The Moment of Letting Go

by J. A. Redmerski

  “You’re an angel, Sienna Murphy.”

  She smiles, and I lean in and kiss away the tears lingering on her cheeks. And then I make love to her before letting her fall sleep in my arms.

  “I drank the sky and brought an angel down with me,” I whisper into the darkness. “Not bad, huh, little brother?”

  I shut my eyes and sleep the whole night through.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Sienna

  I haven’t breathed since we got here, in this giant field surrounded by rolling mountains and ocean, with nothing but blue sky above us. I’ve been holding my breath since we all got out of Luke’s car. And I’ve sat on the grass, out of the way, watching everybody get their packs, or parachutes, or whatever, ready. A small plane sits on a black landing strip not far away, waiting for them all to get on.

  “Do you usually jump with them?” I ask Alicia, who is sitting on the grass next to me with a broken leg, stiff in a cast from her thigh to her ankle.

  “Yeah,” she says with a frown, “and it sucks that I can’t do much of anything for the next six weeks.” She knocks on the top of the cast with her knuckles. “Kind of ironic—I jump out of planes and off cliffs, but I break my leg falling down three steps.” She laughs sardonically and holds up three fingers to me. “Three—would’ve been less embarrassing if it were a whole staircase, or somethin’.”

  I laugh with her because she has a point.

  Luke raises his hand from afar and waves at me one more time before heading toward the plane. I wave back, my smile fighting against the nauseous feeling in my stomach.

  “You could fly tandem with Luke,” Alicia says.

  “Huh?” I look over, having barely heard anything she said because I was so fixated on watching Luke get into the plane. Finally her words catch up to me. “Oh, no, I couldn’t do it. I have a fear of heights.”

  Alicia nods. “Understandable, but the best way to get over it is to face it head-on.” She makes a weird face while sticking a straw down into the cast to scratch her leg on the inside.

  “If only it were that easy,” I say.

  “I hear yah,” she says, steadily scratching. “But skydiving is really safe. If you ever decide you want to try it out, Luke is the best guy for the job. I actually jumped with him my first time.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah,” she says, pulling the straw out and focusing more on me. “Me and Braedon went out together our first time. I jumped tandem with Luke, and Braedon went with Landon. It was great. After that first jump, it became an addiction.”

  I gaze back out at the plane as it goes into motion across the landing strip, getting ready to take off. I think of Luke, of him being on that plane right now, and that darkness grows inside of me again when I imagine him jumping out of it.

  “Seriously though,” I hear Alicia say, “for people like you, who are afraid of heights, or just anything really, something like skydiving can change your life. I actually feel sorry for people who’ve never done it at least once.”

  “Why’s that?” I ask, looking over at her.

  Her black hair pulled into a ponytail glistens in the sunlight. Her dark brown eyes are full of kindness and are set in a small oval, olive-colored face with not a freckle or blemish or line anywhere to be found.

  A thoughtful look appears. “It’s just something I think everybody should get a chance to do,” she says. “Explaining the experience itself wouldn’t do it justice, though. I think it’s a little different for everybody—kind of like a personalized brush with God, or whatever it is you draw your spirituality from.” She smiles and leans back, holding her petite weight up on her arms, her hands pressed flat against the grass.

  The plane lifts off the ground and buzzes into the sky, becoming smaller and smaller as it flies higher into the blue ether.

  I really do wish that I wasn’t so afraid. I’ve been afraid all my life and there comes a point when all you want to do is be free of it, when you begin to actually see yourself doing things you never thought you’d do. A year ago, I never gave a first, much less a second, thought to something like sitting in the window seat of a plane and deliberately looking out, or riding in a helicopter. But right now, as I sit on this grass under the bright sun, watching that plane become a little black dot in the sky above me, I can see myself doing it. And it’s not just because of Luke that I feel this way; I feel like I want to be able to do it for myself, so that I can beat this fear and finally know what freedom feels like. But I know that if I’d never met Luke, or Seth, or Kendra, or even Alicia, I’d still be doing the same thing I was doing two weeks ago in my comfort zone, and not being inspired by any of it.

  “What about BASE jumping?” I ask Alicia, my mood growing dimmer all of a sudden.

  “That’s a whole ’nother ball game,” she says. “Skydiving, like I said, is really safe. BASE jumping, on the other hand, is … well, there’s a saying: ‘It’s the next best thing to suicide.’ ”

  I swallow tensely and what was left of my smile fades in an instant.

  “What’s the difference?” I ask. “I mean, both are jumping from extreme heights and landing with a parachute.”

  “Well, there’s a huge difference,” Alicia says. “With skydiving, it’s all in the wide open and there’s nothing around for you to hit. Plus you go much higher up—twelve, fourteen thousand feet or more, and have plenty of time to pull your chute. With BASE, you’re jumping from much lower heights—an average of a thousand feet or so. And you’re jumping from cliffs and buildings and bridges and towers—all kinds of stuff you can hit on the way down.”

  I grimace, thinking about it.

  “Why do you do it, then?” I ask.

  Alicia smiles over at me. “Nothing makes you feel more alive than being that close to death.”

  I say nothing.

  After a few moments staring into the sky, Alicia says, “I’m starting to wonder about Luke though.”

  I look over.

  “What about him?”

  She shrugs, her gaze still peering into the encompassing blue.

  “I dunno, but I’m thinkin’ maybe his heart isn’t as into BASE as it used to be.”

  I feel a little guilty for thinking it, but this news, if it’s true, makes me hopeful.

  I sit quietly, looking right at her, and she finally returns the gesture.

  “I think he just feels really guilty,” she goes on. “But what do I know?”

  I smile back at her, but it’s totally forced.

  “Though I have to say,” she adds, “Luke may not be feelin’ it anymore, but ever since you came around, he seems a lot”—she shrugs, contemplating—“I dunno, happier, I guess. Landon’s death really messed him up. But it’s been almost a year, and instead of getting better, he just seemed to be getting worse up until recently.” She smiles in what I perceive as a thankful manner. “Maybe you’re just what he needed.”

  Somehow her comment doesn’t make me feel like I desperately want it to: happy and warm inside. I’m not sure what it is I feel exactly, but it’s strange and dark and I don’t like it and I wish it’d just go away.

  “Are you two gonna see each other after you leave Hawaii?” she asks.

  “I hope so.”

  “Yeah, well, I hope so, too,” she says, shaking her head and gazing back out at the sky. “I hate to see Luke falling back into that dark place once you’re gone.” She beams over at me. “Besides, I like yah; his past girlfriends, not so much.”

  The only thing I hear is: I hate to see Luke falling back into that dark place once you’re gone.

  That strange, dark feeling that doesn’t have a name—just go away!

  Is Luke latching on to me for the right reasons?

  Or have I become something he needs for all the wrong reasons?

  The devastating answers—if they’re the answers I don’t want them to be—are sitting heavily in the bottom of my heart.

  Luke

  The roar of the wind makes it hard to
hear one another and I’ve yelled so much my throat is sore. The plane moves through the air at about twelve thousand feet.

  “I TOLD YOU!” Seth shouts at me over the roaring wind and the plane’s engine. “SHE SEEMS TO BE HANDLING IT JUST FINE!”

  I nod happily while a guy does one last check of my parachute and then my harness.

  Seth steps to the door of the plane, a red helmet much like mine stuck to the top of his shaved head.

  “THREE MONTHS TOPS!” he says. “SHE’LL BE UP HERE JUMPING WITH YOU!”

  “I DOUBT IT!” I shout back at him, adjusting my helmet. “BUT I’M OK WITH THAT!”

  He grins at me, displaying his teeth, and then jumps out of the plane—it looks like the wind just snatched him into the sky.

  Kendra, wearing a hot pink helmet and with a little black skull-and-bones sticker stuck to the left eye of her goggles, steps to the door next. Her blond hair, braided behind her, whips about her back as the wind hits it.

  “SEE YAH AT THE DROP ZONE, SKYWALKER!” she says to me and jumps out.

  I laugh out loud and shake my head.

  I hate it when she calls me that, but I guess I deserve it since I was the one who started up the Ken-doll nickname she hates so much.

  When it’s my turn, I waste no time and jump right out of the plane, free-falling, looking down at the ocean and the earth, so vast and endless, yet so small beneath me. I succumb to the moment and think of my brother.

  It feels like I’m flying forever. It’s so breathtaking. Every bad experience I’ve ever had, every bad memory, every failure, every regret, it all just leaves me, and I’m filled with something I never imagined a person could feel before I started doing this: absolute freedom from every kind of darkness.

  Nothing can touch me up here.

  Nothing.

  Except Sienna …

  Her face enters my mind, the softness of her hair, her adorable freckles, the heavenly taste of her lips, the brightness of her smile—I could fall in love with her so easily.

  I know she worries about me and that she may fear for my safety, but I still believe that she’ll understand, that she’s the one and that she’ll be able to accept my lifestyle. But I don’t want her to worry for me; I don’t want her to constantly have that fear of me getting hurt digging in the back of her mind—I wouldn’t want to put her through that; I care too much for her. But I believe we can get through this. Together. I just know it.

  All too soon I feel a hard jerk as I pull my chute and my body jolts upward for a few seconds.

  I take hold of the parachute toggles and float toward the earth for several long minutes and I continue to take in the view. Not of the sky, but of Sienna’s face. And it’s in this moment when I realize that nearly the whole time I was up there, I thought about her. I thought not about the experience … but about her, and somehow—though I never knew it could be done—it made the experience even more breathtaking.

  The ground is getting closer, and the closer I get, the faster it seems that it’s rushing up to meet me. My feet hit the ground first and I slowly run into a stop.

  “Woo-hoo!” I hear Seth scream out.

  Seth and Kendra run up as I’m unhooking my harness.

  “Shit, man, that was awesome!” Seth says.

  “Perfect day for skydiving—wasn’t it beautiful?” Kendra is euphoric.

  I nod my head underneath my helmet.

  “Yeah,” I say distantly, thinking about Sienna, “it was definitely beautiful …”

  Sienna

  When Luke and everybody come walking back up after their jump, I try not to think too much about the things Alicia told me. In fact, when I see Luke again, walking toward me safely on the ground, enormous, beautiful smile lighting up his face, I tuck the conversation away easier than I thought I’d be able to. But it’s still there, lingering in the back of my mind, along with other things I’m trying so hard not to think about. Like me having only two days left in Hawaii. Two days left with Luke that I want to make the most of.

  “I’m surprised it’s not raining,” Luke says, tangled with me in a hammock tied between two trees in his backyard.

  His fingers brush through my hair, one arm wrapped around me. Our legs and feet are bare, our shoes kicked off on the ground beneath us.

  “Yeah, me, too.” My head lies on his chest, his other hand atop mine just above his stomach. His body is so warm. “But I like the rain. I mean at home it just gets in the way of everyday life, but here, I dunno, it just fits.”

  His lips press into the top of my hair.

  “Have you thought any more about what we’re gonna do when you go back?” he asks.

  The waves lap the beach out ahead, more calmly than usual. The sun is out, but we’re shaded heavily by the palm trees above us.

  “I’ve thought about it a lot,” I say. “Haven’t come up with any solid plan or anything. All I do know is that I don’t want the day after tomorrow to be the last time I ever see you.”

  “It won’t be the last time you ever see me,” he whispers onto my hair. “We’ll start out with the visiting plan like I talked about. I’ll visit you, and you can come visit me.”

  Trips back and forth to Hawaii aren’t exactly an easy thing to do, but I can’t think about that right now.

  “Can I ask you something personal?”

  “Sure,” he says. “You can ask me anything you want.”

  He kisses my forehead.

  “I’m curious about what happened to your business.”

  I feel weird asking that kind of question; I’ve been curious about it for a while but didn’t want to come off as a gold digger by asking about it, about how much money he makes. But maybe now it’s OK to question. Does he still have access to any of the money the business generated? Is that what he plans to use to make these trips back and forth to see me?

  He squeezes me gently. “The business still draws in revenue every year. Not nearly as much as when it started out. Landon gave his share up one hundred percent, about a month before he died.” He looks upward at the trees in thought, the smile gone from his face, replaced by something more profound. “He set up a fund, and after Uncle Sam got his share, the rest went into this fund. It still does to this day. Anyway, Landon intended to take that money at the end of every year and split it up among a few different charities. He still worked at the Big Wave Surf Shop until the day he died, and that’s the only income he lived on. It’s all he needed.”

  “And now that’s what you do,” I say, knowing.

  He nods and rubs my arm from shoulder to wrist underneath his palm.

  “Well, I co-own Big Wave now, of course,” he says. “But it certainly doesn’t bring in the same kind of income. Anyway, after Landon died, I gave up my share of our business to his fund and have been doing it ever since.”

  “And you intend to break into it to fly to and from Hawaii?” I’m not sure I feel right about that.

  “No, babe,” he says. “I’ll only break into it if I absolutely have to. But I don’t intend to have to. I’ll work some extra hours, or even get another job if I need to. It’ll be worth it.”

  My heart is melting.

  “Well, you know what,” I say, lifting my head a little from his chest. “I’m going to do the same. Whatever it takes.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I can’t imagine not being able to see you.”

  He raises my hand to his mouth and kisses the tops of my fingers. “Me either,” he says, kissing another finger. “We do have a lot of fun together, don’t we?” His warm lips brush across my knuckles and the top of my hand—I suddenly feel incredibly lightheaded, and my skin tingles from the nape of my neck down into my knees.

  “Yeah … we do … have a lot of fun,” I say in a quiet, unfocused voice.

  I feel his lips move downward near my ear, and the heat of his breath trails along the side of my neck. “So … what do you wanna do the rest of the day?” he whispers as his free hand sl
ips beneath the elastic of my shorts and into my panties.

  “Umm …” I gasp when his fingers find me. “I, uhh …”

  “Don’t think about what I’m doing to you,” he says as his hand pushes my legs apart. “Just answer the question.”

  Is he kidding? No, I don’t think he’s kidding …

  A series of shivers runs up my thighs, and my mouth parts, sucking in the warm, salty air.

  “We could go swimming,” he says softly, his fingers moving in and out of me; our legs are tangled in the hammock, my left leg fallen to the side to give him access. His free hand combs through my hair. “Or maybe go on a hike. What do you think?”

  “Well, umm”—oh my God, I can’t fucking breathe—“I-I uh—”

  I can’t. I just can’t.

  “Sienna?”

  “Y-yeah?”

  “Do you want me to stop?” His voice is so calm, so quiet, so deliciously irresistible.

  “No,” I say quickly. “I-I don’t want you to stop.”

  I gasp when he pulls one finger out and moves it around in a circular motion against me.

  “Then answer the question, babe.” He kisses my head again, his lips lingering within my hair.

  My whole body shivers from the inside out.

  “OK … um, maybe we could go hiking …” Inhale, exhale. “I-I think that’d be fun.”

  “Then what?”

  I swallow hard. My legs are trembling.

  Silence.

  “Sienna?”

  “N-no … umm, let me think.” I can’t think of anything else right now!

  I get really quiet. His hand stops.

  “Luke … seriously, I-I don’t want to think about that stuff right now.”

  “What do you want to think about, then?” he whispers, two of his fingers now pressing firmly against me, moving a little faster in a circular motion.

  I gasp, my back arcing a little, my chest heaving.

  “I want to think about what you’re doing to me right now,” I say breathily. Oh my God …

  “Don’t close your legs, baby,” he whispers. I didn’t even notice I had tried.