It feels like I’m flying forever. It’s so breathtaking. Every bad experience I’ve ever had, every bad memory, every failure, every regret, it all just leaves me, and I’m filled with something I never imagined a person could feel before I started doing this: absolute freedom from every kind of darkness.
Nothing can touch me up here.
Nothing.
Except Sienna …
Her face enters my mind, the softness of her hair, her adorable freckles, the heavenly taste of her lips, the brightness of her smile—I could fall in love with her so easily.
I know she worries about me and that she may fear for my safety, but I still believe that she’ll understand, that she’s the one and that she’ll be able to accept my lifestyle. But I don’t want her to worry for me; I don’t want her to constantly have that fear of me getting hurt digging in the back of her mind—I wouldn’t want to put her through that; I care too much for her. But I believe we can get through this. Together. I just know it.
All too soon I feel a hard jerk as I pull my chute and my body jolts upward for a few seconds.
I take hold of the parachute toggles and float toward the earth for several long minutes and I continue to take in the view. Not of the sky, but of Sienna’s face. And it’s in this moment when I realize that nearly the whole time I was up there, I thought about her. I thought not about the experience … but about her, and somehow—though I never knew it could be done—it made the experience even more breathtaking.
The ground is getting closer, and the closer I get, the faster it seems that it’s rushing up to meet me. My feet hit the ground first and I slowly run into a stop.
“Woo-hoo!” I hear Seth scream out.
Seth and Kendra run up as I’m unhooking my harness.
“Shit, man, that was awesome!” Seth says.
“Perfect day for skydiving—wasn’t it beautiful?” Kendra is euphoric.
I nod my head underneath my helmet.
“Yeah,” I say distantly, thinking about Sienna, “it was definitely beautiful …”
Sienna
When Luke and everybody come walking back up after their jump, I try not to think too much about the things Alicia told me. In fact, when I see Luke again, walking toward me safely on the ground, enormous, beautiful smile lighting up his face, I tuck the conversation away easier than I thought I’d be able to. But it’s still there, lingering in the back of my mind, along with other things I’m trying so hard not to think about. Like me having only two days left in Hawaii. Two days left with Luke that I want to make the most of.
“I’m surprised it’s not raining,” Luke says, tangled with me in a hammock tied between two trees in his backyard.
His fingers brush through my hair, one arm wrapped around me. Our legs and feet are bare, our shoes kicked off on the ground beneath us.
“Yeah, me, too.” My head lies on his chest, his other hand atop mine just above his stomach. His body is so warm. “But I like the rain. I mean at home it just gets in the way of everyday life, but here, I dunno, it just fits.”
His lips press into the top of my hair.
“Have you thought any more about what we’re gonna do when you go back?” he asks.
The waves lap the beach out ahead, more calmly than usual. The sun is out, but we’re shaded heavily by the palm trees above us.
“I’ve thought about it a lot,” I say. “Haven’t come up with any solid plan or anything. All I do know is that I don’t want the day after tomorrow to be the last time I ever see you.”
“It won’t be the last time you ever see me,” he whispers onto my hair. “We’ll start out with the visiting plan like I talked about. I’ll visit you, and you can come visit me.”
Trips back and forth to Hawaii aren’t exactly an easy thing to do, but I can’t think about that right now.
“Can I ask you something personal?”
“Sure,” he says. “You can ask me anything you want.”
He kisses my forehead.
“I’m curious about what happened to your business.”
I feel weird asking that kind of question; I’ve been curious about it for a while but didn’t want to come off as a gold digger by asking about it, about how much money he makes. But maybe now it’s OK to question. Does he still have access to any of the money the business generated? Is that what he plans to use to make these trips back and forth to see me?
He squeezes me gently. “The business still draws in revenue every year. Not nearly as much as when it started out. Landon gave his share up one hundred percent, about a month before he died.” He looks upward at the trees in thought, the smile gone from his face, replaced by something more profound. “He set up a fund, and after Uncle Sam got his share, the rest went into this fund. It still does to this day. Anyway, Landon intended to take that money at the end of every year and split it up among a few different charities. He still worked at the Big Wave Surf Shop until the day he died, and that’s the only income he lived on. It’s all he needed.”
“And now that’s what you do,” I say, knowing.
He nods and rubs my arm from shoulder to wrist underneath his palm.
“Well, I co-own Big Wave now, of course,” he says. “But it certainly doesn’t bring in the same kind of income. Anyway, after Landon died, I gave up my share of our business to his fund and have been doing it ever since.”
“And you intend to break into it to fly to and from Hawaii?” I’m not sure I feel right about that.