Is that truly the answer? Control?
Luke’s comforting smile pulls me back in; I think maybe he knows I’ve taken the first step to understanding a deeper part of myself.
Suddenly he pushes his body forward and away from the back of the seat, leaning over with his elbows resting on his legs. “But that’s getting off the subject,” he says. “Look, I’m just saying that you’re stronger than you give yourself credit.”
He stands up and reaches out his hand to me. Hesitantly I take it.
“Just try it,” he says as he helps me to my feet, “this one time—if you step off that plane on Kauai and don’t feel even the slightest bit liberated, then I’ll leave you alone about it and eat my words.”
After turning it over and over inside my mind, a long moment that feels like forever, I swallow down the rejection I had prepared and I give in.
“OK.”
Luke shakes his head as if I were already making a mistake and he needs to quickly correct it.
“You can’t do this for me,” he points out. “You have to want to do it for yourself. Just take a deep breath and think about how afraid you’ve always been and set it straight in your mind that you don’t want to be afraid anymore.” He smiles and adds, “To be blunt, Sienna, just tell the fear to fuck off and you take the control. Seriously. Grow a set of balls—I’ll loan you mine if you need them.”
I guffaw, drawing the brief attention of passersby. Then my laughter falls under a red-hot face.
Slowly my lips spread into a grin and I look toward his crotch, holding out my hand, palm up. “All right, then loan me your balls.”
Judging by the stunned look on his face, surrounded by a broad smile, he probably didn’t expect that.
He sighs dramatically and says, “Oh, all right,” and then moves his hand down in front of him, makes a really big clawlike fist—I chuckle uncontrollably—and pretends to remove his balls, afterward placing them in my open hand. “Be careful with them. I’d like to extend my family name somewhere down the road.”
Unable to suppress my grin—and just barely my laughter—I pretend to drop his balls inside my purse.
“I’ll be very careful,” I say, patting the side of my purse deftly.
He cocks a curious brow, looking to and from my purse and my eyes as if to complain about where I put them.
I laugh out loud. “Come on,” I tell him with sarcasm, tilting my head to one side, “girls don’t really carry them there—surely you knew that already.”
Grinning, he shakes his head and takes hold of my hand. “Let’s get our tickets,” he says. “And don’t worry. I’m paying for yours.”
“No, I can—”
“I got this,” he says sternly, shutting me up in an instant.
He smiles and pulls me along beside him as we head to the ticket counter.
FIFTEEN
Luke
She sits down nervously and places her bulky purse on her lap, her back stiff, her eyes looking at the back of the seat in front of her. I feel compelled to tell her to loosen up some, but I don’t want to push her.
I’ve been here before, where Sienna is:
“You can do this, bro!” Landon said as the wind hit the bridge and made his semi-long brown hair whip about his face. “And hey, if you die, you’ll be there on the Other Side waiting for me when it’s my time to go!” The wind was so strong on the bridge, elevated five hundred feet over a river, that he had to shout over it. Laughter followed.
“You’re an asshole, Landon!” I told him.
He smiled. “Yeah, I know, but I learned from the best, big brother!” He shook his finger at me, grinning like a devil.
With the bungee cord secured around my leg, I stepped out onto the perch and looked down at the river snaking its way through the earth, and the hundreds of green-topped trees that looked like little pieces of broccoli set about in clusters. It was so far down that standing where I stood, that close to the edge, would make anyone with an immobilizing fear of heights piss themselves. I wasn’t as afraid of the height as much as I was afraid of the way down, deliberately leaping to what could potentially be my death. But in my mind, it was the only way I could release myself from the fear. And if I died trying, then at least I died trying. I was tired of merely existing in a life that I was supposed to be living.
I looked back at my brother, just in case it was my last chance to do so, and I did what any brother would do—I flipped him off and leapt off the bridge.
And I lived.
No, I was reborn.
Sienna’s hands are trembling against the armrests. I reach over and cup her right with my left.
“Look,” I say, “you don’t have to do this if you’re not ready. I won’t try to guilt you into it. But I can guarantee you that once you land, you’ll be glad you did it. You’ll feel more in control. Do you want to switch seats?”
I can’t force her, I know, but I have to give her the option; otherwise she’ll feel forced and this will all have been for nothing.
She hesitates and finally shakes her head. “No, I want to do this.”
“And why do you want to do it?” I quiz her.
“Because I don’t want to be afraid anymore.”
“And why don’t you want to be afraid?”
“Because fear is like a vampire,” she says, still looking at the back of the seat in front of her. “And I’m tired of letting the bastard suck the life out of me.”
“Hell yeah.” I smile proudly.