Then his hand moves down. Farther. Farther.
“No, not yet,” I say with light laughter, stopping his hand before there’s no turning back. “I need to recuperate first.”
“All right,” he says and lays his hand across my stomach. “Just tell me when and what and I’m on it.”
For a long time I just lie curled around him with my head in the crook of his arm, and we listen to the rain pattering on the roof and the sound of the ocean not far away. He runs his fingers through the top of my hair softly as we lie tangled together in silence. A sweet silence that says more than anything I could ever say with words. I never want to leave this bed. I never want to leave his arms.
After a while Luke says quietly, “It was an accident.” He’s gazing up at the water-damaged ceiling, but I know the only thing he sees right now is Landon’s face.
TWENTY-FOUR
Luke
Eight months ago we were all supposed to go to China. All of us, including me. We’d been planning this jump for three years.” My chest rises and falls heavily beneath the palm of Sienna’s hand, my heart beating to the rhythm of guilt underneath her soft cheek. “But I didn’t go with them. I stayed behind because I thought the business and the money were more important than being with my brother.” I pause, at war with myself internally. “We always checked each other’s packs,” I say with blame and quiet anger. “But I wasn’t there to check his that day and he died because of it.”
My body tenses next to hers. She lays the palm of her hand softly on my heart.
“Landon was on his way to becoming one of the best BASE jumpers in the world,” I go on, “and would’ve been if he hadn’t died so soon. He had more than six hundred jumps in fifteen countries under his belt, won competitions, had plenty of sponsors. But none of that stuff was what was most important to my brother. It was never about winning with him, or about being the best. He just wanted to drink the sky. He wanted to fly.”
Sienna raises her hand from my chest and wipes a tear from her cheek.
“I was so pissed at him,” I go on, reliving the events out of order, my body growing tenser against hers. “Landon had everything going for him. He could hack into any system, if he really wanted to. Our business never would’ve happened if it hadn’t been for the things he could do behind a computer. I hated him; I always loved him as my brother, of course, but I hated him for a while because here he was, intelligent beyond my understanding, scared of nothing, and I was afraid of everything and all I could do was paint.” I pause to catch my breath.
Sienna moves her hand closer to my heart, and my hand collapses around it, squeezing gently.
“But Landon, being the brother that he was, made it his priority to help me beat my fears. He practically kicked me out of my bed one morning and said, ‘Get up, big brother! I’ve got something to show you!’ He took me to Perrine Bridge that day, and after a long drive listening to Landon tell me everything I needed to hear about why I shouldn’t be afraid to live, it was enough to make me want to leap off that bridge that day. And I did. And I never looked back.”
“You’re like him in that way, you know,” Sienna says softly, her cheek pressed against my chest. “That drive and passion to help someone overcome.”
I squeeze her hand, acknowledging the meaning behind her comment.
“Sienna,” I say in a composed, purposeful voice, “when I met you out on the beach that day, do you remember what I said to you? When I told you that if you stayed longer I could show you how to let it go?”
“Yeah. How could I forget?” She raises her head from my chest and props it on her hand so she can see my eyes. “I didn’t understand it really, but that didn’t matter. I was intrigued by your weirdness.” She blushes a little.
I reach out and brush her short bangs with my fingers, the tips of them grazing her forehead.
“There was more to that,” I say, and drop my hand back on my chest, winding my fingers around hers. “You were upset that day, all stressed out because of your job. I had this ridiculous idea that I could somehow make you see what Landon tried to make me see.” I pause, thinking back on my motives that day. “You seemed to be drowning in some of the same shit I was drowning in before my brother died. And it wasn’t until after he died, after I lost the person in my life I loved more than anyone, that I realized everything Landon tried to make me see, all of the arguments we had about money—I finally understood what he was trying to tell me.”
“What was he trying to tell you?”
My eyes fall away from hers and I look toward the open window running horizontally along the wall above the bed. The rain is still falling outside, the waves still pushing against the shore, churned up by the weather. A gray light pours in through the screen on the window, bathing us in the overcast day, and somehow it seems perfect for the moment.
“That I didn’t need money to be happy,” I answer. “He was trying to make me remember who I already was. Before the money, Landon and I were inseparable. We always had been, but when I started BASE jumping with him, and skydiving and surfing, and rock climbing—you name it, we probably did it—that was when we were the closest as brothers. We didn’t give a shit about material stuff, or worry much about not having money to keep the electricity on, because we were too wrapped up in life itself to care—he could turn any bad situation on its head. And Landon still played computer games and dabbled in that stuff on the side when we weren’t going here and there to find the best places to jump. He had computers. I had painting.”
“Sounds like you both lived … free,” Sienna says.
I nod once.
“That’s exactly what it was,” I say. “We lived free. And as long as we were happy, nothing else mattered. We had a fucking blast.” I smile faintly, looking above me, picturing my brother’s smiling face.
Sienna
Luke begins to sit up on the bed and I do the same. He presses his back against the white wall, his knees bent, his arms propped atop them, dangling at the wrists. He looks out ahead of him, deep thoughts running rampant over his unshaven face; paint is smeared on the side of his chin.
I press my shoulder against the wall beneath the window and cross my arms over my naked breasts, not to hide them, but for comfort. And I take in every last word, finally beginning to see what Landon had tried to make Luke remember. And I think about my own life, and my job, and my struggles, and the more Luke talks, the less significant I begin to feel these petty things in my life really are.
“The money blinded me,” he goes on. “It changed me. I didn’t become a rich prick who thought he was better than everybody else, but I lost the person I was. I no longer had to think about bills, or how I was going to afford my next tank of gas. I could buy anything I wanted. Cars. Houses. Stupid shit that collects dust. I could take care of our mom and dad, who’d struggled all their lives, raising us. I had everything I could ever need or want, Sienna. Except anything left to strive for. I lost my ability to push myself to greater heights. I lost my inspiration and my drive and my passions. I stopped painting because all I could think about was the business. I didn’t want to ever fall back into a life of being ‘poor.’ ” He quotes with his fingers; there’s bitter sarcasm in his voice. “It terrified me to think that I might ever have to work some shit job for minimum wage again, living paycheck to paycheck, struggling each week to live a halfway comfortable life.”
I watch and listen with the utmost attention, absorbing every one of his words as if this is a pivotal moment in my own life. Because it is.
“Sorry for the rambling,” he says. “I-I just feel like I’ve needed to get this out for so long.”
“No,” I tell him, “don’t be sorry, Luke.” He’s sharing a part of himself with me that he hasn’t been able to share with anyone else and I can’t find words to explain how much that means to me, how deeply it breaks my heart but also fills it with a sort of tragic joy. I feel special to Luke in so many ways—that he’d trust in me to understand and c
are about his deepest, darkest feelings, that he’d allow me to be the one to help him carry the burden.
He looks at me, and there’s a level of intensity in his eyes that holds my gaze firmly in place. “Landon’s least priority in life was money. He gave all of his up, just like that”—he snaps his fingers—“because he didn’t need it. He was the free-spirited type, didn’t care much about material things, or how much simpler life could be with more of it. But not me. I couldn’t let it go and I couldn’t understand how he could. And the point of all this is that … because I was weaker than my brother, I let money destroy us, destroy me, and now he’s dead.”
I scoot across the bed to sit beside him. He puts me between his legs instead. “I do understand why you feel guilty. I do. And I know that if it were me, I’d probably feel the same guilt.” I curl my fingers around his and tug on his hand. “But you know you can’t do this to yourself because it’ll kill you inside. Because you feel guilty, because it hurts you so much, is proof that it wasn’t your fault. The truly guilty just don’t care.”
“But I should’ve been there to check his pack,” he says, pain choking his voice. “If I had been there—”
“If you had been there,” I cut in, “he probably still would’ve died—when it’s our time, it’s our time. And there’s no way you cared more about money than Landon. You may have convinced yourself of that, but I’m not blinded by the guilt you’re blinded by, and I know he meant more to you than anything ever could.”
His strong arms squeeze me gently.
“How did it happen?” I ask carefully, wanting him to be able to get everything out, but not wanting to push him too far. “If you feel like talking about it.”
“I told you I wanted to,” he says, and then takes a deep breath. “I told you I’d tell you everything. It happened in China. Tian Keng. The Heavenly Pit. His chute didn’t open. He plunged two thousand feet to his death. It hasn’t even been a year.”
My heart stops for a moment, and it feels like a fist is collapsing around my stomach. It takes me a few long seconds to gather the strength to speak, but I don’t know what I should say, and so I just say what everyone seems to say when confronted with something so tragic.
“I’m so sorry, Luke,” I begin, but it doesn’t feel sufficient enough for me, and I add, “I can’t possibly know what you’ve been through, or what you’re feeling right now, but it hurts my heart to know that this happened. To your brother. And to you.”
I feel his lips on my hair again and then he traces his fingers along the top of my leg.
“What I feel right now,” he says with the side of his face pressed against my head, “is that I’m glad you came back.”
I turn sideways, drawing my knees up together and curl my body against his. His skin is so warm and smells faintly of salt and paint and soap. The heavy rain becomes a light shower and though the stereo has been on the whole time, I’m only now noticing it in the background as it carries lightly through the speakers in the living room. But mostly what I hear is the rain and the sound of Luke’s heart beating as I lie against him with my head buried in the crook of his neck.
“Sienna?”
“Yeah?”
“You don’t know much about BASE, do you?”
I’m sensing something dismal in that question, something I feel like I should prepare myself for.
“A little,” I say. “I know it’s kind of like skydiving, but more daring.”
“More dangerous,” he says as if correcting me.
I don’t say anything. I’m not sure what I can say. All I know is that already I hate it; I feel like I’m about to carry the burden of having to choose between two things I love most, that to have both is not only impossible, but forbidden. My heart feels lodged in my throat, and I can’t swallow it down.
Luke raises my head from his neck and I turn around to see him. The look in his eyes is dark and concerned. It’s making me anxious.
“I’m not going to sugarcoat it,” he says. “It’s one of the most dangerous extreme sports in the world. A lot of people die doing it. My brother is proof of that.”
I think of Landon.
Then I think only of Luke and I start to feel a tiny spell of panic in the far recesses of my mind. But it expands so fast, quickening my pulse and stealing my breath. A lot of people die doing it? Die? Then why do it? I want to shake him, I want to tell him how crazy it all sounds to me already, but instead I choose to be rational and listen first, try to understand; maybe it’s not as bad as that unsettling feeling moving down the back of my neck is making it out to be.
“And you do this all the time?” I ask hesitantly.
He shakes his head. “Not as much as I used to when Landon was around,” he says. “But from time to time I go out with everybody and we do a few jumps.”
“All of you do it?” I ask. “Kendra and Seth, too?”
He nods. “Yeah. Kendra, Seth, and Braedon are pretty hard-core. Alicia not as much. I used to be on their level. Before Landon died. Before the money. I might’ve even been more into it than Seth at one time.” He sighs and his gaze strays. “But I don’t do it so much anymore.”
I want to say, Because your brother died? but I don’t, because I already feel like that might be the reason. Is it because he’s afraid that it could happen to him, too, or is it because the void in his heart that his brother once filled has taken away his passion to do it anymore?
I don’t want to seem presumptuous or accusatory. I don’t want to open that can of worms if I’m right.
“Do you still love it?” I ask instead.
Luke pauses, and as the silence wears on, I begin to wonder if he even knows the answer at all.
“Yeah, I do …” he says, and it surprises me because I think deep down a part of him—the larger part—doesn’t believe that.
“It’s the most freeing experience,” he goes on distantly, and I get the feeling that maybe the things he’s saying are coming from his brother. “Euphoria. Drink the sky, Landon always said. And I did. I drank it until I was so drunk I couldn’t see straight. I was blind and deaf to everything except the experience. Nothing else matters in the world when you step off that edge. Nothing else matters. The feeling is so powerful that you’re willing to die for it …”
Luke
Sienna’s face blurs back into focus. I realize I was so lost in thought for a moment that I had forgotten where I was.
But I know where I was … I was in my brother’s head.
I shake it off fast and focus on Sienna, the only topic that matters to me right now.
Damn … I’m so crazy about her, everything about her. And what just happened between us … I … There’s no going back now. I feel so protective of her, even more than I did before, as though her giving herself to me closed the door of my conscience and opened the one to my heart. I want to scoop her up into my arms and hold her forever, beg her to stay here with me, to forget about San Diego and her life there.
In the back of my mind, though, all I can think about is how much of this is going to be OK with Sienna. Because I’ve yet to meet a girl like her, who doesn’t BASE jump, but who can handle me doing it.
I hope she can. More than anything, I hope she can.
“What’s on your mind?” I ask her.
She snaps out of her thoughts and smiles at me.
“I was just thinking about it,” she says. “I was wondering … Are there many girls who do this stuff?”
Interesting. Is she asking in general? Or is she hinting around at something? Because if she is, I know damn well it’s not because she’s thinking of trying it herself.
“Some girls do,” I say. “I’ve known quite a few. Dated one for a short time. But the majority of BASE jumpers are guys.”
I wrap my arms around her and pull her close. I love the smell of her hair, her soft skin pressed against mine. I’m getting hard again.
“Are you a very experienced jumper?” I feel her body tense.
“Yeah,” I say. “I’ve got a lot of experience, have done a lot of jumps. And I’m not one of the reckless ones. Crazy assholes go out there with little training, thinking, ‘Hey, I can do this shit. I’m not scared of anything,’ and then their family is making funeral arrangements the next day. I’m very careful. In fact, I’m pretty anal about safety. I always checked Landon’s pack …” My voice grows distant again.
Sienna
I turn around and sit right in front of him, taking more notice of the tiny streaks and flecks of blue and green and yellow paint on one side of his neck and on his chest muscles.
“Hey,” I say, reaching out my hand and touching the side of his face, “don’t do that.” I brush my fingers softly against his skin, just above the stubble, rubbing away a fleck of paint. “No blaming yourself, all right? Do you think I’m a stupid person?”
He blinks back the confusion.
“Umm, definitely not,” he says.
I smile and brush the pad of my thumb over his lips.
“Then believe me when I tell you that his death wasn’t your fault. Take my word for it because I know what I’m talking about.” I lean in and kiss his lips.
Luke smiles faintly and hooks both of his hands about my hips.
“You’re an amazing girl,” he says. “Everything about you makes me want to be a different person. To be the person I used to be.”
I kiss him again.
“But I like the person you are,” I whisper onto his lips.
His hands move from my hips to my butt. The tip of his tongue traces a path along my bottom lip.
“How are you even real?” His fingers press into my flesh, pulling me closer to his naked lap.
“What do you mean?” I kiss him again.
My legs straddle his lap, his hardness palpable between us, his arms wrapped around my back.
“You’re just unlike anyone I’ve ever met,” he says breathlessly between kisses. “You didn’t freak out on me last night before you left—it made me feel even worse. You didn’t hold a grudge against me about that roach.”