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Gathering all the mucus she could muster, Chris spit out the wad with a snort.
The loogie flew just above a tree branch, and right beside her she could hear Richie scoff.
"Can it, Tozier." she grumbled, wiping her mouth.
His smugness only grew as they continued down the line. Until, finally, Eddie's turn came - only for his to land right at his feet.
"Oh my god that was terrible - I win!"
"You won?"
"Yeah."
"Did you see my loogie?"
"Mine went the farthest! It's by distance."
"Mass. It's always been mass."
"What the f - what is mass?"
"Who cares how far it goes? What matters is how cool it looks, like it's green or it's white or it's juicy and fat."
"Ew." Chris laughed.
"Alright, who's fuh-ff-first?"
Everyone quieted, staring down the face of the cliff. It was a high drop, higher than the highest point of the community pool's springboard. Seeing no one daring to move so much as breathe, Chris took a step back, springing herself on her heel.
"I' -"
"- ll go."
Beverly tossed her bike to the ground, shedding her dress and running toward them with an amused grin. Chris stared, unsure of where to look before training her eyes at the ground. Something fluttered in her rib cage, though it felt less like a butterfly and more like a startled swarm of bees. She hated how shy she would become whenever she got like this around the boys. Though, shy wasn't exactly the right word she was looking for.
Guilt?
"Sissies." she said as she leaped off the cliff, landing into the lake below with a splash.
"What the fuck!" Richie shouted. "Holy shit, we just got showed up by a girl."
Chris grinned, suddenly feeling something wild bloom in her nerves. "And it's about to happen again."
Taking a few steps back, she jumped from the cliff.
It only lasted a moment, but in those few seconds she felt like she was floating. Weightless and free. No stuffy parents, no mindless bullies - just her and her friends with nothing to hold them down. Expecting the feeling to go away once she connected with the water, deep and and green and still containing a lingering chill from that year's spring, she was pleasantly surprised to find that it didn't. Instead, Beverly was right there to greet her with that same bright smile she always seemed to wear. But there was something different about her that she couldn't quite place.
