by Noe Dearden
*****
It was no coincidence that this night was chosen for a party on the beach. When Emi and Charlotte parked the car, a brilliant full moon had completed a quarter of its journey through the sky. It cast an eerie half-light across the night landscape.
The two girls walked side-by-side up a hill, through a series of quiet residential streets. The only sound was Emi’s flip-flops slapping against the pavement. Emi led the way to a small dirt pathway flanked on one side by a chain-link fence and on the other by a shallow incline of dried mud and exposed tree roots.
When they reached the end of the back lane, they could hear the bass-line of a pop song. The night ocean stretched wide before them. Against the gaping Pacific panorama, bathed in moonlight were the silhouettes of a couple dozen teenagers. They were scattered across a smooth strata of lava rock jutting over the sea.
“You came,” a boy said. It was Asher, the one who’d invited them at the mall the other day. He was wearing nothing but board shorts and Charlotte found it difficult not to admire the well-defined planes of his chest.
Asher leaned in to give her a hug. A long hug. He was drunk. She could smell the vaguely sweet scent of beer and sea-brine as his arms closed in around her. His bare shoulder brushed against her cheek, warm and smooth.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he said, releasing her. She looked into the unfamiliar eyes of this stranger boy, already missing the warmth of him. “Do you want something to drink?”
“Maybe a soda.” She would have had a beer, but she was self-conscious of her straight-laced cousin standing a mere two feet away.
He turned to Emi. “You?”
Before she could respond, there was a hoot like a war cry and everyone watched as a girl in a white one-piece leapt off the cliff-side. The last thing Charlotte saw was the ribbon of the girl’s dark hair fluttering behind her as she fell. The wind drowned away the sound of her splash.
“Isn’t the current a little strong for that?” Emi asked critically. “Summer isn’t a good time for diving here. Especially at night.”
“You don’t have to jump if you don’t want to.” Asher handed them both cokes from a cooler and sat down, leaving space for the two girls to sit beside him.
Emi remained standing. “I see someone I know,” she told Charlotte. “Are you okay here?”
Charlotte nodded and Emi made her slow, balletic descent around the sloping rock formation. She stopped at a gathering of girls sitting on a picnic blanket.
“To be honest, I didn’t think you’d come,” Asher said, directing Charlotte’s attention back on him.
“Why not?”
“I thought maybe you were as stuck up as your cousin.”
“She’s not so bad.”
“Maybe not. But you’re still nothing like her.”
“Oh?” She smiled at the confidence in his voice, but couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes. He was watching her so intensely. “What am I like?”
He broke eye contact and stretched out against the lava rock, folding his hands casually over his stomach. “You don’t care what anyone thinks of you,” he said. “Because you don’t have to. You’re a cut above the rest.”
Charlotte immediately saw through Asher’s flattery. He didn’t know anything about her, but she didn’t care. She was enjoying this mythical version of herself. She was enjoying the way he wanted her.
“What else?” she asked.
“You can have any guy you want. And you know that. But you’re not full of yourself. You’re a little shy.”
“Hmm,” she said doubtfully. “I’m not shy.”
He sat partway up, leaning against his elbows. “If you weren’t shy, you’d kiss me. I can tell you want to.”
Struggling to keep the smile from spreading further across her face, Charlotte redirected her attention. She placed her index finger delicately against Asher’s knee. The condensation from his soda had dropped a bead of water against the tan skin. She traced a circle around it.
“Speak for yourself.” Slyly, she stood and dusted the grit from the back of her thighs. The girl in the white bathing suit had returned up the cliff-side and was shaking water loose from her hair. “Are you going to jump?” Charlotte asked Asher.
“Yeah,” he said. “You?”
“I don’t know. It seems dangerous.”
“It is,” he agreed. “People have died here.”
She walked several feet to the vertiginous edge of the cliff-side.
It looked to be a fifty or sixty foot drop into the churning water. Standing here, she could see why this place was given its name. The strong surf pushed the water against an opening in the lava formation below, and a moment later, a violent plume of white froth was ejected, as though the rocks were really spitting.
“So is there anything to it?” she asked. “Or do you just jump?”
“Well, you can’t do it from where we’re standing. You’d smash against those rocks.”
Charlotte imagined her bones shattering over the lava rock, her blood seeping into the black water, her body unrecognizable.
“Over there – that’s where you jump,” Asher said. He was standing very close behind her now. He could easily push her over the edge if he wanted. Or she could choose to plunge herself forward and drag him down with her.
“You have to jump straight down,” he said. “If you enter at an angle, you’ll hit the water wrong and get knocked out.”
“And swept to sea?”
“Or sucked back into the caves,” he said. “And we’d have to call the fire department to get you out. There are air pockets, so you wouldn’t drown. But there are tiger sharks down there, too.”
“That’s reassuring.”
“It’s not as bad as it sounds. I’ll show you.” They picked their way down the sloping rocks to the jumping point. The ocean was like static in her ears.
“You have to time your jump,” he explained, keeping his eyes on the waves. “You don’t want to be down there when the tide sucks the water back. You wait for the break. For the calmest moment.”
He turned to her. “How about a kiss for good luck?”
The wind stole her laughter. She leaned forward and their lips met hard. He pulled away before she did.
Then there was a long moment when she thought he wouldn’t go through with it. But he crouched, brought back his arms and flung himself against the wind. It was not as graceful as she was expecting, but the sight still stole her breath away.
In the moonlight, she saw him surface and paddle for the steep shoreline. The moonlight glistened off his muscled back as he climbed the side of the rocky shore slowly but capably.
Charlotte felt the soles of her feet prickle in anticipation of her fall.
Ever since the blow out with Dom last year, she had thought often about dying. She couldn’t seem to stop herself. Death was always on her mind.
She wanted to shake free and get away from those thoughts for a while. Away from herself, too. Liberated.
The ocean gave a dull roar as if in response to her thoughts. A surge of adrenaline inspired by Asher’s fall was still pumping through her veins. She felt its pulse mingle with the salt spray, electrifying her limbs
Heart thundering, she tugged the sandals from her feet and grinned into the open darkness.
She didn’t remember choosing to jump. One moment she was standing, and the next she was falling and falling into nothingness. Everything was dark. She had no idea when she would land. And then, in a burst of energy, she was riding the water. Or else it was riding her.
The waves were muscular, like some living beast holding her under by force. Darkness and panic disoriented her senses. She could not discern which way was closer to the surface of the water, let alone which way the shore might be.
The strength of her desire to fight the water surprised even Charlotte, who kicked and thrashed until breaking through its surface mouth first. She gasped, intoxicated by the sharp air and dull moonshine.
&n
bsp; Though she was swimming hard to the shore, it looked very far away. And with each stroke it seemed even farther.
I’m going to drown.
The truth of that thought hit her like a sledgehammer.
She didn’t know how long she fought the strong current before Asher’s arms grabbed her from behind. She let him guide her in the other direction. Funny, she hadn’t noticed the closer shoreline had been behind her, no more than a few yards away.
“Grab the reef. Don’t let go.” The voice was clipped, and it definitely didn’t belong to Asher.
Charlotte tipped her head back in surprise.
Emi, of all people, was hoisting herself to the shore ledge.
A huge wave broke over the rocks and almost knocked Charlotte off, but Emi was holding her back.
“You’re an idiot, you know that?” Emi said once they had managed to pull themselves a safe distance from the water.
It was more difficult climbing the steep shoreline than Charlotte had anticipated. Her clumsy, shaking limbs slid and sliced themselves against the jagged shelf of rock.
When they finally reached the top, Asher was waiting with his arms akimbo.
“I didn’t even see you jump!” he exclaimed. “I was still climbing back. Why didn’t you wait?”
Charlotte collapsed in a puddle and, for some reason that even she couldn’t understand, she started to crack up. She rolled onto her back, shaking with laughter. She had no idea what was so funny: That she was still breathing. That for the first time in a long time, she had wanted to fight to stay alive. That the world was so much more powerful than anything she’d ever imagined.
“Is she crazy or what?” some girl asked, which made Charlotte laugh even harder at her own absurdity.
Emi was wringing water from her shirt. “We’re leaving.”
Charlotte stood unsteadily, the exhilaration of the ocean still rushing through her. Part of her yearned to jump again, to feel that alive. But Emi was thrusting Charlotte’s purse into her hands and it was time to go home.
