The Easy Part of Impossible - Sarah Tomp Page 0,78
through in her mind. She’d picked this spot based on the map Cotton gave her. Now it felt inevitable.
“Are you with me or not?” Ria asked.
“You’re not even wearing a suit.”
“True. You didn’t tell me to bring one.”
“I didn’t think you’d come. I thought you might be going somewhere with Cotton.” Maggie raised her eyebrows. “I’ve seen you leave school with him every day for a month.”
Ria shrugged, ignoring the heat in her cheeks.
“I thought we were best friends. But you don’t tell me anything. You don’t trust me.”
She wanted to argue. Wanted to prove that wasn’t the way it worked in her head. There wasn’t always a “why” to the things she did and didn’t do. But maybe Maggie had it right.
“Let’s get this over with.” She tucked her glasses into her pocket. Then pulled off her shirt and slipped down her shorts. She ignored the sudden burst of cheers as she stood in her bra and underwear. “On the count of three. Keep your body tight. All the way down. It’ll take longer than platform.”
“I know what to do.” Maggie’s fear sounded like irritation.
“One,” counted Ria.
And then Maggie was gone. Pencil-straight, toes pointed. She hadn’t waited for three, or even two. She’d simply jumped into space. Cheers erupted from across the quarry.
Ria waited for the splash, then set herself. Erased everything. No more crowd. No breeze blowing across her skin. No sand beneath her feet. She was alone. Just her, the air, and below, ready to catch her, the water.
She paced four steps back. Lifted her arms, twisted her torso. Then, hurdled off the edge.
There was the leap, and then the fall. The oh-so-familiar rush of thrill. Controlled recklessness in her illogical attempt to be free of the world. She gripped her legs, kept every muscle tense for her desperate race against gravity. She fought to keep her head up, straining her neck and shoulders, every bit of her tight and strong. She made the first flip, then circled around again, and even again, all the while plummeting downward, with no true sense of time and space, then again, once more, taking her dangerously close to the edge of impossible. Then, easy, like taking a breath, she recognized the moment to kick and open up, to reach for the water. Wild abandon met exact precision.
It took forever. It took no time at all.
The impact stung her skin, the water rushed around her, a wall of noise and froth. She rolled into her save and headed for the surface. She gulped air, then burst out laughing. From above she heard the hoots and hollers. They echoed off the sheer walls of the quarry.
“We did it! Benny’ll never believe it.” Euphoria rushed through her.
“You dove? You bitch. You said jump.”
“And you said on three. It doesn’t matter. Everyone knows we’re awesome.”
“Yeah, but they think you’re better, don’t they? You always have to show me up.”
Ria’s body racked with shivers now. Her teeth clattered together as she treaded water.
“You always have to be tougher. Stronger. Better.” Maggie hit the water with her hand. “Did you see how Sean doubted me? He didn’t think I could do it.”
“Because he cares about you.”
“You didn’t even care that I fooled around with him.”
“Is that why you kissed him? To beat me? To win something?”
With a burst of splash, Maggie swam for the edge, to the place where they could pull themselves out.
Ria wished she could stay where she was, wanting to melt and disappear. But instinct kicked in. Self-preservation propelled her to the rocks. By the time she reached the shore, her arms and legs felt heavy. Dead weight. Half asleep from the cold.
Maggie stood dripping and shivering on the rocks.
“You don’t need to be jealous. He liked you first, Maggie. Sean wanted to ask you out.”
Until Benny got in the way.
“I know. Believe it or not, I’m not jealous of you, Ria. I used to be. I cried because Benny didn’t care about me the same way. Can you even see how screwed up that is?”
She couldn’t see much of anything. It was too cold, too wet, too true.
“You need to hope there’s no one better than you when you get to the NDT. Otherwise he might forget all about you, too.”
Then she was gone, up the trail. Ria was sitting in her underwear, alone and shivering in the bottom of a big hole.
Hope doesn’t win. Winning beats hope. That Bennyism didn’t sound quite right, but she was too numb to try to