11. Free Falling 101
After that, we take the bus back to their apartment and I spend the entire time desperately trying not to look at the shopping bag in my hands. Because it's a hot, sunny day, Josh suggests we spend the rest of the day hanging out on the roof of his building. One of the perks of living at the top, I suppose, is having easy access to the rooftops. There's not much up there, just a lot of roughly painted concrete, a few aerials and air conditioning units, so Julia finds some portable fold-up camping chairs in their spare room to take up and lounge around on.
There isn't a cloud in the cornflower-blue sky, apart from some smoke drifting up from factory chimneys in the distance. It's rather peaceful and it tempts to take my shirt off and try to tan some colour into my otherwise blotchy white skin. But I don't, because I know that the only colour change that would occur would be a striking transformation to a lovely, lobster red. I wouldn't even have to wear the damned costume, then.
Maybe it's just because I'm paranoid, or maybe it's because I know Josh too well, but I calmly position my chair in the exact middle of the roof. Far enough away from the edges to hopefully, avoid being 'accidently' helped to 'fall' off the building. I've fallen enough times this week as it is, and because I honestly believe after the last time that I have been graced with absolutely no flying ability whatsoever, I, as any other sane person would be, am not willing to take any chances.
Josh grins at my seating choice before smirking to himself and sitting down beside me. See? Knew it. My logical thinking just saved me a several second free-fall followed by a painful death.
Man, I have good friends.
"So what are we doing up here, again?" Julia asks, while fanning herself. "Or are we just here to hang out."
"Hang," agrees Josh and I grin to myself as he opens his mouth to continue. "But I was thinking, we could help Tim test his..."
"Does this 'thinking' of yours involve, by random chance, pushing me off the building?" I causally glance at him and Julia lets out a small giggle, causing me to grin.
"Dude!" Josh groans. "Why do you always jump to the conclusion that I'm gonna push you off a building?"
"Because," Julia grins, "you're too smart to push yourself off. However, you did manage the rather impressive feat of sticking your fingers inside a light bulb socket, so, we could just wait a few hours and you might manage to push yourself off anyway."
"Hey!" I complain, my face stamped over with unamusement. "Is that why we came up here? In hope that I might decide it would be fun to walk off the edge of the building?"
"Yep." Josh grins at me and I lunge at him, picking him up and throwing him over my shoulder. It was quite easily done, I must add. I could get used to this.
"Okay, okay. I was kidding." He kicks and I sigh, before putting him down. Josh looks me over. "Where did this sudden burst of strength come from?" he asks.
"Dunno." I shrug, before sitting back down. "But would you like another arm wrestle?"
He snorts and Julia laughs, causing me to beam at her. "No." I laugh along with his sister as he scowls.
We laugh for a bit more, before sighing and looking back at the sky.
"It's really hot," says Julia, stating the obvious. "We should go swimming."
"Bridge jumping." Josh suggests, wiggling his eyebrows at me. I give him a death stare and he rolls his eyes at me, "But honestly, dude. It's nice up here and stuff, but it's starting to get boring."
"Then what do you suggest we do?" I roll my eyes back at him.
"You know what we should do, and probably need to do?" Julia asks. We nod, waiting for her to continue, "practice Tim's powers."
"Er..." I mumble, "maybe..."
"We should, Tim. It's a good idea."
"Yeah..." I mutter, "but shouldn't we do it somewhere else, not on top of a..."
"This is a good place to practice." Julia looks around before nodding. "There's nobody up here to see anything, apart from us, of course."
"Yeah," I continue to mumble. As you can probably tell, I'm not too keen on the idea. I'm not quite sure why, it just doesn't... feel right. Maybe it's nothing. Maybe I'm just being paranoid. But I've just got this feeling that something just isn't right up here. "Isn't it too dangerous up here..."
Josh shrugs. "Now I just think your making up excuses. There isn't anything dangerous up here-"
"-apart from the fact that over the edge is a 15 story drop." I but in.
Josh sighs. "Are you really that afraid of heights?"
"Would you be afraid of falling 15 stories to your death?" I counter and we lock eyes in a battle of deathly stares.
Julia puts her hands in between us, trying to break it up. "Okay, okay. Cut it out." She firmly looks at me. "None of us - and I mean this when I say none of us," She shoots Josh a glance. "Will be falling off the edge of this building. Have I made myself clear?" I nod and Josh rolls his eyes. "Good."
Julia then folds up her chair and walks a few metres away, before turning back to face me, holding the folded up chair out in front of her like a shield. I give her a quizzical look. "What are you doing..."
"Hit me." I give her an even more perplexed look.
"Hit you with what? And why would I want to hit you, anyway?"
She sighs. "With your electric blast thingy. That electricity bolt thing you do."
"I can't do that!" I argue. "For starters, I'm not even sure how I managed to do that. And if I could figure out how to do it, I'd probably electrocute you or something."
"What, no, you can't electrocute me. Just aim for the chair. It's plastic. Plastic doesn't conduct electricity."
"Yeah," I sigh, knowing I'm fighting a losing battle, "but what if I miss..."
"Then you're an idiot." She rolls her eyes. "Because this is a pretty big target."
I pale. "I'm not too sure if this an entirely good idea..."
"Sis, Tim has a point." Josh buts in. "That doesn't sound very safe." She shrugs. "Just saying."
"Tim, you're not going to get any better at using your powers unless you practice them," she argues, gripping the chair tighter. I open my mouth to counter but she interrupts again. "And don't try and tell me that you don't need to get better at using them. Because if you ever want to follow that dream you have of saving people, you..."
"Okay, okay." I stand up, giving up on arguing with her. "But if you get hurt or something... it's not my fault, it was your idea."
She rolls her eyes. "I'm not gonna get hurt. Now do it."
I nod and raise my palms for a few moments, before lowering them again. She sighs at me and I shrug apologetically. "I'm not even sure how I blasted something the first time, to be entirely honest."
"This is why we're practicing. Just try, okay."
I raise my hands again towards the plastic chair in her hands and stare defiantly at my fingertips. I suppose if I try that visualisation thing again... I imagine a river fill electricity flowing into my hands, and when no noticeable change occurs, I try and force more and more power into my palms. My hands start shaking uncontrollably, and if I look closely, I think I can see sparks of electrical discharge flying out from my fingertips. This is crazy.
"Man," says Josh, "it looks like your hands are having a seizure-"
"-Josh, shut up." Julia interrupts him. "Tim is trying to concentrate."
"Trying," I mutter, through gritted teeth.
"You've got a lot of power in your hands now, right?" Julia asks and I nod. "Okay, try and release it somehow."
I unclench my jaw and take in a deep breath, trying to relax. Okay. Release, release. Right. However that works... I concentrate on my hands again and try and imagine pushing the electrical energy out of them. I did want all the energy into my hands, but now I only want it in my fingertips. The pressure I feel in my hands right now is incredible and I dare not wonder what would happen if I let go and relaxed... What, hold on, maybe that's what I want. I grit my teeth together again and concentrate on staring at the folded up plastic chair in her hands.
"One," I mutter, "Two," Julia grips the chair tighter and Josh lets out a slightly impropriate laugh. "Three." With one last burst of mental effort, I shove all the energy out from my hands, before letting go and simultaneously relaxing all of my hand muscles. For a second, nothing happens and then I feel something ignite in my hands, like a catalyst. What I imagine to be some astronomical number of volts of electricity flies from my fingers, a brilliant white burst of light and energy, spiralling around itself and coiling towards the plastic chair... Oh, man, that thing looks dangerous. I hope Julia is right about it not being able to hurt her...
It connects with the plastic, sparking and exploding like a firework. The sheer force of the energy pushes her back, towards the edge and... and... pushes her off the building.
"Shit!" Josh and I simultaneously cry out, as I lower my hands and sprint towards the edge. I leap the last few metres and dive over the edge, feeling the rush of hot wind on my face.
And in case you were wondering, no, it is not a good feeling.
Julia is at least five metres below me and that gap is steadily increasing. I'm falling fast, but not fast enough. Thinking about it, this is a pretty dumb idea. A girl falls off a building - okay, I correct, I accidently kind of indirectly pushed a girl off a building - and it's my best friend's sister - but jumping off after her probably wasn't the best idea. Arggh. Now we're both gonna die. If it wasn't for the fact that I am tumbling through the air in a crazy free-fall, I would definitely be slapping myself in the forehead right now.
Unless I can figure out how to fall faster (impossible), I probably won't catch Julia before she hits the ground. And then, even if I do manage this, there's still the fact that we're both gonna hit the ground and die anyway. I'm definitely doomed.
But I'm not going down without trying. No pun intended.
I straighten myself out and force myself to fall like a pin, head first. It's like diving, but from much higher and without the safety of water to land in. But luckily, I see Julia get marginally closer, and I think I'm falling faster now. It must have something to do with being straight or something. She isn't screaming as she free-falls and how she is managing this, I have no idea. I'm having a hard time not screaming myself.
The ground rushes closer, and the gap between me and her slowly diminishes. But not fast enough. 'Faster,' I will myself, and surprisingly it works. I manage to grab Julia with a few stories of falling to go and she gasps in surprise as I hold her close to me. Now that's sorted, all I have to do is figure out how to get out of this alive.
Nope. Not a chance. The ground is rushing towards us way too fast for that. I close my eyes. The best I can hope for is an instant and painless...
"Tim," Julia breathes the words into my ear, "you can open your eyes and stop praying or whatever it was you were doing. We're not falling anymore."
I open my eyes in surprise. "What? Really?" I look at the ground, and as I expect, it's still rushing towards us.
"Damn it!" She cries. "Tim!" Only about a floor to go now. "Whatever you were doing, to stop us falling, do it again, before we hit the ground!" I close my eyes. It seems improbable that we had even stopped falling in the first place, whatever Julia claims. But I must try anyway. Stop falling, stop falling, stop falling...
"Tim! It's working. Again, I mean." I hesitantly open one eye and carefully look at the ground. We're about a metre away from the pavement and thank god, we're don't appear to be getting closer. I slowly open the other eye and look at Julia and then at the ground again.
"Yes!" I pump the air with my free hand, the one that isn't holding her. "I did it! We're alive. And we're floating..." I feel something in the air shift and we fall the last metre to the pavement and harshly land, backs first. I hurts, but not as badly as it could have. "We were floating." I correct. "But the main thing is, that we are alive."
Julia rolls her eyes at me. "Yes, we are. Now can you please let go, the way you are holding me is kind of... er... uncomfortable..." I nervously blush and look at my hands in shock before prying them from around her.
"Oh... er... sorry about that." I blush again and she laughs it off.
"Don't worry about it, I mean, you did save my life." I shrug. "Oh and yours as well." We stare at each other's eyes for a moment before hearing a coughing sound and looking up. I'm suddenly brought to the fact that there is a lot of confused, dazed and slightly amused people on the sidewalk around us, curiously staring at us. One, a blonde lady in a long pink jacket, starts to pull out her phone.
"Right," I say to Julia, helping her up off the pavement. "How about we go inside before they start taking pictures?"
ns 15.158.61.6da2
