Dare Me to Live

Chapter 15 (Part one)

My fingers tapped restlessly against my thigh. Nerves were already getting the best of me and we were only halfway there.

"Dash, relax will you? Everything will be fine," Danny said from the driver's seat.

"This is crazy. I don't know why I agreed to this. Your insanity is obviously contagious."

"You don't have to do it," he said gently. And I knew he meant it, rather than as a taunt to egg me on.

"I said I would," I snapped, pressing my hands together between my knees to keep them still. Fear made my words harsh.

We were on our way to Needle Rock Ridge, an illegal cliff jumping site out by the Poco River. It was the latest, and last of Danny's challenges. If he completed this successfully, he would be a member of his crazy dare-devil club. And I was jumping with him.

We both had wetsuits on under our clothes. The water would be ice-cold this time of year; I shivered just thinking about it.

"I'm just saying it wasn't part of the deal," said Danny, shrugging.

"Well, I want to see what all the fuss is about."

We were driving along a rock face, its shadow lengthening as the sun edged behind it. To our right lay a forest down a steep incline, trees waving in the breeze.

Graduation was still seven weeks away, but I could feel the invisible clock ticking faster and faster as it counted down the time we had left. School had been buzzing about it all day as seniors began signing the flags hung in the lobby of the university they would be attending in the fall. Excited as I was for college, I couldn't help but think of how much it would change. Even as I silently cursed myself for tagging along on yet another stupid "adventure," I realized how much I would miss it, all of it.

It was why I had agreed to jump with Danny. It was his last challenge of the year--he had promised to lay low until after graduation so that he could actually live to get his diploma--and I wanted to be there with him for the whole thing, one last time.  

"What happens in June?" I asked aloud.

"We graduate," said Danny with a chuckle.

"I mean after. When we all go off to college. What happens to us?"

"Dash, we'll always be a team," he said, glancing over at me warmly. The setting sun caught his eyes, setting them alight like blue fire. The beginnings of a five o'clock shadow darkened his jaw line.

"But I won't be around. We'll be at different schools. Who's going to talk you down and call you a moron?"

Danny laughed. "Technology is a beautiful thing. I'll facetime you in before every challenge."

"It's not the same," I said bitterly, looking out the window. The thought of Danny going off to do Danny-things without me made me sad. And the thought of him replacing me was more than I could swallow.

"Hey," he said, as though he could read my mind. "No one could ever replace you. We're partners, through thick and thin and everything in between."

But even as he tried to comfort me, the word "partner" rubbed me the wrong way.

"Is that all I am?" I asked quietly.

Danny shot me a glance. "Of course not. You've always been more than that." An agitated hand went to his hair, rubbed the back of his head uncomfortably.

I could tell the night at the zoo was on his mind, as well as the two times after that. The first had been after he had "borrowed" a horse from the farm on the outskirts of town only to be bucked off over the paddock fence and nearly kicked in the head. When I had rushed over to see if he was okay, he had hugged me fiercely and crushed his lips to mine. It had lasted a heartbeat, a heartbeat that tasted of blood from his split lip and mint from his swallowed gum, only to end with him stepping back quickly, looking confused and guilty.