock behind me as I watch her soar through the air, her arms pulling together in perfect dive form, her body falling for one, two, three—too many seconds. Until finally, her whole body disappears into the water.
I watch, holding my breath, waiting for her to reappear, but every second feels like an eternity, my worst fears swimming around my head.
No, no, no.
Did her neck break on impact? Did she crack her skull on something? How many bones did she break?
… And then she surfaces, her head finally popping up in between the white foam that formed as she made impact, the both of us taking a deep breath. “No sticks! I didn’t even touch the bottom.”
“Oh! Great!” I peer down at her, and the world tilts again. The distance seems even more enormous now that she’s on the other end of it.
“Come on, Em!” Blake calls up to me, her head bobbing up and down as she treads water. “Don’t look! It makes everything worse! Just step back and take a running start.”
“I don’t think I can!” I call back down to her.
“Don’t think! At all!” she calls back. “Remember the apple orchard? Trust me, if you just go, everything will be fine. The overthinking is what will hurt you.”
“Oh, sure!” I call back to her. “Everything will be fine,” I mumble to myself, mimicking her voice as I step back from the ledge, swaying unsteadily as I go.
I take a deep, shaky breath and put my hands on my hips, fixing my eyes on the horizon as I steady myself.
And then I remember why I’m here. Who brought me here.
Mom. But I don’t see her as seventeen, not like I thought I would. What comes to me is those last few weeks, holding her hand while she lay down, her eyes closed after hours of testing, doctors poking and prodding at her body.
I thought she had been asleep, but her voice startled me when she began to speak. “I think the regretting is the worst part, Em,” she whispered, her weak fingers squeezing mine. “Wishing you could’ve done more. Wishing you could’ve done all the things you wanted to do.”
I feel tears sting at my eyes, the same way they did that day.
I take a deep breath, the words she said that day settling on my chest.
If I turn back now, I know I’ll regret it. If I don’t face my fear the same way she did, if I give up on the list, I know I’ll regret it.
“On the count of five,” I whisper, Mom’s lucky number, our lucky number.
“One.” I fix my eyes on the horizon, locking my jaw. “Two, three, four—”
Before I can even process what I’m doing, I run toward the
