The waves crashed far below me. My nails and fingertips were bleeding, the result of clinging to a cliff face. The salty wind stung my cheeks and blurred my vision. The dirt crumbled beneath my fingers. I was slipping.
It was stupid, how I got there. Following stupid clues to a stupid rendevouz with a stupid -- no not stupid. Dangerous. -- with a dangerous boy.
We dared each other to stand on the edge, and together we had stepped to the very end of the ledge. We didn't know the ground was loose. We didn't know we would slip. The boy, that dangerous, thrilling boy, had fallen over the edge. Somehow, I'd held on.
But now I was going to join him.
My bleeding fingers released their grip on the cliff. The sense of falling was incredible. The air rushed past my body, until suddenly I wasn't falling anymore.
The air was knocked out of my lungs. I felt the sensation of skin-on-skin. The boy was alive. The boy caught me. I was alive.
But no. The light was too bright. The waves too loud. The boy too perfect. Too heroic. Too dangerous.
Danger. Falling. The waves. The cliff. The boy. It all ran together in my mind until it felt like I was being stretched and shattered into a million pieces. The universe expanded before my eyes and all I could see was the boy who...
Had he killed me? Or had he saved me?
It didn't matter. I was already gone.
ns 15.158.61.39da2
