“You weren’t kidding,” Luke says, sitting next to me, his thigh pressing against mine. “I think you’ve taken a hundred shots since we left the parking lot.” He chuckles.
I snap another one and then look over at him.
“These are what I call just-in-case shots,” I explain. “Not a lot of thought put into them, but I take as many as I can of anything and everything just in case I end up with something good.”
I snap another one.
“Kind of like how some of the best photos of people are the unplanned ones?” he says.
“Exactly!” I turn the lens on him, snapping a few unplanned photographs. He doesn’t seem to mind at all and even crosses his eyes for one.
I laugh and snap one more before opening my canvas bag.
“But this isn’t what I usually shoot with,” I say before putting the camera away inside the bag and zipping it up.
“I was going to ask about that,” he says, his hazel eyes slanted with curiosity. “I thought all the ‘serious’ photographers”—he makes air quotations with his fingers—“had huge cameras with fancy lenses and all that extra stuff. Like that one you were sneaking photos of me with on the beach yesterday.” He grins.
I can feel myself blush hard. “Hey, it wasn’t like that!”
Bumping his knee against mine he says, “I know.”
Conscious of the tiny gap between our legs on the seat, I glance down at his knee, glad to see that he hasn’t moved it away. I smile to myself, thinking about it, and fold my arms down on top of my bag on my lap. “Well, I don’t know about all the other ‘serious’ photographers out there”—I make air quotations with my fingers, too—“but I do have bigger cameras—like the one you saw—and my fair share of gear.”
“Why didn’t you bring any of that?”
“Well, you said we’re going to jump off cliffs.” I shrug. “Didn’t think bringing my expensive gear with me would be very safe.”
“Oh, so you’re going to jump?” His grin just got bigger.
“No!” I answer right away, shaking my head for added effect. “I don’t do heights, much less plunging to my death from them.”
Luke throws his head back and laughs.
“The cliffs aren’t that high,” he says.
“I don’t care.” I wave both hands in front of me. “I’m afraid of heights more than anything, and there is nothing in this world that could make me jump off a cliff.”
“But you don’t even know how high it is.” He chuckles and crosses his arms over his chest.
“It’s a cliff,” I stress, “not a rock or a bucket or a poolside diving board—cliffs are called cliffs for a reason.”
Still laughing lightly, he gives up because he knows he really can’t argue with that.
“Well, how did you get to Hawaii, then?” He raises a brow. “Please tell me you didn’t take a ship all the way over here.”
“No. I flew,” I say. “But anytime I fly, it’s always a traumatizing experience.”
“Seriously?” He seems genuinely surprised.
I’ll never understand how people who aren’t afraid to fly can’t understand how frightening it is for people like me. Sometimes I feel like saying—
“Hey! Don’t give me that how-can-you-be-afraid-to-fly crap.” I say it anyway because I’m on vacation and I can be myself! “It’s terrifying. You may not be afraid, but—”
He puts up both hands, surrendering.
“No, I understand,” he says, always with a smile. “I used to be like you, believe it or not.”
“You were afraid of heights?” I do find it hard to believe, though I’m not sure why.
He nods and rests his back against the seat.
“Yeah, up until I took the bungee plunge off the Perrine Bridge in Twin Falls, five hundred feet above the river.”
My eyes grow wide in my face as he tells me this with too many scary details.
“I was sure I was gonna die that day,” he goes on. “But I was more tired of being afraid of everything than I was of dying. It was like I was already dead, letting fear ruin what life I had.” He shakes his head with disbelief as he recalls the memory. “I was afraid to ride the roller coaster when my parents took me to Six Flags. My brother—well, let’s just say I never heard the end of it. And I used to be afraid of camping.” He laughs at himself, as though looking back on it now, he finds it ridiculous.
“Camping?”
“Yeah. Camping—I had a bad experience on a camping trip with my dad when I was nine. Messed me up pretty bad.”
“What happened?”
With the back of his head resting against the seat, he leans it to one side to face me, sitting with his fingers interlocked over his stomach, his long, tanned legs fallen apart.
“I went out with my brother while my dad was fishing, and Landon got lost in the woods.” His smile fades as he recalls, and his head moves back so that he’s looking at the back of the seat in front of him rather than at me anymore. “Took two days to find him, but while I was sitting back with my mom watching the news about the lost seven-year-old boy in the forest, and listening to my mom cry, I thought for sure he was dead and it was my fault. Turned out that when they found Landon, he was perfectly fine. Said he wanted to see if he could survive alone in the woods. He did it on purpose—the asshole!” He laughs. “Landon always was the crazy one. The one not afraid to take risks even when he was a boy.”
He looks over at me again.
“But that one incident made me afraid of just about everything,” he says, and slowly his smile is beginning to resurface. “Camping. Heights. Every time my mom, my dad, or my brother would get into a car just to go up the street a few miles, I was so afraid they’d get into a wreck and die. It was all I could think about until they came home safely.”
Luke tries to laugh it off, make it seem like it was just something stupid and that he can’t believe he ever had these fears. But I’m not laughing, and I find them more heartbreaking than humorous.
“Landon got all the girls when we were growing up. He wasn’t afraid of anything.”
I allow my smile to return now that it feels the right time for it. My gaze sweeps over him suggestively when I say, “Well, if your brother got all the girls when you were growing up, he must look incredible to get more than you.” Wait. What? I can’t believe I went there! But for some reason I’m feeling good enough right now and comfortable enough with him that I’m not afraid of blatant flirting.
But when I see a sort of forced look in his eyes, something misplaced that he seems to be trying to hold down, I can’t figure out if he’s turned off by my open flirtation, or if something I said offended or hurt him.
I look away and toward the window that I’m sitting beside, and quietly shrink inside myself, hoping he doesn’t take notice.
Before the quiet moment turns irreversibly awkward, I try to save it.
“So jumping off a bridge with a giant rubber band around your leg cured you?”
“Pretty much,” he answers, his eyes clearing, and that charming smile is back in place
“And you think something like that’ll cure me, too?”
He grins mischievously. “It might.”
“No way.”
“We’ll see,” he says, and the grin deepens.
My mouth falls open and I nudge him in the ribs with my elbow. He does a half double-over, pretending that it actually hurt.
“No way in hell am I jumping off a cliff.”
TEN
Sienna
An hour later I’m standing on the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean, my painted toenails like little blue people hanging on for dear life as I tower over them, looking down into the water as it taunts me.
“I can’t do it!” I take another step backward, trying not to let the vertigo cause me to stumble and fall off the edge anyway.
Luke’s hands hook about my sides, keeping me on my feet.
“You’ll be all right; I’m right here, a
nd I won’t let anything happen to you,” he says, but I can’t open my eyes. “The fear is all in your head.”
I back a little farther away from the edge, not realizing at first that I’m pressing my body into his—I just want to get away from the danger zone. He doesn’t seem to mind, and his hands are still like permanent fixtures on my hips, which I don’t mind, either.
Luke takes my hand and walks with me a few feet to one side and we sit down together on a rock bathed by the bright sun. Just as we step out of the way, two darkly tanned guys make a short run for it and leap off the edge of the cliff at the same time. The one with short blond hair does a front flip into the water, and they land with a splash. My hands come up instinctively, the fingers of one hand dancing on my lips, the other hand touching my heart as it pounds furiously behind my rib cage.
I shake my head.
“I’m just too scared,” I tell Luke. “I’m sorry. I can’t do it.”
His hand tightens around mine and then he pats it, afterward releasing it softly on top of my knee.
“It’s all right,” he says. “Don’t worry about it.”
I feel like a baby, and it doesn’t help any that there are five other girls out here besides me, all jumping into the water without a fear or worry in the world. I feel weak and small and forgettable.
“Hey,” I hear Luke say with concern in his voice. He moves off the rock and crouches in front of me. “Are you OK?”
I didn’t realize I had been so obvious—I certainly wasn’t trying to be.
I force a smile and nod. “Yeah, I’m good, just a little freaked out.”
Luke pushes himself into a stand and reaches out his hand for me. “Come on,” he says. “We’ll walk down and go swimming for a bit.”
I take his hand and he pulls me up from the rock. I don’t know why, but he makes me feel safe, even when just holding my hand. I secretly hope he doesn’t let go.
And he doesn’t.
“At least you tried,” he says, smiling.
Luke leads me back down the rocks and onto lower ground, where a friend of his is sitting watching over my bag—Alicia, girlfriend of his friend Braedon.
“It’s a no-go, huh?” she asks as we step up.
“No,” I say glumly. “After ten minutes of almost jumping, I was pretty sure it wasn’t gonna happen.”
Alicia smiles with a bright set of perfect white teeth. Long black hair drapes her olive shoulders.
“Maybe you’ll do it next time,” she says, reaching over and patting me on the back.
Luke, sitting on the other side of me with his knees drawn up, says with kind eyes, “Well, she has two weeks to conquer the fear.”
“Two weeks in Hawaii,” Alicia says, “now that’s a vacation.”
I glance over and smile at Luke next to me.
“Yeah, I guess it is,” I agree. “I like my job, but I’d take Hawaii over it any day.”
Alicia nods, beaming. “I’d take Hawaii over any job,” she says. “What do you do?”
“Sienna’s an event coordinator.” Luke speaks up for me, which I find cute and not at all intrusive.
Alicia perks up a little. “Oh?” she asks, looking between Luke and me with a curious—and maybe even hopeful—expression.
I hadn’t forgotten about Luke bringing up that charity art event earlier; I guess it just got lost in the excitement of staying in Hawaii and how crazy and thrilling and spontaneous the whole thing was. Besides, when he said to forget he said anything about it, that he would’ve said just about anything to get me to stay, I thought he was joking about the event.
“And a damn good one from what I saw,” Luke says.
My face reddens a little. “Thanks.” I’m not sure how much of my work he actually saw, but I don’t probe. I just take the compliment.
Alicia sits up on her knees on the sand and smiles at me eagerly.
“Maybe you could help out with the charity event we’re having over at the community center in a couple months,” she says. She presses her knuckles into the sand on each side of her to hold up her petite weight.
Luke shakes his head. “Well, I did sort of ask her,” he says, “but I feel weird about it now.”
“Weird why?” I ask, looking over at him.
He shrugs. “Just that you’re supposed to be on vacation and getting away from your job. I’m not going to put you to work.” He laughs. “But hey, a few pointers here and there would be awesome—but no working.” He shakes a finger playfully at me.
“Well, I’d love to check it out,” I say. “I’ll do whatever I can to help.”
And really I don’t mind at all. Somehow, no matter what it entails, I don’t see it making me feel like I’m at work. It could be fun!
Alicia looks relieved.
“I’ve never done anything like this before,” Luke says. “Melinda—she runs the community center—hosts these charity art events once a year.”
“And she’s been planning them and setting them up for … I don’t even know how long,” Alicia says, twirling a hand in the air beside her. “But she wanted to do something fresh and exciting this year”—she glances at Luke—“so she put us in charge.”
“We have plenty of time to get it all organized,” Luke says. “So don’t think about it too much—you’re here to kick back and have fun.”
“Well, count me in,” I say, beaming at them both.
Alicia looks toward the cliffs, probably eager to take her turn.
“Hey, we’re having a barbecue at our house later,” she says, “if you two wanna come—you can ride over with me.”
Luke looks at me briefly.
I shrug as if to tell her, Sure, why not?
“Yeah, sure,” Luke says. “Just let us know when you’re ready to head out.”
Alicia stands up and dusts sand from her hands.
“Are you OK to sit with your stuff?” she asks, pointing briefly at my bag.
“Oh yeah,” I tell her. “Thanks for bag-sitting.”
“No problem,” she says brightly and then heads toward the cliffs.
I pull a clean beach towel from my bag and go to unfold it.
“Don’t you want to go swimming?” Luke asks.
“Definitely,” I say and lay the towel over my bag to conceal it the best I can.
“I’d tell you not to worry about it,” Luke says about the bag, looking around at the many small groups of people all hanging around the area, which according to Luke is a pretty popular place. “But I don’t know even half of these people—most are tourists.”
“How do you know?”
“They’re not hard to pick out of a crowd, really,” he says and points briefly at a group of girls who just climbed to the top of the cliffs. “Two of them look like they don’t spend much time in the sun. The other two have taken probably thirty selfies each just in the past five minutes, duck-lips and all.” He points at a man and woman who just walked up. “And no locals who come out here wear running shoes and socks in the sand, or big floppy hats and jewelry.”
I stifle a giggle.
“Well, I must really look like a tourist, too, then, shooting a hundred photos on the bus on the way over here, or that rookie mistake of trying to walk in the sand in heels.”
Luke laughs.
“Well, you don’t look so much like one right now,” he says. “Though most locals who come out here aren’t afraid to jump off the cliffs, either, so you’re walkin’ the line.”
My face gets warm, but then disappointment in myself steals my good mood away all over again. I sigh, drop the towel the rest of the way over my bag, and look out at the ocean, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Hey, I’m sorry if I—”
I shake my head. “No, it’s nothing you said. Really. I mean, it is kind of, but not what you’re thinking.”
Luke tilts his head to one side, a curious and somewhat confused look in his eyes.
“Do tell,” he urges me.
Hesitating, I look
out at the ocean again and think on how much I want to tell him, or if I want to tell him anything at all.
“Hey, no holding back,” he says and pokes me in the ribs playfully with his knuckles. “Come on, spit it out. And no sad faces allowed in Hawaii, especially while you’re on vacation.”
He got the smile that he had been trying for out of me easily. But it wasn’t hard because the last thing I want to be is a mood killer.
“It’s what you said on the bus,” I tell him. “About how you used to be afraid of everything.” I pause and then say, “It’s not just heights that I’m afraid of.” I point at him briefly and quip, “But I’m not afraid of camping—that’s just crazy.”
He grins, letting me have that one.
“So what else are you afraid of then?” He sits down on the sand and pats the spot next to him.
I sit down, too.
“Well, I’ll be honest—”
“You better be,” he jokes, bumping my bent knee against his.
“It feels strange not to be working right now,” I say.
“You’re joking, right?” he says, looking over at me. “You’re in Hawaii. On vacation. And it hasn’t been a couple of hours and already you’re stressin’ out over a job that you’re supposed to be leaving behind for two weeks—not to be nosy, but is it a paid vacation?”
“Yeah. I’m just not used to not working.”
“Shit, tell me you’re not one of those who works seven days a week and never calls in sick even when you’re on your deathbed.”
“No, no,” I say, shaking my head and my hand, “I’m not that bad—”
“Yet,” he interrupts.
“No, not yet,” I go on, “but I started my first job when I was old enough to get a work permit—worked at Subway for two years, then a shoe store for a few months, and after that, when I started college, I worked part-time in a café until the day I got my job at Harrington Planners.”
“So what are you afraid of? Not working twenty-four-seven?”
“No, I guess I’m just worried that Cassandra will find someone better than me while I’m here in Hawaii soaking up the sun, and when I go back I’ll find out that I’m expendable after all.”
“Well, first off,” Luke says, “I really doubt that’ll happen”—he taps his head with his fingertip—“again, it’s all in the mind. But even if it did, Sienna, there are a million other jobs out there.”
The Moment of Letting Go Page 9