I didn’t feel… that way about him at the time. But I liked hanging out with him. I liked the way he narrated movies, and how he was always there for me, through crazy adventures and pranks and my mom getting sick. So, after everything, I couldn’t help but think she must be right.
I tap my heel against the rock underneath me and let out a long sigh.
So why is it so hard? What am I so afraid of with him? What’s stopping me?
Give him a chance.
I keep thinking I am, but if I’m always halfway out the door, I can’t really be. And I know that if I don’t fix things between us, I’ll regret it.
If I could jump off a cliff, maybe, just maybe, I can face him. If I dive in completely, without reservations, without overthinking it, maybe it’ll be the change we need. The thing that was always missing between us was maybe just me being too scared to actually make the jump.
Maybe we always just felt off because I was never really in. Not the way mom wanted me to be.
“Thanks,” I say to Blake.
She looks over at me, the sun casting a golden glow on the skin of her face and her body. “For not pushing you off?” she asks, reaching out to grab my arm and fake a push over the edge. I swat her away, laughing, but then her face slowly grows serious.
“Anytime,” she says. “I think it’s cool that you’re doing the list, Emily. Jumping off cliffs, buying books from old guys with impeccable mustaches. That you can still learn new things about your mom. Still make new memories that she’s a part of.”
I let out a long exhale.
“Sometimes I’m afraid I’ll forget things. Like the way she smelled, or the color of her eyes, or the sound of her laugh.” I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to picture her face. The outline of her hair. The curve of her eyebrows. The fullness of her lips. It’s hard to piece them all together. “Then I have moments like today, you know? Where she feels so close, it’s like she’s been here all along.”
“Well, she has. In a way at least,” Blake says with a shrug. “You’re a part of her, you know? She can never be forgotten because you exist.”
I let out a long whistle. “That was… really deep.”
Blake nudges me. “I’ve had a lot of years to think about it.” There’s a look in her eyes that I recognize. A trace of the sadness that is always there when you lose a loved one. The sadness that changes size and shape, bigger in some moments, smaller in others.
We stand up, stretching, ready to make one last jump down and head back. We count down from five together, and at the last second, without even thinking about it, I grab Blake’s hand, pulling us both toward the cliff’s edge as the two of us launch into the air at full speed. Our hands pull apart as we hit the water, but our eyes lock through the sea of tiny bubbles as we swim to the surface.
We paddle to the shore one final time, our legs struggling way more now to fight against the current, until we splash noisily onto the bank, exhaustion setting in. Slowly, we head back to her truck to dry off and begin the drive back to my house.
The sun dips below the horizon as we spend the whole ride home debating which item to go for next.
“Tattoo,” Blake says, without even a second thought. “Gotta be tattoo. I mean, how fun would that be?”
“Uh, no,” I say as I shake my head. Clearly, our idea of fun differed on that particular subject. “Between today and getting chased out of Snyder’s Orchard, I need a break.”
I find a black felt-tip pen in Blake’s glove compartment, checking off “2. Get over my fear of heights,” as my eyes scan the rest of the list, the next two items jumping out at me.
3. Go on a picnic.
4. Try a new food.
I smile to myself. My mom was a notoriously picky eater. This one will be a breeze for me, but I bet this one had been just as hard for her as facing her fear of heights.
“How about we go on a ‘try a new food picnic’? Kill two birds with one stone?” I ask as I quickly tally the number of days I have left, Blake slowing to a stop outside my house.
Eleven. Only eleven.
“Sounds like a plan to me,” Blake says as I scoop up my bag and unclick my seat belt.
“I’ll bring the food,” she calls out the window as I hop out. “I’ll text you this week to make sure it’s something you’ve never had before.”
“Deal!” I call after her, waving goodbye. I wait until her truck fades from view before heading inside, my heart feeling full.
Feeling invincible.
I don’t know if it is the fact that I’ve lived through jumping off a cliff with her, or the fact that she seems like she could be friends with just about anyone, but I feel different around Blake. Not only is she practically a ray of actual sunshine, but… she doesn’t treat me like the girl who lost her mom. The ghost of the girl she used to be.
She’s the first person I’ve felt like I could be completely real with in a long time. Like there’s no unspoken expectation, no Kiera and Matt exchanging glances when they think I’ve looked away. Olivia mouthing “mom” and rolling her eyes to Ryan when I bailed on a weekend trip out of town, worried something would happen to
