How to Live on the Edge

by Sarah Lynn Scheerger

  For some reason his comment irritates me. “Would you think it was extreme if she had cancer?” The soles of my feet feel tender.

  “Of course not. But she doesn’t even have cancer! She just thinks she might get it.”

  I’m suddenly defensive. “Just think about my family history, Axel. We die. All the women die. And all in their thirties.” The intensity in my own voice surprises me. “Why would anyone take that chance?”

  Axel stops walking and studies me. “Is that what you’re gonna do when you’re thirty?” His voice is quiet.

  “What?” I drop his hand and step back. A tiny rock pierces my foot, and I hold it, balancing on one foot, and rubbing it.

  “You said all the women in your family die in their thirties. So it’ll hit you too.”

  I sit down in the dirt to examine the sole of my foot. “I’m only a little more than halfway to thirty. I don’t have to think about this yet.”

  “You’re almost two thirds of the way to thirty.” Axel kneels in front of me, bringing us back to eye level. “How old were you when you grew boobs, like thirteen?”

  “This is a weird conversation,” I point out.

  He runs his finger along the edge my sore foot. “Maybe. But, Cayenne, I think it’s a conversation you need to have.”

  A tiny dot of blood blooms on my foot, mixing with dirt. “For your information, growing breasts takes a long time. They don’t just pop out, you know. I think I started when I was eleven maybe, at twelve I got my training bra, and I got a real bra at about thirteen.”

  “Okay so you’ve had boobs for somewhere between five and seven years.” Axel uses the edge of his swim trunks to blot at my dot of blood. “And in another twelve, you’ll have them surgically removed?”

  “Hold on.” I move his trunks away. “Why are you making this about me? I never said I was going to do this. We’re talking about my aunt. I have no idea what I’ll do when I’m thirty. Who knows? Maybe I don’t even have the stupid gene. Or maybe by then they’ll have a quick cure, and I can just get vaccinated or something.”

  I stand up, perching my injured foot on its toes. Frustration motivates me to push on ahead, leading the way.

  Axel’s close behind. “How much have you researched this gene? What percentage of people who have it actually get cancer? Have you looked into the numbers?”

  “God, you’re irritating. I don’t know. I’d google it but I don’t have my phone on me, because we’re about to jump off a cliff.” The path loops, and I follow it blindly. I move faster, favoring my injured foot. “Can we stop talking about this now?” We hardly ever argue. I wonder if he’s as surprised by the frustration in my voice as I am.

  Axel reaches for my hand and pulls me back, so that we’re face to face. His forehead creases like an accordion. “Look, I love you, Cay. But I’m worried, because you’ve got all this craziness coming at you—your aunt’s surgery, your dad, and these messages from your dead mom. Who’s been dead since long before you grew boobs, by the way.”

  “Let’s call them breasts.” I shake him off. I have no idea why I’m saying this—I call them boobs all the time.

  “You’re the most amazing, most fun girl I’ve ever been with.” His lips part for a tentative smile. “Don’t lose that part of yourself. I don’t want you to change.”

  “What the hell are you talking about? I’m not changing.” I say this firmly, because it’s true. “I’m up here, ready to leap off a cliff, same as you. Besides, it is possible to have a serious conversation and still be a fun person, you know.” I feel myself softening. “I’ll always be fun,” I say, although at this moment I feel a million miles away from fun. I push ahead, walking until the rocks clear and the ground flattens toward the edge.

  I glance down. The water sparkles below, alive under the dipping sun. Truthfully, I’m not in the mood to jump. This conversation has already hijacked my heart—I don’t need a forty-foot leap to ramp it up. Plus, all this talk of life and death makes jumping seem a bit, I don’t know, juvenile? That thought surprises me, and I shake it off.

  Axel edges behind me and slips his arms around my waist. “You’re not afraid, are you?” he asks, almost playfully.

  “Of course not,” I snap back.

  “There’s my badass girlfriend,” he says approvingly. “You’ve got balls of steel. Are you afraid of anything? You afraid to die?” He reaches for me again.

  I don’t want to be. I visualize Lorelei visiting my dreams, and how badly I want to contain her. “A little,” I admit. “But fear is human. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t afraid of anything.” Axel coaxes me right to the edge. We stand, curling our toes over, the wind flirting with our hair, and the edge of cool air bristling my skin. “How about you?”

  “Sometimes I am and sometimes I’m not. It’s weird. Most of the time I’m not. I want to live and play hard, and if I die young, oh well. But when I actually think about not breathing, about never taking another breath, or never having another thought, it kind of freaks me out.” He puts his arms around my shoulders and they warm me.

  “It is kind of weird to think about not existing anymore. I mean I guess there’s heaven and all that, if you believe in it, but who knows what that’s really like anyway? And not being here on this Earth, not eating and breathing and speaking—well, I guess it’s kind of like imagining a time before we were born.” I shiver. “That’s a weird concept too.”

  “So . . . what are you most afraid of?” He asks.

  “Loving someone and then losing them.” I answer immediately. I don’t even have to think about it. “That’s my biggest fear.”

  “Where does jumping off this cliff rate?”

  “Oh, it doesn’t even register.” And it doesn’t. I’m not craving the rush, but the jump doesn’t scare me. I move forward.

  “Wait—” Axel’s arms tighten around my shoulders. “The sun’s still out . . . and I believe you said something like ‘alone time with only the sun as our witness.’”

  “Oh. That.” I swivel in his arms so that I’m facing him, my back against the gaping drop.

  He kisses me deeply, and I soften under his lips. He moves to my neck and my ears, and I tilt my head up toward the setting sun to expand the length of my neck. The wind blows suddenly, and the force of it—plus the fact that I’m already leaning backward—tips me.

  Axel’s arms absorb the movement. “Careful,” he whispers in my ear. “Somehow I think a backwards jump off this cliff might trump our whole rush hierarchy. Maybe someday.”

  “A backwards jump might rearrange my entire face,” I agree, imagining my nose and chin connecting with any of the rough rocks that line the side of the cliff.

  One year, when Saff was ten and we were at the community swim camp, she and I had a backwards jumping contest into the pool. She didn’t get the distance she needed, and she split her chin on the concrete. The lifeguard helped us manage the blood, and there was a lot of it, but he kept asking us, “What’s your mom’s number? I need to call your parents.” Both Saff and I were crying too hard to say anything. Saff turned ghost white, more from her fear of blood than from the pain, but it scared me. I kept thinking, What if she dies? Then I’ll be all alone!, which of course was completely ridiculous, but I was in panic mode, so I couldn’t think straight. Finally I remembered Tee’s phone number, and we called it from the lifeguard’s cell. The ER doctor stitched Saff up so neatly that you can hardly see the scar.

  I press back against Axel’s bare skin, edging us away from the cliff a bit. “I can’t concentrate on you when I’m this close to the edge,” I explain. “And I want to concentrate on you.”

  “I like the way you’re thinking.” His arms relax, allowing us to shift away from the sheer drop. “I bet it’s a rush though. It is for me.”

  “Me too.” My heart rate has accelerated, making every cell in my body stand at attention. I feel wholly, completely alive.

  Let’s just say that Axel and I maintain that rush, that complet
e connection, until the sun dips in the sky and the moon replaces her watch. I lose myself, aware only of his lips, the light roughness of his skin against mine. He doesn’t press for anything more than we’ve done before, and that reassures me. His touch absorbs me, zapping my brain of the ability to think, wiping away the thoughts of Tee, of toxic breasts, of troublemaking Minions, of my frozen-in-time-mother, of my complicated father . . . wipes it clean of everything. All that is left is this moment—many moments, dancing with each other, diving in and out of connectedness, simultaneously one and separate.

  “And this is why I love you,” announces Axel, nudging me out of my adrenaline-drunk state. “Let’s end this night with a bang.” He boosts me up, stabilizes me, and guides me toward the edge. “Together. We’ll hold hands.” I entwine my fingers in his, listen to his countdown: “On three . . . one, two, thr—“

  We hang suspended in midair, connected, the wind circling around us, guiding us down. At some point, we’re no longer falling in unison. I lose my grip, or he loses his, and we separate, plummeting downward in darkness. The rush of the wind against my ears makes me deaf, so I have no idea if he’s hit the water yet. My adrenaline-saturated brain doesn’t care. Maybe it’s a millisecond, maybe a full second or two—

  I land on top of him, my feet hitting something hard but fleshy. The impact fires through my leg, all the way up to my thigh, waking me from my trance as I suck in my breath.

  The water consumes me, as it always does, but this time I try to open my eyes to see where Axel is. I swim upward, up-up-up toward oxygen. As I break through, I curse the darkness that bleeds over everything. I can’t see. Not the shore, not Axel bobbing on the water. Panic spirals through my veins, paralyzing me. I can’t get enough air, even though my head’s well out of the water. I wonder if I might be hyperventilating, because no matter how fast I inhale my lungs don’t fill. I tread water, trying to slow my breathing so that I can at least hear Axel’s voice.

  “Axel!” I call out, my voice hoarse and not loud enough to be heard “A-Axel!” I try again.

  Nothing.

  Shit. How hard did I hit him? What if I knocked him out? Or disoriented him? Or what if the force of my body’s impact plummeted him too deep to reach the surface in time? If he doesn’t get to the surface, how will I find him? Can I find him? And help is an eternity away. My phone is in the car—it’ll take forever to get to it.

  “Axel!” I shout, louder this time.

  Nothing.

  An ache spreads across my chest, racking me with tearless sobs. This does not make it easier to breathe. Get it together, I instruct myself. It feels like a lifetime, but it’s probably only seconds. I close my eyes and focus on controlling the sobs, regulating my breaths, gathering the thoughts that threaten to spill into the water and be lost forever.

  Once I’ve reined myself in, I listen. For breaths, for splashing, for any sign of life.

  Nothing.

  I focus hard, scanning for anything I can see in the moonlight.

  Nothing.

  I submerge myself to search in the dark water, as if I can find him in that nothingness. Maybe he’s just gone farther down. Maybe I’ll find him floating not too far under my feet.

  I realize quickly that I’m wasting precious time, that the odds of connecting with him underwater are slim, even though we clearly broke the surface at the same place. My foot’s impact might have rocketed him in a different direction.

  Nothing.

  Maybe I just killed him. The tearless sobs creep back up again, making it difficult to concentrate. I have to at least try to get help. I orient myself, swimming toward what I think is the shore.

  “Cayenne!” I hear from a different angle.

  “Axel?” I half-scream.

  “Oh my god, you scared me,” he calls back.

  I burst into tears and swim toward his voice, the salt of my relief mixing with the water. Somehow I make it to the shore, where he stands dripping. He wraps his arms around me.

  “I-called-to-you . . .” My words break through my hiccup sob-breaths.

  “I had to get right to shore.” He speaks into my hair, easing us both onto the ground. “Man, you really whacked me. I was afraid I’d pass out, so I swam right over. I didn’t hear you calling. Probably the water in my ears.”

  “I-thought-I-killed-you.”

  “No. Just gave me a head bump. And the biggest rush of my life.”

  “I’m never doing that again.” I press my hands against my forehead. “It’s not worth it.”

  “Hey, take it easy.” He pats my back.

  I wipe my face.

  “You never cry.” This is not entirely true. I rarely cry, because I hate crying.

  “I know. I just thought—”

  Axel presses against me as though he’s a human Band-Aid. When he speaks again, his voice is stronger. “Tomorrow we’ll feel better. Before long we’ll be ready for Pinnacle Peak. It’s all about facing our fears, right? That’s how we know we’re really living.”

  “I want to go home,” I tell him.

  So we do.

  On the drive, it occurs to me that both Tee and I are allowing Lorelei to control our lives, but in different ways. She’s running away from Lorelei. I’ve been running toward her, in a never-ending game of chicken.

  Chapter 19

  “You’re late!” Saff snaps before Axel and I are even through the front door. “We’re gonna miss the previews.” She stands up from the kitchen stool. Her completed homework is stacked neatly in front of her.

  “Sorry, Saff.” A twinge of guilt creeps in. “I owe you a latte.”

  “Your hair is wet,” Saff says sharply. “And somehow I don’t think you were lounging in a hot tub.” She shakes her head at me, clearly disappointed, then grabs her keys, slinging her purse over her shoulder. “Kids are in their room, and they’ve been quiet for a good twenty minutes, so hopefully they’re out for the night.” She texts rapidly, probably coordinating details with Fletcher. “Luke is spending the night at the hospital with Tee.”

  “Okay.” I dump my stuff on the counter. “Have fun.” Maybe because tonight sucked so royally, I feel even worse about showing up late. I’m just as irresponsible as she thinks I am. “Sorry, again,” I call after her.

  Once Saff clicks the door closed, Axel beelines for the freezer and grabs a bag of frozen peas to place on his head. He quickly shifts his attention to the fridge.

  “Hungry?” I ask him, trying to shake off my mood. He’s practically drooling onto the floor.

  “Starving.”

  “Okay. I am too.” I’m considering tearing into leftover veggie lasagna and just picking off the mold. Everyone in our house tries to save leftovers, and Luke’s been distracted enough lately that he’s let his fridge-cleaning routine slide. “Wanna order pizza?”

  The Minions must have not really been asleep, because as soon as Axel gets on the phone and says the word pepperoni, they creep out from their room and climb all over us with “I’m hungry too,” and “I just wike cheese, no pepperoni” and “Can we have quarters for the games?”

  I do a visual check in with Axel, who’s still on the phone with Pizza Palace. “Let’s take them out!” I can film a few more videos of the Minions for Tee.

  He covers the phone and whispers, “It’s nine-fifteen.”

  “The night is young,” I protest, though I know it’s way past their bedtime. Maybe I can redeem this crappy night by cementing my status as the fun cousin.

  Axel grumbles a bit, but eventually he tells the Pizza Palace clerk “pickup” instead of “delivery.”

  The Minions smell like toothpaste and they’re wearing footie pajamas. They’re too little to be self-conscious about leaving the house in pjs, though. They run, squealing, to slip on their crocs and climb into Gertrude.

  I buckle both girls into their car seats, catching a whiff of their sweet smell. Saff must’ve given baths tonight too. They both smell like lilac gardens and baby soap. Axel straps on
his seat belt, unusually quiet. Maybe he’s not too thrilled about being roped into this whole babysitting routine.

  I’m backing out of the driveway when one of the Minions screams.

  “What? What?” I hit the brakes and twist all around. I didn’t hit a dog or a squirrel, did I? I would’ve felt something, a bump or a thump or something like that.

  “You forgot your seat behwt!” Missy screeches.

  I almost laugh. They take everything so seriously. If they see someone with a cigarette, they run away wailing, as if the secondhand smoke will hunt them down to poison their lungs.

  “Oh, silly me.” I click right in. “There. I’m safe now.”

  “Impressionable young kids,” I explain to Axel, who’s giving me the funniest look. “I don’t want to set a bad example.”

  He shakes his head and laughs. “You are a trip, Cayenne.”

  “I’m okay with that. At least I’m not a bore.” I drive more slowly than usual, aware of the Minions in the back seat, chattering with as much excitement as if I’m taking them to Disneyland. Yep, I definitely win the award for the Fun Cousin.

  ✱✱✱

  An hour, one large pizza, countless refillable sodas, a series of phone-filmed videos, and a mind-numbing quantity of quarter arcade games later, we strap the Minions back into their seats to head home.

  “I can drive if you want,” Axel offers.

  “Sure.” I toss him the keys, slip into the passenger seat, and cue up some music. “We can car dance.”

  Axel pulls out of the lot, shaking his head at my silliness, but I’m too hyped up on fountain soda sugar and caffeine to care. I bop my head to the beat, leaning back and belting the words out loud. I peek back at the Minions, who are doing their best to imitate me, but sleep is pulling at their eyelids, slowing each blink and waterlogging their movements. I capture this on video before I say, “It’s okay if you fall asleep, girls. It’s pretty late.” Apparently that’s all the permission they need, because I swear they’re out before I even turn back around.

  I tap my fingers on the windowsill, drumming out the beat, but it’s been a long day, and a yawn creeps up on me. “How can I be both pumped and drained at the same time? My body wants to sleep and my brain wants to party.”