Years of the Bus

17- A Rush

“Who in their right mind is okay with doing something so incredibly insane?” Grace wailed hysterically as we stood on top of the cliff. There was a wooden gate thing on the side of the cliff but there was a wooden plank like thing that hung over the edge where the crazies went to jump head first above the crashing waves below.

“Come on, you big wimp, it’ll be fun,” Cory assured his girlfriend.

“Who’s first?” One of the instructors asked once they were ready to send somebody falling down the cliff.

I shake my head and grab Kenton’s hand in mine, squeezing tightly. I didn’t think I’d be this scared of this bungee jumping thing, but now that we were there at the top of the cliff, I was shaking a bit in my bikini. Well, I had shorts on too and a sheer white bikini cover blouse thing and some flip flops that I’d take off when I leaped to my death.

“Are you chickening out already?” Kenton whispered in my ear teasingly.

“No,” I huffed. “I just don’t want to go first.”

“I’ll go,” Turner decided, trying to be more manly or whatever than everybody else, because he was a guy and that was just what they did. The instructor led him up the plank where the other instructor was waiting to hook him up to the harness thing and then we watched as the instructor- he introduced himself as Tony earlier- wrapped Turner’s ankle in the bungee cord.

“Don’t die, Turner,” Erin called to our friend who was grinning, apparently not scared at all about what he was about to do.

“Don’t be paranoid, Erin,” He fired back at her. Tony the instructor said something to him and then he nodded, giving us all a thumbs up before Tony started counting down from three and then Turner disappeared over the edge of the cliff, jumping head first. The only thing he left behind was a trail of his yelling. It wasn’t a yell of fear though, he was yelling out of excitement. A big long “WOOO”.

“He’s such an idiot,” Rosa laughed, rolling her eyes at Turner as we all hurried over to the railing of the cliff to see Turner fall towards the crashing waves and then bounce back up and then down again on the huge rubber band he was hanging from.

“Yeah, I’m definitely not doing this,” Grace said again, leaning more into her boyfriend’s side as if that would protect her from the water that we were looking over.

“You’ll be fine, babe,” Cory reassured her as Turner was brought back up to the plank by his ankle and then the second instructor, Jane, called for the next volunteer, who was Ross.

After Ross, it was Baker and then Gaige and one by one, I watched my friends dive head first down the cliff and then bounce a few times before being pulled back up. They returned with messy hair and glazed eyes with a grin on their faces. After a while of watching them plummet, I was ready to take the leap.

It was down to Kenton, Sydney, Grace, and me. Kenton really wanted to go but he said that he wanted to wait until after I went. I wasn’t sure why he did that, but I figured it was just him being weird.

“Okay, I’ll go next,” I agreed when the instructor asked for another volunteer.

“What kind of flowers would you like at your funeral?” Kenton whispered in my ear just before kissing my cheek.

“That’s really not funny,” I breathe shakily, shoving his shoulder lightly, causing him to just laugh.

It looked like a lot of fun to jump off of this cliff, but as I stepped onto the plank, I was dangling over the cliff and it was scary again. Tony had me step into the harness and then he buckled it up and started feeding me instructions. My brain was shaking around in my skull because I was so nervous, but I tried to consume as much information that I could get. Don’t forget to breathe. Don’t be too scared. It really wouldn’t be that scary.