Chapter 1
“Lena, you aren’t seriously going to do this, are you?” Danny’s green eyes were wide as he looked out over the rather long drop into the springs.
I laughed and ruffled his hair, knowing how much it annoyed him.
“Of course I am, why else would I have joined this group on the hike up here if I wasn’t?” I asked with a wicked grin. “You know me.” I winked.
“Yeah, you do like to push your luck, but this might be one that you do on your own. I’m not too happy being this high up.”
He looked over the cliff and then gulped before backing up a step.
We’d just turned seventeen a few weeks before and I had considered this little trip out with friends as part of our birthday celebration … but the cliff diving? That would be the best present in the world, and I was itching to feel the air whoosh around me as I sailed through the air with nothing to stop me, nothing but the ice-cold embrace of the crystal-blue springs below.
Nothing gave me a rush like this, not drugs like some of my friends had been experimenting with, and definitely not sex. I snorted. As if. Who wanted to rot your brain on drugs just to get high or get in stupid relationships with all the crap that came with them just to get off once in a while? Sorry, but I didn’t see how the payout was worth the cost in either of those scenarios.
But cliff diving? The ultimate high.
I wanted to experience life and experience it while I was young and full of energy.
“Awe, come on, Danny. This is supposed to be a birthday thing.” I pooched out my lip and did my best puppy dog eyes interpretation. “We do everything together. I don’t want to do this without you,” I pleaded.
Danny ran his hand through his tousled, red curls and sighed.
“I don’t know why I let you talk me into these things,” he muttered.
I let out a squeal and threw myself into his arms. I kissed his cheek soundly.
“You’re the bestest brother ever,” I announced cheerfully.
“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it before.” He smiled over at me.
Danny was the male version of me. He had the exact same shade of green eyes, unruly red hair in stupid curls all over his head, and even the freckles on his face were in almost the exact same place as the ones on mine.
But even though I could tell what he was thinking and even finish his sentences, as he could mine, we were polar opposites personality-wise.
Danny was more of a loner and would have gladly stayed at home reading a book or strumming on his guitar as he wrote more lyrics inside his thirtieth notebook that was almost full just like all the others. He couldn’t have cared less about being popular, but his loner style, paired with his curls falling across his forehead as he strummed his guitar just attracted girls like bees-to-honey.
I shook my head. Never in all the history of any high school ever has someone cared so little about popularity and hated attention so much that it only made them that much more popular.
But Danny did that somehow.
I didn’t care about popularity either, but my loud approach to telling everyone to eff off didn’t have the same effect as Danny’s. Me? I didn’t care what people thought of me … I wore what I wanted to because that’s what I liked, I listened to the music I liked and almost anything I ever did, I didn’t think the repercussions through beforehand. I flew by the seat of my pants and that had come back to bite me more than once.
I always pushed the envelope, Danny always adhered to the letter. I was a bit wild, a free spirit, a restless spirit, my mom had once said. Danny was an old soul, a thinker, and usually my voice of reason.
“You two chickening out?” Brian came up to us standing there and grinned down at me. Brian was a cutie patootie, but I’d been keeping my distance for a while. I wasn’t looking for a hookup.
“Hell, no! Just waiting for you to go first,” I answered with a smirk.
Brian gave me a crooked grin with a two-finger salute and didn’t even hesitate. He stepped back and took a running leap over the edge. I heard a few girly screeches come from below where our other friends were swimming and hanging out. I watched breathlessly as he fell and then landed with a splash. His head broke the surface a few seconds later and everyone broke out in cheers and whoops.
“Alright, Helena, you’re up,” Brian shouted from below.
I smiled and felt that familiar tingling in the back of my skull as I mentally prepared myself to make the jump. My heart was beating a bit too fast, my breathing a bit too shallow.
“No way I can talk you out of this, Lena?” Danny asked.
I flashed a grin of all teeth over at my brother.
“Not a chance. You going to go after me? You’re not going to miss this experience, are you?”
His eyes slipped away from mine as he eyed the drop once again. I felt a pinch of remorse for guilting him into jumping with me. I always got him caught up in my crazy schemes, but he had never truly been scared before.
I opened my mouth to tell him not to worry about it, but he spoke up first.
“Nah, this will be great, and I wouldn’t want you having all the fun,” he said flippantly. I smiled and a little bit of the guilt chipped off of my shoulder.
“Awesome! Well, here I go!” Danny smiled as I ran to the edge and propelled myself off of the cliff.
The wind whipped in my face as I fell into oblivion for a few blessed seconds. All the yells from below faded as my heart nearly burst from my chest and my breath was snatched from my lips.
I felt nearly invincible as I fell, and the icy blast of water only made the entire experience that much more exhilarating. I broke through the surface of the water with a gasp. My heart was pounding so loudly in my ears from the adrenaline rush, I could barely hear my friends close by.
I glanced up at the cliff and marveled at the height I’d just fallen from. I swam out a bit to make room for Danny and waited. When nothing happened and Danny didn’t jump, I wondered if he was even more afraid to jump than I originally thought.
Something nagged at my chest and I suddenly didn’t want Danny to jump. I’d rather him not do anything he didn’t want to just because I’d pushed him to. My stomach flip-flopped and I felt an urgency driving me to just tell him to come back down the rocky incline.
I cupped my hands around my mouth and hollered Danny’s name, but just as I shouted out, I saw his legs clear the cliff. Something in his push off was wrong, and I saw his legs fly out from under him, like he had slipped at the last second.
As if I were watching slow motion footage, I saw Danny’s head crack into the side of a boulder sticking out close to the edge of the cliff and his body go limp as he fell into the springs.
Ringing in my ears took over all sound around me, pushing out everything but my own harsh breaths. It took a moment for me to realize that everyone around me was screaming, guys had dove into the springs as I bobbed up and down in the water, unable to move, to take my eyes away from the spot where I’d seen him plummet into the water.
Even as I swam toward everyone trying to get to Danny, even as I pushed away my tears and focused on helping my brother while praying he’d be okay and that we’d be laughing about this the next day, I knew.
I knew I’d never see Danny again and I knew he was dead because of me.
