Author's note: Dedicated to antililac for being incredibly sweet and making me a lovely cover. Also, thank you to Newt_ellaLove for the banner and cover. All three can be found on the right!
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Chapter 11: I Am a Gryffindor
There was silence.
A long, painfully awkward silence.
"You're gay," Chase said. I couldn't tell if it was a statement or a question, it sounded like a bit of both.
"You're gay!" Georgia exclaimed, in a far happier tone than the one Chase had used. Knowing her, she was already planning on playing matchmaker for Austin.
"You're gay," Alice said, raising an eyebrow. She sounded neither happy nor sad, just surprised.
"I'm gay," Austin nodded, scratching the back of his head awkwardly.
"You're gay," Chase said, again. He sounded dazed, like he had just woken up from a rather strange dream and he wasn't quite sure what to make of it.
Austin nodded, again.
"Wait," Chase said, his gaze turned from Austin to me. "Did you know?"
"Yeah..." I said, biting my lip and looking down at the sandy ground.
"I told Ella I was gay and asked her to pretend to be my girlfriend for awhile," Austin explained. "Until I was ready to tell everyone."
"Did anybody else know?" Chase asked, staring at his brother with an expression that was a mix of both confused and hurt.
"I did."
All eyes turned to Luke.
"You knew?" Austin and I said at the same time.
Luke nodded.
"How?" I asked, completely shocked by this news. Austin had told me that nobody else knew, how could Luke have possibly found out?
"I mean, I always sort of suspected it," Luke began, with a shrug. "I got a little unsure when he started 'dating' you, but I guess it all makes sense now."
"But you never said anything?" Austin said, quietly.
"I didn't want to make things any harder for you. I could tell you were still struggling to tell your family and I didn't..." Luke trailed off, his voice filled with emotion I didn't even know he had. "I wanted to let you know that I was there for you, that I loved you no matter what, but I just didn't quite know how."
I stared at him, my mouth almost falling open in surprise.
Was this really Luke? Was this really the same egotistical, arrogant and infuriating boy that I spent every Home Ec. arguing lesson with? Surely it couldn't be. Surely that Luke, the Luke I had quickly grown to dislike, did not have this much emotion in him.
"I can't believe this," Chase interrupted, ruining the rather emotional scene between the two friends. "You knew," he gestured to me and then to Luke, "and you knew. But I didn't?"
"I guess not," Austin said, smiling weakly at his twin.
"Oh my God!" Chase wailed, causing us to all jump back in surprise.
"Are you okay?" Georgia asked, looking at him in alarm.
"No," Chase cried. "I'm the worst brother in the world!"
Austin immediately threw me a panicked look, to which I replied with a confused shrug. I had never had to deal with a hysterical twin brother before. Even my own weird brother, Sam, had never acted like this. However, to be fair, I had never tried to hide my sexuality from him by pretending to date someone, so who could really blame Chase for being so hysterical.
"I'm sorry," Chase cried. "I should've been a better brother to you."
"No!" Austin shook his head. "I should've told you, it was stupid of me to hide it from you."
"I'm sorry," Chase and Austin both said, at the same time.
The two brothers stared at each other, sheepish smiles on their faces.
"You know," Chase began, his normal jokey tone returning. "There's a really hot guy in my Spanish class I could totally set you up with."
Austin looked like he was about to choke on the air he was breathing as he stared at his brother in alarm.
"Please," Austin began, pleadingly. "Please, please, do not try to set me up with anybody."
Chase's face immediately fell and the rest of us burst out laughing, the awkward tension immediately vanishing.
"What about that boy in our Math class? The one with the glasses! He's kind of cute, isn't he?"
Austin let out a horrified groan.
"He's a little quiet but he's got amazing eyes," Chase continued, ignoring his brother.
After this, the next hour passed quickly and easily, all of us attempting to try and set up Austin while he rejected every possibly option.
Before we knew it the sun had disappeared into the horizon and it was dark, the only light came from our campfire and the few street lights dotted around the beach.
Alice and Georgia were preparing to head back home, as were Chase and Austin.
"Ella, it's cool if Luke gives you a ride, right?" Georgia asked.
I glanced at Luke, who was silently staring into the campfire. The flames were dancing around wildly, the orange glow lighting up his face and making his jaw and cheekbones look even more prominent.
Looking back over at Georgia, I was tempted to say no but I decided against it. Georgia and Alice lived on the opposite side of town to me and it only made sense for Luke to give me a ride, despite however much I didn't want to be alone with him.
"Yeah, it's fine," I mumbled, looking back at Luke to check if it was okay.
He simply shrugged, still not looking away from the campfire.
Alice and Georgia gave me a quick hug, before waving goodbye and walking back in the direction they'd park Alice's car.
Chase came over and hugged me too. Unsurprisingly, his hug was a lot tighter and lot longer than Alice or Georgia's had been. Even after I pushed him away he remained unfazed and instead winked at me, before saying goodbye.
Then, Austin came over and pulled me into another hug. Unlike Chase's, his was short and nowhere near as tight, but equally as warm. Just before he pulled away, he leaned down so that his mouth was level with my ear. "Thank you," he said, quietly.
I smiled, waving goodbye and watching him go, before turning back to Luke.
"You ready?" Luke asked, not even waiting for my reply before he started walking.
I rushed after him, squinting through my glasses at the ground, as I made sure there were no broken beer bottles I could possibly trip and/or die from.
The drive home, as usual, was silent and awkward. Luke's driving was still reckless and his music was still too loud.
When we finally pulled up outside my house, my head was pounding from the excessively loud indie rock CD he'd been playing in the car.
"Hey, listen," I began, but either Luke couldn't hear me or he chose to ignore me. "Luke," I said, louder this time, struggling to be heard over the music. "LUKE!" I yelled, finally getting his attention.
"What?" He turned the music off and frowned at me.
"I know you probably don't care what I think about you," I began, quietly. "But I just wanted to tell you that I think you were a really good friend to Austin today. He's lucky that he's got someone like you in his life."
Luke stared at me, my words apparently catching him off guard.
"You are complimenting me?" He asked, in disbelief.
"Yeah, I guess..."
"Ella Smith, the girl who reminds me on almost a daily basis of how much she dislikes me, is complimenting me?"
I glared at him. Here I was trying to be a nice person and he was completely ignoring it and making fun of me.
"Am I dreaming?" He asked, but his sarcastic tone told me he was not at all serious.
"Shut up," I snapped. "I take it back. You're still an annoying, narcissistic idiot, okay?"
Luke grinned at me, looking completely unoffended by my insult. "Ah, there's the Ella I know and hate."
"If you're done with annoying me I think I'll go back home now," I grumbled, reaching out to open his car door.
"Wait," Luke said, making me turn back around to look into his bluey green eyes. God, I would kill to have eyes like that. Why did such great looks get wasted on such an ugly person?
"What?" I snapped.
"What are you doing tomorrow?"
I stared at him.
"W-what?" I stuttered.
"What are you doing tomorrow?" Luke asked again, slowly and clearly.
He wasn't trying to ask me out on a date, was he? No. That couldn't be it. He must want to me look after Cactus or something. That was the only reasonable explanation for why he would be moderately interested in my life.
"Nothing," I mumbled, uncertainly. "Why?"
"Because I have something planned."
"What?"
"Are you deaf?" Luke sighed in annoyance. "I said, I have something planned."
"I heard what you said," I said, scowling at him. "I meant, what do you have planned?"
"It's a secret," Luke said, smirking at me.
"What is it?" I persisted.
"I told you, it's a secret."
"I hate secrets."
"Good."
We stared at each other for a few seconds. By that, I mean I was glaring at him and he was smirking back at me.
"Am I going to like this surprise?" I questioned.
"Probably not," Luke grinned.
I let out an exasperated sigh and opened the car door, stepping outside.
"I'll pick you up at nine!" Luke called after me.
I slammed the door shut.
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"Can I look now?" I asked, attempting to remove Luke's hand, which was covering my eyes.
"No," Luke said, continuing to guide me towards wherever it was we were going.
His hard chest was pressed against my back and I was doing my best to ignore it. Instead, I was trying to focus on not falling over.
"When can I look?"
Suddenly, Luke stopped and slowly took away his hand.
"Now."
I opened my eyes and looked around, my eyebrows furrowing together in confusion.
In front of me there was field. A huge, and I really mean huge, green field.
Alright, Ella, don't panic. Everything seems perfectly normal. It's just a field.
However, just as this thought drifted into my head, I spotted something on my right. I turned my head to find three small planes parked alongside each other. Then, I turned my head even further to find that we were in fact standing in front of a small building.
A small building with a sign that read 'Southport Skydiving School.'
I froze.
No.
This was not happening.
This had to be some kind of joke.
"Luke," I squeaked, turning back around to look at him.
"Are you excited?"
"Excited?" I repeated. "EXCITED?"
"It's going to be great!"
"No!" I cried hysterically. "It's not going to be great, because I'm not going to do it."
"Oh that's funny, you think you have a choice," Luke chuckled and rolled his eyes.
"Well you do need my signature to let me do this, don't you?" I said, smiling smugly at him. I only knew this because I had watched a YouTube video on skydiving once and I briefly remembered them having to sign a lot of things.
"Well," Luke began, looking completely unfazed by my point. "My dad owns this place, I'm sure a couple of missing signatures can be ignored if the owners son shows up."
"You.. You..." I spluttered, unable to think of a word that represented just how evil he was.
"Charming, rich and ridiculously handsome sex god?" Luke finished for me.
"Not quite," I said, flatly. "Listen, I can't do this. I can't jump out of a plane. I am way too young to die."
"Are you scared of heights?"
"Not really," I answered, truthfully. I was never fond of them, but it wasn't exactly my biggest fear.
"Are all your limbs still working?"
"Obviously," I rolled my eyes, tempted to punch him in the face to prove my point.
"Then you can do this," Luke said, firmly. "And no, you will not die."
"How would you know?"
"There are about 3 million jumps per year, and the fatality count is only 21. That means there is a 0.0007% chance of dying from a skydive, compared to a 0.0167% chance of dying in a car accident. I can assure you, you will not be in that 0.0007%."
I stared at him, rather taken aback. "Did you- did you memorize all that?"
"I'm a skydiving instructor. It's kind of part of my job to help people not freak out."
"You work here?" I exclaimed, even more taken aback. For some reason, the concept of Luke working was too strange for me to get my head around.
"Sometimes," Luke explained. "My dad makes me help out sometimes."
"Your dad really owns this place?" I asked, remembering what he had said earlier.
"Among other things, yes."
I was momentarily distracted by this statement, as I tried to estimate exactly how rich Luke was.
"Anyway," Luke said, interrupting my thoughts. "You're not going to die. You will jump out of that plane and you will love it, okay?"
The firmness of his words almost made me believe him. Almost.
"Look," Luke said, with a sigh. "You've assigned me the task of teaching you how to live, so that is exactly what I'm doing."
"But when you said you'd teach me how to live you never specified that I'd be jumping out of a plane!" I hissed.
"Ella," Luke said, looking straight into my eyes. "If you can do this, you can do anything."
I opened my mouth to object to this, but before I could, Luke had grabbed me by the hand and was leading me towards the building.
"Mr. Turner!" I looked up to find a tall, muscular man standing behind a desk, grinning at Luke.
"Hey, Danny," Luke greeted, going over to Danny and doing that weird man hug thing.
"Who's this?" Danny said, noticing me standing awkwardly in the corner. I was debating whether or not to make a run for it, but now that this Danny guy had noticed me that was no longer an option.
"This is Ella," Luke introduced.
"Your girlfriend?"
I scoffed.
"God no, she's just here to skydive."
"Alright, all the equipments out back. I'll tell Kyle to get one of the planes ready," Danny took a few pieces of paper and a pen out from behind the desk. "Could you sign these, ma'am."
Luke looked at me and narrowed his eyes.
I didn't think it was possibly to threaten someone with only your eyes, but Luke had managed to do just that.
With shaking hands, I took the pen from Danny and scribbled my signature in the boxes I was supposed to.
Once I'd done this, Luke pulled me into another room. This time, he handed me a pile of things, among which I could see a jumpsuit, gloves and goggles.
"Put these on," he instructed.
After I put on everything he'd given me, Luke put on a video for me to watch. The video gave me a basic explanation of what tandem skydiving was and what I'd have to do. Despite my initial fear, the video managed to calm me down a little. The girl in the video looked like she was having a lot of fun and she didn't die or get seriously injured by the end, which was a pretty good sign.
Once the video was over Luke talked me through exactly what I'd have to do once we jumped. The instructions were surprisingly simple and I nodded along, my fear subsiding.
"Do you have any questions?" Luke asked, once he'd explained everything to me.
"Uh, just one. What instructor will I be jumping with?"
Luke laughed, "Me."
"What?" I cried. "Aren't there any other instructors I could jump with?"
"Well, would you rather be strapped to me or a complete stranger?"
I was almost tempted to answer with the latter, but he and I both knew I would be lying. I was too socially awkward to even make conversation with a stranger. There was no way I could survive being strapped to one as I fell 10,000 feet out of a plane.
"Don't worry," Luke said, with a smirk. "I'll keep my hands to myself."
"Oh, you better."
Luke grabbed my arm and led me outside, where the plane Danny had referred to earlier was waiting for us.
Luke put a harness on me and went over the procedure for pulling the ripcord (check altitude; at 6000 feet count to three, signal the instructor with hands, look for ripcord, pull left hand inward, reach with right hand, pull ripcord), and then he led me onto the plane.
It was then that it became real, realer than it had felt in the past hour anyway, that I was genuinely going to jump out of a plane. That I was going to jump from 10,000 feet in the air and if something did go wrong I would be very much dead. I took a deep breath and let Luke help me onto the plane, where we were greeted by Kyle, the pilot.
"You two ready?" Kyle yelled.
I didn't respond, but I vaguely saw Luke nodding and giving Kyle a thumbs up.
If I had been paying attention I probably would've noticed the plane slowly start to move further away from the ground, but I was too busy trying to control my breathing.
Before I knew it, I heard Luke yelling at me to turn around so he could connect our harnesses. I remembered from the video that this meant the plane had reached 9,000 feet. I turned around so I was facing the pilot and had my back facing Luke. Despite the size of the plane, I managed to do this semi successfully. I was sitting as far away from Luke as I could, but he didn't seem to like this as the next thing I knew he had wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me into his chest so that I was sitting between his legs. If I had been facing him, he would've seen the color rush to my cheeks as they turned red. I felt Luke connect my harness to his at four points and attach my ripcord.
In front of me, I saw Kyle turn around and give Luke a thumbs up. I had no idea what this meant, but two seconds later I found out when Luke leaned over and opened up the door.
I could hear and feel the wind, even inside the plane. I immediately tried to move away, leaning closer to Luke without even realizing it.
"Come on," Luke yelled, struggling to be heard over the noise from outside.
A few seconds later, with Luke's help, I found myself standing on a flat plate above the wheel and holding onto a diagonal wing strut. I was now very much aware of the cold wind and the noise it was causing, but my main focus was on Luke. The extremely attractive male who was pressed against me and would soon be jumping out of a plane with me.
My mind randomly wandered to the other girls in town. The girls who would probably kill to be pressed up against Luke like this, 10,000 feet in the air or not. Funny how I was the one who ended up in this situation. The one girl in town who did not want to be pressed against Luke at all.
I was brought out of my thoughts by someone shouting into my ear.
"Ella," Luke yelled. "You okay?"
"I can do this," I said, more to myself than to him. "I am a Gryffindor."
Luke chuckled in my ear. "Alright, Harry Potter. Let's do this."
I nodded, too scared to speak.
"You ready?" Luke whispered in my ear.
Before I could attempt to form a coherent sentence, I felt Luke sway back and forth with me a couple of times.
"One."
"Two."
"Three."
He jumped.
The cold air hit my goggles and they misted up. For a few seconds I was blind, then they cleared just as fast and revealed the world far below.
Fields. So many big green fields. Then beyond that there were houses, houses of all different sizes dotted around everywhere. Off in the distance I could even see the beach. The white sand and blue ocean looked far prettier from up here than they did from on the ground.
I felt free. I had never felt freer in my life than I did falling to Earth at a hundred-and-something miles per hour.
"Arch your body," Luke said into my ear and I did as he said.
I kept my eyes on the altimeter as we fell, remembering the instructions Luke had given me. At 6000, I counted to three, signaled, looked, reached and pulled.
Then suddenly, just as quickly as it had started, it stopped. I was no longer falling, instead I was hanging there. Hanging there in the middle of the air, my breath caught in my throat.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Luke said, quietly, breaking the peaceful silence.
"Yeah," I whispered.
Slowly, we fell towards the ground. I took one last look at the view before closing my eyes and allowing Luke to steer us towards the landing zone.
Remembering what Luke had told me earlier, I brought my feet up and pulled my knees to my chest, sliding into the landing.
I opened my eyes again to see Luke staring down at me, concern etched across his perfectly chiseled face.
"How are you feeling?" He asked.
"Good," I breathed.
"Good," Luke said, smiling down at me, blue eyes still twinkling with excitement.
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Author's note: I have not skydived before. I repeat, I have never ever skydived before. The entire second half of this chapter was written purely based on internet research. If any of it is wrong/doesn't make sense then please let me know via the comments.
1. What did you think of everybody's reactions to Austin being gay?
2. Was Luke taking Ella skydiving a good idea?
3. Would YOU ever go skydiving? (After spending hours researching it and watching YouTube videos of it I REALLY want to do it)
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P.S. Thank you so much for getting me to 10K fans, I love you all very much :-)