Swooped | ✓

Chapter 31: The Egg Before the Chicken

TW: Suicidal themes.

Two Years Ago

"Woah, careful, dude!" Geoff said, leaping from the concrete platform beside me, feet landing softly beside my head. I groaned as I rolled onto my back, my arms aching a little from where I landed, palms scraped red. I winced as I grabbed Geoff's outstretched hands, my friend helping pull me up from the ground.

"Thanks," I said, grimacing when I brushed off my black cargo pants, a fine film of dust puffing off them. The two of us were currently in a large industrial area full of stone buildings and concrete, the horizon a little dusty in the waning summer heat. I could feel my sweat begin to make my loose T-shirt cling to me, and I aired it out, fluttering the material around my trim waist.

"You okay, Culver?" Geoff asked, giving me an apprehensive look as he looked at the dust print still smudged against my black pants, and I smiled widely. My hair was beginning to get loose from its tie at the base of my skull, and I untied it, letting the brown waves fall, snapping the hair tie around my wrist.

"Yeah, I'm totally fine. Why do ya ask?" I asked, easy smile on my face as I flicked grabbed my phone from Geoff's outstretched arm, my friend shrugging as he leaned against a grey wall dotted with graffiti, eyes shaded by the wall behind him. 

"You, uh, did just break up with your girlfriend," Geoff said, offering me a sorry look. I just laughed, rolling my eyes.

"We were together for what, two months?" I said, shaking my head. "Not really, um, long enough to grow any lasting attachment."

Clingy.

"True. As long as you're fine," Geoff said, and I nodded.

"Yep, more than fine, man," I reassured him, unlocking my phone. "Hm, not enough height, I think. At least, just for that last jump."

"This run is a little risky, don't you think, Culver? If you slip, you could really hurt yourself," Geoff said, and I chuckled, eyes trained on my phone as I skipped through the video, wincing a little at the part where Geoff captured my tumble, my form terribly ungraceful. The video over, I pocketed my phone, giving my friend a wide grin. 

"That's what makes it so fun, though," I said, Geoff laughing with a shake of his head. "And you sound like Milo. He, ah, gave me The Talk."

"Ooh, The Talk," Geoff mimicked, waving his fingers in the air like the phrase had supernatural connotations. "The sex talk, or the 'don't-do-stupid-shit-like-you-always-seem-to-do talk?"

"The day Milo talks to me about the birds and the bees is the day I'll purposefully fling myself off this building okay," I said, rolling my eyes with a shiver. "But yes to door number two, which is why he isn't here right now, because he'd just be all up my case about this." My recollection of Milo's stern, worried face made my belly warm a little, a small smile crossing my face at the mental image. 

As much as his concern made me warm and fuzzy inside, I wasn't particularly keen on getting lectured while having fun, so I hadn't clued Milo in on my afternoon parkour session with Geoff. Geoff had always been the more enthusiastic person out of our little trio, loving the rush of the stunts we pulled off for instagram and just for kicks, though his penchant for martial arts and acrobatics in general made him seem almost superhuman. He rarely made a fumble or stuck a bad landing, but despite that he never did anything too risky, since his mum would castrate him if he came home with broken bones.

No broken bones, no broken boners was his motto.

I, on the other hand, lived for the rush. There was something exhilarating about leaping from buildings, not one hundred percent sure that I'd land quite right but throwing myself into it any way. The sense of achievement and pride when I would stick a dangerous landing was unparalleled, and gave me a high that even the weed struggled to do.